Bright Outlook for Remainder of 2021

Looking back at April 2020 as the first full month of COVID-19 restrictions, year-over-year comparisons for last month, coupled with the favorable interest rates, are yielding interesting results. Throughout the nation the impact of COVID-19 remains a major factor on the status of many industries – real estate is one of them. 

The Capital Region’s market mirrors the rest of the country. Buyer demand persists with 1,032 home sales for the month of April—a jump of 25.5 percent over April 2020. Pending sales increased by 85.2 percent from April 2020 to 1,165 for the month. 

Compared to this time last year, the inventory of homes currently for sale is down 43.6 percent to 2,371 homes. This has translated to 1.8 months of inventory available. The low inventory was helped to some degree with 1,623 new listings hitting the market last month. 

Earlier this month during the National Association of REALTORS® Legislative Meetings held virtually, NAR Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun, forecasted the economy to expand by 4.5 percent in 2021 due to the increase of vaccinated Americans having a positive impact on the reduction of new cases. Yun anticipates consumers will begin spending on in-person activities, travel, and even more house-hunting as the year loosens up towards pre-COVID normalcy. 

As a result, the region’s busy spring market continues to see multiple offer situations driving sales prices above the asking price. The median sales price of existing homes reached $250,000, a year-over-year increase of 16.3 percent. Greater Capital Association of REALTORS® CEO, Laura Burns, commented that “New construction will continue to provide relief to the inventory challenge. Last month 187 homes were added to the inventory which was a 20 percent increase over last April.” The median sale price for new construction was $393,782. 

“The positive turn of the local economy bringing people back to work should also bring sellers who were on the fence into the market and help ease the inventory crunch while new construction catches up,” said GCAR President Jeffrey Decatur of RE/Max Capital. 

Click here to view the complete April market stats.