Local Housing Inventory Declined, but Prices Remain Steady  

With stay at home orders and social distancing putting a wrench in most normal activities, the U.S. housing market began slowing down in the second half of march and the Kansas City area was no exception.

 “We’ve seen the impact of activity from all of this, so of course it’s not business as usual … but by no means has it stopped entirely,” said Skylar Olsen, director of economic research for real estate information company Zillow to Market Watch.

According to Realtor.com’s March Housing Trends report, the number of newly listed properties declined as well as “prices decelerated compared to earlier in the month” throughout most of the country. These statistics provide some insight into the impact the COVID-19 pandemic could have on residential real estate as the spring home-buying season starts.

In the greater Kansas City area, the active residential home listing count declined 24.6 percent from last year, but the median home listing price went up 7.4 percent to $340,000, according to Realtor.com. 

 “We’re still in the early stages of understanding exactly what effects the coronavirus will have on the housing market in the long term, but many workers and families are living through an immediate strain as their jobs are cut back and paychecks dry up,” said Zillow Senior Policy Advisor Alexander Casey. 

 Zillow’s Olsen noted that the situation the country finds itself in is unprecedented and noted that experts don’t have much historical examples to base assumptions on. One comparison could be the Chinese SARS epidemic that began in 2002, which saw a drop in real estate transactions, but that once the flu subsided, the market returned fairly quickly, according to Olsen.