purchases at furniture and appliance stores.
If construction stalls, 3 million homebuilding
jobs are at risk. So are many brokers: Redfin
plans to furlough 41% of its brokers. Zillow has
suspended home buying in all 24 of it markets.
Other brokerages have canceled open houses.
Listings of homes for sale were already near
historic lows before the virus struck. Further
squeezing supply, at least five states, including
hard-hit New York, Michigan and Washington,
have banned most construction of new
properties as part of stay-at-home orders,
according to the National Association of Home
Builders. De-listings of homes for sale jumped
100% year-over-year for the week that ended
April 3, according to Redfin.
“People are losing their jobs,” said Taylor Marr,
the company’s chief economist. “If they were
looking for a home and they were working in a
restaurant, that is probably no longer the case.”
In Britain, the latest monthly data have yet to be
released, but anecdotal evidence suggests that
the market has come to a standstill.
“People are holding off, obviously, waiting
for everything to pass,” said Simon Kyriacou,
a London branch director for property
agency EweMove.
Real estate consultants Knight Frank have
forecast that sales across the U.K. this year will
fall 38% from 2019.
In the U.S., the long-term outlook is shrouded in
uncertainty. A staggering rise in unemployment
and the stock market decline is diminishing buying
power. In Massachusetts, purchases had surged
more than 25% as recently as February compared