Emily Laura Blog's

Thursday, 2 April 2020

The Supply of Homes for Sale Is Down—and the Coronavirus Will Make It Worse

The number of homes for sale was hovering around record lows before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. Now, amid a public health and economic disaster, inventory is falling even further, just before what would typically be the busy spring buying season.

The number of homes for sale nationally dropped 15.7% in March compared with a year earlier, according to a recent realtor.com® analysis of active listings. That’s about 191,000 fewer homes for buyers. (Realtor.com looked at the 50 largest metropolitan areas to identify which saw the largest annual drops in homes for sale.)

However, the massive inventory declines aren’t all due to sellers pulling properties due to fears about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The number of active listings decreased 15.3% year over year in February and 13.6% in January, according to realtor.com. Under-building, more millennials seeking homes to house their growing families, and a sea of down-sizers have contributed to the crunch.

“The U.S. housing market had a good start to the year. Despite still-limited homes for sale, buyers were buying and builders were building,” realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in a statement. “The pandemic and virus-fighting measures appear to be disrupting that initial momentum as both buyers and sellers adopt a more cautious posture.”

Meanwhile, list prices increased 3.8% in March, compared with the same month last year. The median list price was $320,000. However, price growth slowed in the past two weeks of March, around the time when the number of U.S. cases of infection rose and states began issuing shelter-in-place orders. In the third week of the month, the median list price was up 3.3%, and in the fourth week it rose just 2.5%.

The biggest drops in inventory were in the Phoenix metro area, where the number of homes for sale plunged 42.2% in March compared with the previous year. The median list price in the popular retirement destination was $405,000.

To be fair, the number of active home listings in Phoenix had dramatically fallen well before COVID-19 emerged as a major threat to America. Listings tumbled by the same 42.2% year over year in February, and declined 35.4% in January, according to realtor.com data.

The culprit has been the influx of out-of-state buyers and a lack of new construction, says local real estate agent Kristy Ryan of Re/Max Fine Properties. Indeed, those new residents have made Phoenix the 10th largest metropolitan area, knocking Boston out of that spot, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report.

About half of Ryan’s clients are now from out of state, with many young professionals, families, and retirees hailing from ultrapricey California. A year earlier, these clients made up only about 20% to 25% of her business.

“Inventory was already disappearing. There’s not enough new building for the amount of people coming in,” says Ryan. “The Sun Belt is a desirable place to live with good weather. We have fairly low property tax rates.

“Our pricing is so great compared to California,” she adds.

Ironically, the coronavirus may result in a jump in the number of properties that go on the market in the Phoenix area. Folks are nervous about the stock market, which has been in a free fall, and the economy, which appears to be in a recession, and are putting their primary and secondary homes up for sale. Remembering how prices tanked during the Great Recession, sellers are eager to get top dollar while they still can, says Ryan.

“People are a little nervous that if there’s a whole financial meltdown from the coronavirus, that homes might lose value,” says Ryan. She’s seen more homes hit the market in the past two weeks or so, as the pandemic swept through the U.S.

The Phoenix metro area was followed by Milwaukee, with a 36.2% drop in inventory and a median list price of $327,500 in March. Next up was San Diego, at minus 33.4% and $750,000; Silicon Valley’s San Jose, CA, at minus 31.4% and $1,231,000; and Philadelphia, at minus 30.7% and $300,000.

The rest of the top 10 was rounded out by Cincinnati, at minus 30.4% and $300,000; Denver, at minus 30% and $560,000; Riverside, CA, at minus 27.6% and $425,000; Providence, RI, at minus 27.2% and $400,000; and Seattle, at minus 27.1% and $615,000.

In hard-hit New York City, inventory fell only 10.7% in the metro region. That was one of the smallest declines on our list. (The New York metro area encompasses suburbs and towns on Long Island and upstate New York as well as New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.) The median home price was $569,000.

The post The Supply of Homes for Sale Is Down—and the Coronavirus Will Make It Worse appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/inventory-march-20-coronavirus/

Americans Are Still Moving—With Hand Sanitizer, Gloves, and Thermometers

Next week, Daryl and Kathy Storment will be moving about 300 miles west from their home in Eastern Washington, a rural area known for rolling hills and big fields—toward the center of the country’s first outbreak of the new coronavirus.

The couple, both 74, decided on the move before COVID-19 became a household name. They wanted to be closer to their daughter and her family. So they navigated the tricky balance of selling their current home while trying to buy another.

Amazingly, it all came together: They accepted an offer on their home in Pullman in February and found a three-bed, two-bath, 1,950-square-foot home in Gig Harbor, a suburb of Tacoma. They plan to close on both the sale of their existing home and the purchase of their new one on April 7.

“We had an offer [on our house] and accepted it. That’s why we went ahead with” the move, says Kathy, a retired teacher. “Don’t think we knew much about the coronavirus at the time.”

Daryl and Kathy Storment outside of the home they recently sold in Pullman, WA
Provided by the Storments

By any standards, the moving industry, like so many others right now, is substantially down in numbers, even if it is considered an essential business. More than 71% of the independent moving companies (not including the big companies) reported a decrease in business since the pandemic spread across the U.S., according to a survey of 300 firms conducted by Hire A Helper, an online market for moving services. More than 35% of the respondents said half or more of their orders were cancelled due to the viral outbreak, according to the survey released on March 24.

And yet, despite widespread fears about catching the highly contagious coronavirus, and stay-at-home orders in many states, including Washington, some Americans are still moving. Some had committed to a move before the public health crisis escalated. Others are somewhat undaunted by it. But the process of moving in the age of the coronavirus has changed dramatically.

Moving companies have been updating their policies and procedures to adhere to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to address their customers’ growing concerns.

The new normal of moving during a pandemic

Artisan Movers in Rockville, MD
Provided by Artisan Movers

Employees’ temperatures are taken every morning at Movher, an independent moving company based in Spokane, WA. If workers have a fever or cough, feel weak or achy, they’re told to go home.

“You’re not feeling well?” asks Movher owner Sabrina Jones. “Goodbye. I don’t want you here.”

Jones is also a board member of the Washington Trucking Association, an industry group of independent movers with 20 members.

To ensure employees stay healthy and can keep working, Jones provides them with homemade hand sanitizer made with aloe vera gel and rubbing alcohol, with a drop of tea tree oil “to make it smell good.”

When the company started running low on disinfecting wipes, she soaked paper towel squares in a bleach solution and packed them into plastic bags. The workers, who use disposable gloves, wipe down the trucks’ high-touch surfaces like steering wheels, gas caps, and locks. Everything they touch is wiped down in the morning and again at day’s end.

But even so, Jones says most customers over 60 and those with underlying health conditions, who health experts say are at greater risk if they contract COVID-19, postponed their moves weeks ago. Business is down about 15%, as many movers are no longer allowed to work in assisted-living communities or retirement homes. On the other hand, the movers were able to make up some of that decline with parents hiring movers to ship home or store the belongings of their college-student children, whose schools and dorms have closed due to the virus.

“We have enough home sales in the process to carry us through the next 60 days,” says Jones. “But after that we expect a slowdown.”

Maryland has been hard-hit by the coronavirus, but Marc Lewandowski, owner of Artisan Movers in Rockville, has not noticed a slowdown as yet. Most of Artisan Movers’ customers are in the Washington, DC, metro area.

“No one has canceled,” he says. “Our customers are more concerned with us actually showing up.”

However, he says his company hasn’t received any requests to pack homeowners’ belongings since social distancing guidelines went into effect this month. He asks his movers to take sanitary precautions at home and on the job.

Elsewhere, the picture is more grim. Slidell Moving and Storage, a family-owned business near hard-hit New Orleans, has lost half of its business within the past week, says third-generation owner Steven Fisk.

“It gets worse every day,” says Fisk. “We are looking at April being a complete nightmare.”

To stay afloat, he’s laid off employees and reduced hours. Other employees, worried about contracting COVID-19, have stopped coming to work.

When moving isn’t a choice—but it’s complicated

Michelle Anderson, 32, still plans to move to Washington this summer with her husband. Anderson, a veterinarian, is in the Army Reserve. Her husband, Nick Anderson, 32, is on active duty in the Army at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Earlier this year, Nick received a hoped-for change of station order to Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, WA.

But Michelle doesn’t know when they’ll be able to move, since the Department of Defense issued travel restrictions on March 13 to curb the spread of the virus.

“I’m hoping that when we want to move, a lot of this will have calmed down,” she says. “I’m not too worried about it.”

Like the Andersons, the Storments say they are not overly worried about being exposed to the virus during the process of moving. However, they do plan to wipe down and disinfect all the hard surfaces of their new home.

“We probably won’t meet our neighbors right away,” says Kathy. “They’re not going to be bringing over cookies for us, for sure.”

The post Americans Are Still Moving—With Hand Sanitizer, Gloves, and Thermometers appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/americans-still-moving-but-with-sanitizers-gloves-and-thermometers/

Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Singer Michael Feinstein Slashes Price on Los Feliz Mansion by Over 60 Percent

Amanda Edwards/Getty Images; realtor.com

The singer and pianist Michael Feinstein has had a devil of a time trying to sell his grand mansion in Southern California.

The golden-voiced singer of American standards initially listed his Tudor Revival-style mansion in the Los Feliz neighborhood in April 2018 for $26 million. As the months flew by, the classic residence popped on and off the market, with a number of price cuts.

Two weeks ago, it reappeared on the market for $9,995,000—a staggering 62% off its original list price.

But don’t shed too many tears for the five-time Grammy nominee. He bought the elegant mansion in the hills back in 1998 for $2.5 million.

“After more than 20 happy years in this house, this is a bittersweet move for us,” Feinstein told Town & Country last year. “We’ve purchased another historic home in Pasadena.”

That would be the 20,000-plus-square-foot Cravens Estate on Pasadena’s “Millionaire’s Row,” where the beer magnate Adolphus Busch and chewing gum tycoon William Wrigley Jr. once owned palatial estates.

Feinstein and his husband, Terrence Flannery, are converting much of the space in the Pasadena mansion into archives and studios for the preservation of “The Great American Songbook,” a compilation of American standards.

Feinstein is the founder of the Great American Songbook Foundation, dedicated to preserving popular American music from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Michael Feinstein’s Los Feliz Tudor
realtor.com

His Los Feliz mansion was originally built in 1926, and served as the Russian Consulate in Los Angeles from 1935 into the early 1950s.

Carefully renovated, the home has also been staged impeccably, showcasing its turnkey condition. Throughout the home, you’ll find custom woodwork, arched doorways, leaded-glass windows, beamed ceilings, ornate fireplaces, and parquet floors.

The six-bedroom, 6.5 bath home offers a whopping 15,391 square feet of living space. And the lot is elevated 15 feet above street level, which means the home has views of the mountains and the city, all the way out to the Pacific Ocean—a rarity for homes this far inland.

The spacious master suite has even more charm and luxury, as well as a fireplace and private balcony.

The kitchen is an elegant affair, with state-of-the-art appliances including a double Wolf range and glass front SubZero refrigerator. The setting is sparkling new, yet appears graciously vintage.

The adjacent breakfast alcove looks as comfortable, inviting, and stylish today as it was back in the 1920s.

Other luxe features include a light-filled sun porch, a plush screening room, a gym, and a wine cellar. Also intriguing are the secret passageways, which were common in this neighborhood in homes built during Prohibition.

The grounds of the estate are lush and feature mature foliage, much of which has been growing for almost a century. There’s also a lovely swimming pool with a view, and a guesthouse that can be used for friends and family, a studio, or archive storage.

The mansion also has a historical setting, just south of the Griffith Observatory, and a stone’s throw from the Greek Theater.

Meanwhile, it’s conveniently close to the trendy restaurants on Vermont, as well as downtown L.A., Hollywood, Glendale, and the studios in Burbank.

Feinstein, 63, has been performing since the late 1970s, and is known for his musical interpretations of classic American songwriters.

The post Singer Michael Feinstein Slashes Price on Los Feliz Mansion by Over 60 Percent appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/michael-feinstein-los-feliz-mansion-epic-price-reduction/

Renters Are Struggling To Pay Their Landlords, and Relief Is Not On the Way

A few weeks ago, single mother Heidi Ferguson, 44, seemed to be doing well. She was able to make ends meet as the owner of a vintage clothing and housewares shop in downtown Lake Worth, FL. But as the coronavirus tore through the U.S., leaving shuttered businesses and a ravaged economy in its wake, she was forced to close up shop two weeks ago and lay off her two employees.

She was able to pay the April rent for her two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment only by taking out a credit card loan and tapping a separate line of credit for her business. She’ll need to pay back the latter within 60 days. Her landlord, a local building owner, granted her only a five-day extension to come up with the $1,435 rent.

Ferguson has been ramping up her online shop, but with consumers feeling wary, she’s not seeing items fly off of their virtual shelves. If she’s not able to reopen her store in a month, she’ll have to find another job. She’s never missed a rent payment before, but she’s worried that she’ll be forced to rack up more debt, and accrue interest, to pay rent next month.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t really have a solid plan at this point,” says Ferguson. “Not knowing if I’m going to be evicted is keeping me up at night.”

Ferguson’s plight isn’t unique right now. Millions of Americans have been laid off or had their hours reduced at their jobs, making it difficult to come up with their rent due on April 1. Jobless claims reached a new high this month as COVID-19 cases have surged around the country, tanking the stock market, forcing business closures, and requiring the majority of Americans to stay indoors. And while some protections have been put in place for homeowners, few have been extended to tenants.

Instead, individual states and cities have attempted to cobble together a patchwork of protections to help tenants. But the assistance, which mostly focuses on preventing evictions during the crisis, is spotty. And in 12 states, no action at all had been taken to limit or suspend evictions as of Tuesday, according to USA Today.

Renters are likely to be worse off than homeowners

There were nearly 44 million renter households in the U.S. in 2018, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. And while there is a growing number of well-off tenants in luxury apartment buildings, especially in the nation’s big cities, renters as a group are particularly vulnerable to downturns. They tend to earn less than homeowners, resulting in less savings. And they often work hourly jobs that are quick to be cut in economic recessions.

On the national level, little is being done to directly help tenants. Last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced a plan to bail out landlords, which would theoretically trickle down to renters. Landlords are now eligible for up to three months of mortgage forbearance if they don’t evict tenants who can’t pay their rent due to the pandemic.

However, this applies only to owners of buildings with five or more units who have Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages.

Some states, particularly those that have been inundated with COVID-19 cases, are extending their own protections. In Washington, the governor announced a 30-day halt to evictions on March 18. California has a 60-day moratorium, while it’s 90 days in New York. New Orleans courts won’t be hearing eviction cases until April 24, while no evictions can take place in Michigan until at least April 17. In Florida, where Ferguson is located, court clerks have the option of putting final actions on evictions on hold until mid-April.

Many more states and cities have enacted their own moratoriums.

But even if evictions are suspended, renters are still on the hook for their monthly rent payments whether or not they can afford them.

“The real issue is what happens after any moratorium has ended,” says Richard Alderman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Houston. “Generally, [eviction protections] don’t waive rent. Rent is still due and owing.”

Paying back several months of rent all at once is an impossible task for many who’ve lost jobs. And even when the virus is under control and businesses can reopen, renters may still be looking for work.

“The hopes that everything will pick up quickly when the pandemic ends aren’t necessarily realistic,” says Alderman. “I don’t believe the economy will immediately start up again and everyone who had a job will suddenly have a job again.”

The post Renters Are Struggling To Pay Their Landlords, and Relief Is Not On the Way appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/renters-struggle-to-pay-landlords-coronavirus/

Tenants Want Rent Freeze From Landlords As April 1 Looms

Over 700,000 people have signed a petition calling for rent payments to be cancelled during the COVID-19 crisis.

source https://www.huffpost.com/entry/canada-rent-freeze-coronavirus_n_5e84f4e9c5b6f55ebf474db5

Marvelous in Memphis: This Midcentury Modern Truly Rocked the Block

Built in 1956, this midcentury modern home in Memphis, TN, stands out from the sea of century-old homes on its block. Surrounded by English Tudor–style homes, the atomic-era gem landed on the market for $650,000 and caused a stir.

“We don’t have a lot of midcentury modern homes in Midtown because it is an older area,” says listing agent Linda Sowell of Sowell Realtors. “Most of the homes were built during the 1920s.”

Its relative rarity helped seal a quick deal. The home received two offers within its first 10 days on the market.

“When it came on the market, it was shown constantly,” says Sowell.

The four-bedroom home was designed by architect Thomas Faires as his personal residence. Many of Faires’ commercial projects—including hospitals—were also influenced by the ethos of midcentury modern design.

The 3,600-square-foot home is located in the Morningside Park neighborhood, “which is convenient to downtown,” says Sowell.

The home last changed hands over four decades ago, and it hasn’t been made over with unfortunate updates.

“Everyone that’s owned the house has really maintained the integrity,” says Sowell. “The improvements they’ve made have all been seamless. They’ve tried to maintain things as close to the original.”

With details like period drapes in the living room and original sinks in the bathroom, the home appears straight out of the 1950s. The kitchen features milk-glass globe pendant lighting and honey-hued cabinetry. All of the bedrooms are spacious, and the four bathrooms are luxuriously appointed—two have soaking tubs and the other two boast walk-in, tiled showers.

Wooden plantation-style shutters on the windows open inward, which help keep the home from feeling stark or cold. A built-in bar on the lower level could be used for a media room, workout space, guest quarters, or home office.

And it may not require a ton of upkeep—it’s “solid as a rock,” says Sowell. “The thing that I love about [the home] are the solid walls of windows. It’s so light all the time. The main floor is more for adults. The downstairs is the same layout, but a lot more casual, and for teenagers.”

There’s also a bonus for the buyer: The home’s original plans (both floor plans and landscaping) as well as a book written by Faires, which includes more details about the design, are included with the purchase. The home cast a spell in a hurry—it’s in pending status after just two weeks on the market.

The post Marvelous in Memphis: This Midcentury Modern Truly Rocked the Block appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/marvelous-in-memphis-midcentury-modern/

The Strange Fear of Life in a Big Apartment Building at the Epicenter of the Pandemic

The big stresses of apartment life used to be things like a slow elevator or a neighbor’s love of death metal (really loud and really, really late at night). But now that the novel coronavirus pandemic has spread nationwide, living in a co-op, condo, rental apartment, or other large building with neighbors on all sides has residents paranoid about all the amenities they share.

Does that elevator button/doorknob/mailbox have coronavirus germs crawling all over it? Was that a cough I heard coming from the apartment next door?

These kinds of questions are keeping us up at night these days, so much so that the fear of COVID-19 contagion is rewriting how we live and interact.

For a couple of weeks now, in my New York City apartment building, I’ve been letting others ride the elevator first, saying, “I’ll wait for the next one.” I’ve been pressing the buttons with my elbow instead of my hand.

And I know I’m not alone: A friend and fellow apartment dweller I’ll call Meg says she’s using the stairs in her building to avoid elevator crowders, and that her next-door neighbor has been doing laundry at 5 a.m. to avoid other potential COVID-19 carriers. Another friend says a Purell station has popped up on his floor and a box of disinfecting wipes has appeared in the mail area—and that many residents are using the supplies liberally.

How the coronavirus has changed apartment life

In addition to apartment dwellers taking measures to stay safe, building management companies and boards are increasingly taking precautions to help lower exposure risks and flatten the curve, or slow the virus’ spread.

“My building has almost 600 residents,” says Travis Carroll, a real estate agent in New York City. “All common spaces are closed, and the lobby furniture is gone. No delivery people are allowed past the front desk, and there’s now a Plexiglas wall, like bank tellers have, between the front desk team and others.”

In many buildings in large, affected cities, all common spaces are now off-limits: gym, lounge, garden—closed, closed, and closed. Deliveries (the lifeblood of many urbanites, especially now) have shifted to curbside or protected delivery rooms only. Recipients must head downstairs to get their FreshDirect or Seamless orders; if that’s not physically possible, building staff can assist. Building managers are frequently disinfecting common areas, encouraging staff to wash their hands frequently, and strongly discouraging any form of congregating.

In some locations, the need for safety protocols is especially strong, like in housing complexes with a lot of older residents who are among the most vulnerable if infected. In Florida, for instance, some emergency plans are being put in place to “prohibit nonessential visitors beyond caregivers, delivery personnel, and a limited number of immediate family members,” says Donna DiMaggio Berger, an attorney and shareholder at Becker Law in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and a board-certified specialist in condominium and planned development law.

The closing down of amenities, like a complex’s swimming pool, has not been popular, to put it lightly, she says.

“Many seniors live in these communities primarily for the recreational amenities, so the impact on their lifestyle can be significant,” she continues. “Still, boards are taking their cues from our federal and local governments. They are implementing strict protocols to minimize the exposure risk.”

How buildings are handling positive coronavirus cases

To stave off contagion, more and more management companies are reaching out to tenants and asking them to step forward if they test positive. According to another apartment dweller I know whose child returned home from college with a COVID-19 diagnosis, “We got an email saying please let us know if you have the virus so we can take proper measures, so we did.”

When residents with COVID-19 come forward, building managers typically follow Centers for Disease Control and Department of Health guidelines by asking positive patients to self-quarantine and follow the government’s cleaning protocols. As for whether they inform their neighbors of their health status, they leave that choice up to each resident.

Yet although buildings typically withhold the COVID-19 patients’ names to protect their privacy, they often do send out a notice to all tenants in the building.

According to Wendy, who lives in a 30-plus-story building in the NYC area, “an email came saying that there were cases in the building, and that these people were self-quarantining, and cleaning and disinfecting of the premises was underway.”

Wendy also admitted that speculation was rampant in the building about the identity of the COVID-19 patients. Some residents were even playing detective and messaging one another with clues, and proposing meeting in the stairwell, wearing masks, to “compare notes.”

Occasionally, building management sees fit to divulge the floor on which the COVID-19 case is lurking. Says one Manhattan apartment dweller named David, “I know that Floors 3 and 12 have coronavirus cases and, as a person with an underlying condition who lives on the ninth floor, I’m a little relieved.”

Live in a large building? What to do to combat coronavirus

Whether you live in a sprawling complex with tennis courts or a smaller building, this is definitely a moment when communication matters. If your management company hasn’t stepped up and reached out to residents, let it know it needs to.

You can also follow the lead of some residents who post their own “one family at a time only” signs near the elevator. Or, place a box of Clorox wipes by the mailboxes, since this will help lower risks for everyone, including you. Looking for more information? The National Multifamily Housing Council has some excellent resources.

Berger advises those on volunteer boards to “continue to operate even in the midst of this global pandemic. This is no time to go dark. Engage with the proper professionals to craft the necessary COVID-19 protocols to safeguard your community.”

That kind of communication is a vital way to stop the stairwell secret-sharing and a big source of anxiety: the unknown.

The post The Strange Fear of Life in a Big Apartment Building at the Epicenter of the Pandemic appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/life-in-a-large-apartment-building-amid-pandemic/