While we haven’t officially shifted from “stay at home” to “safer at home”, it seems to me that there are more people who are out on the roads. Next Monday here in Colorado we shift to a gradual reopening of the economy. Baby steps. One of those steps is allowing in-person showings again on real estate listings. It will be interesting to see if there is an immediate up-tick in showings or if potential buyers are still putting real estate on hold.
In Boulder County 39 properties went under contract this past week. A year ago 111 properties went under contract. Officially there were just 52 showings set through ShowingTime (the majority of offices and agents use this service) but I suspect that there were other showings that were set directly with the listing agent and many other virtual showings. Some have been getting around the no showing orders by using technology to see the house prior to making an offer and then only seeing the house in person after the contract is accepted. All services related to getting a house to the closing table have been essential services and this includes buyer walk-throughs.
During the past seven weeks there has definitely been more activity in the lower price ranges and very few showings or contracts on higher priced properties.
| Price Range | Under Contract % | Absorption Rate |
| $0 – $500k | 51% | 2.3 months |
| $500k – $1mil | 39% | 3.1 months |
| $1 mil – $1.5 mil | 22% | 4.3 months |
| $1.5 mil – $2 mil | 17% | 5.4 months |
| > $ 2 mil | 10% | 10.2 months |
As of today 51% of the listings on the market priced up to $500,000 are already under contract. Just 10% are under contract above $2,000,000. The absorption rate relates the number of active listings to the sales rate. For each price range I counted the number of sales over the past six months, divided by six to get a monthly rate and then divided that number into the active listings. Six months is said to be a balanced market. In my view, we are balanced throughout most of the market because slower sales have been matched by fewer new listings. See the graph directly below. I expect that we are going to see a “v” shape in the red line as sellers who have been waiting out this slow down put their houses on the market and hope for the best.
