Atlanta Real Estate Market Update April 14th 2020

The Market Continues To Move Forward

The real estate market here in Atlanta continues to move forward despite the COVID19 lock down. As an industry we are learning how to utilize the technology available to us to get our jobs done. The good thing is that we live in an age where so many things can be done virtually. Oddly enough this crisis is helping real estate professionals to start working in more efficient ways. Many of the virtual and digital technologies being used in this environment may become standard moving forward. Virtual open houses are just one example of this. The MLSs are now allowing agents to share links to their virtual open houses through the site. Soon the syndicated sites like Zillow, Realtor and Trulia should follow suit by including those links in open house descriptions on their sites and distinguishing between physical and virtual open houses. Now, on to the numbers.

The Numbers

Home sales in Atlanta have been fairly steady this past week. In the last 7 days 1752 homes have sold in the Metro Atlanta area. That is just slightly down from the previous week in which 2121 homes sold. Pending sales for the same two weeks vary by about the same amount. Last week just over 1200 homes went under contract. The previous week nearly 1400 homes went under contract. The good news is that we came into March and April with extremely low volume of homes on the market. Even with with more listings hitting the market now and sales declining slightly, we are still below average for inventory and days on market is also lower than previous months. See the charts below.

What's Going On With Mortgages?

Since the COVID19 pandemic struck the United States over 16 million people have lost their jobs and the numbers are rising every day. Fortunately the outlook is positive that these jobs will be restored after the economy reopens. In the mean time however many people have no way of paying their mortgages. So the government has require banks and lenders to grant forbearance to customers for up to 6 months in some cases. That is great news for a lot of people and will keep them from going into foreclosure (requesting a forbearance may negatively affect your credit score). Unfortunately, this leaves banks and loan institutions to foot the bill on behalf of their customers. This could cause some of the “non-banks” to go under if the Federal Reserve doesn’t step in to offer relief. So far, the Fed has not indicated any such relief. Because of this, many banks have tightened guidelines for lending. In some cases banks have raised required minimum credit scores to 700.  JP Morgan chase raising minimum required credit scores. Independent and regional lenders such as Supreme Lending have also had to raise minimums to align with the industry, but not quite so drastically. If you have a score in the mid-600s and are considering buying a home that is still an option with these small organizations. Some of whom, like Supreme are also offering free credit rehabilitation consultations to their clients.

I want to thanks Matt Garcia and Hunter McElroy of Supreme Lending for providing much of the back ground information for the mortgage portion of this post.

If you are considering buying or selling in today’s market and have questions or concerns, I am always available. Send me an email or give me a call.

Stay tuned for updates!

Recently Sold Homes In Atlanta.