Photo by Anatolii Nesterov on Unsplash
March home sales numbers showed the first signs of a slowdown, but the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the California real estate market won’t be evident for another month.
Throughout the state, there were 373,070 home sales in March on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, down 11.5 percent from the month prior and 6.1 percent when compared to the same period last year, according to the California Association of Realtors’ (C.A.R.) March 2020 resale housing report. Due in part to low inventory, the median home price rose 8.3 percent year-over-year to $612,440 in March.
“The relatively moderate sales decrease that occurred in March is only a prelude to what we’ll see in April and May because sales were still moderately strong during the first two weeks of March before stay-in-place orders were implemented throughout the state,” said 2020 C.A.R. President Jeanne Radsick.
“However, pending sales, which is a better reflection of the current market conditions and consumer concerns about the coronavirus, dropped nearly 25 percent and suggest the decline could extend beyond the next couple of months, depending on the duration of the pandemic and the lockdown.”
The housing market in Los Angeles County was largely unscathed during the month of March. Sales of existing single-family homes grew 20 percent from February and dipped only 0.1 percent against March 2019 figures. Still, it was the first time in seven months that sales took a hit.
The median sale price of an existing single-family home in the Los Angeles metropolitan area was $556,250 in March, representing a 7.6 percent increase when compared to the same time last year. The median number of days a home sat on the market declined from 29 days in February to 19 days in March. Month-over-month, home sales jumped 21.2 percent but experienced a drop of 2.9 percent on an annual basis.
“While the median home price continued to record a strong gain in March, most, if not all, of the closed sales were negotiated in mid- to late-February prior to the COVID-19 outbreak,” said C.A.R. Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young.
“Still, the fast deterioration of the economy, the steep decline of the financial market and record-setting job losses have not been factored into March’s closed sales but will become obvious in coming months.”
