Coronavirus hits Charlotte home buying amid busy season, real estate agents say
In a normal year, late March marks the middle of the busiest season for real estate agents.
The spring buying season is when agents like Jonathan Osman of Tryon Realty Partners make a significant chunk of their income for the year. Instead, in the past several weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic, he’s had buyers put purchases on hold and saw sellers’ homes languish on the market.
That’s in spite of a tight real estate market in Charlotte that has lasted for years, as demand outpaced a dwindling supply of homes. Sellers often receive multiple offers, and prices are rapidly rising.
State and local real estate groups say that trend is still in play for now, although they do expect a slowdown. But some agents say the outbreak is already cutting into their business, with canceled showings and open houses, and buyers and sellers pulling back.
“It’s kind of like trying to sell a home during an actual hurricane,” Osman said.
Fewer showings, open houses
Last week, Mecklenburg County’s public health director signed an order prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people. And the White House is urging people to limit gatherings of more than 10.
As a result, several real estate agents said they canceled open houses. It’s difficult to avoid having more than 10 people at a time during an open house, said Maren Brisson-Kuester, this year’s president of NC Realtors, a real estate trade association.
“There is absolutely no reason for us to allow an open house right now in this climate,” she said.
Still, she said there’s enough demand to sell homes based on private showings. She recommended that real estate agents wear gloves and wipe down surfaces and doorknobs, and ride in separate cars from their clients.
Robin Mann, a broker with EXP Realty’s Sold in the Carolinas Real Estate, said she also decided to suspend open houses to avoid infecting at-risk clients.
“I just don’t feel that it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
When she showed a house to a client last week, Mann said, she went through it first, then had the buyer walk through on their own.
Osman said he is suspending all showings indefinitely, and is waiting to put properties on the market.
“I’ve got to bear the moral responsibility if somebody gets sick as the result of somebody touching a doorknob, touching a key,” he said.
Still, some firms are continuing with open houses, but making modifications.
Jeremy Howard, a real estate agent with Keller Williams SouthPark, said his office is still doing open houses, but only allowing in one family at a time and making everyone wear gloves.
Even the new real estate technology companies gaining a foothold in Charlotte’s market are feeling the impact. Offerpad, which makes offers to homeowners online and resells homes, will not provide new offers to sellers, a spokesman said.
Is real estate essential?
In a letter from NC Realtors to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office last week, Brisson-Kuester asked the governor to declare real estate an “essential” business so that it can continue to operate as further restrictions are announced. The organization said Monday that it hasn’t received a response yet.
“Real estate is an essential service — we provide homes for people,” she said. “If we no longer can close (on real estate sales), we have a major situation.”
On Tuesday, Mecklenburg County declared a ‘stay-at-home order, which only allows essential businesses to stay open. According to the order, only appraisal and title services are considered essential within real estate.
No such order has been issued statewide, but other states have effectively shut down the real estate business.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the governor ordered the closure of “non-life sustaining businesses” last week, which applies to real estate offices and activity.
John Kindbom, president of the Canopy Realtor Association (formerly the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association), likened the need for real estate to that for grocery stores.
“Whether we like it or not, people have to eat,” he said. “People have to have shelter and we have to make sure that we balance that.”
Still, not all real estate agents agree that business should continue to operate.
“I think we should shut it down, because then that tells the public that this is serious,” Mann said.
Economic impact
The fallout from the coronavirus outbreak is already delivering a blow to the real estate market.
A study from the National Association of Realtors found that, due to the outbreak, nearly half of real estate agents reported decreased demand.
Several of Dee Legette’s clients have already canceled showings, and she’s had two potential buyers decide not to look at houses. Legette, a broker for Wilkinson ERA Real Estate in Charlotte, is worried about having enough savings to sustain herself through an economic downturn.
“It’s a sense of almost helplessness,” she said. “Because there’s nothing that you can really do to prevent it.”
There’s likely to be a temporary hit to the industry, Kindbom said, but he doesn’t expect it to last.
“(The virus) has created a temporarily blip in what’s going on,” he said. “But the demand and the fundamentals are still there. There’s a huge demand for housing. There’s a huge demand for people to get their homes sold. That hasn’t changed at all.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 10:21 AM.
