LOS ANGELES HOUSING MARKET FORECAST AND TRENDS IN 2020 Adrian Bates
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ccording to data from Realtor. com, May Housing data reveals that the United States housing market has more likely to have reached its record lows during mid-April, with some constrained new listings and minimal price growth. Nonetheless, there are some signs of recoveries as the yearly declines in the newly listed inventory slowed, and the listing prices recovered. Despite the many positive trends, there still exist COVID related challenges that are causing many markets to linger behind. This can be seen from the fact that homes were on the market for more than two weeks longer than what was recorded in 2019.
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Improvements in new listings but low for-sale homes As we entered May, the total number of homes that were available for sale in most markets continued to dwindle. On a national level, the inventory declined 19.9 percent, Y-o-Y, which indicated a faster rate of decline as compared to the 15.3 percent Y-o-Y drop recorded in April. Realtor.com data showed that this decline resulted in a loss of at least 25,000 listings compared to May of 2019. Additionally, when looking at the volume of the newly listed properties in May, there was a decline of 29.4 percent since last year. Even though this years’ records are well below last year’s levels, the rate of decline in the newly listed properties has significantly improved from a decline of 44.1 percent Y-o-Y in April. This means that the sellers are starting to make a come back to the market.
Looking at all the ma jor metros, the housing inventory declined by 21.9 percent Y-o-Y in May. This, however, is an acceleration as compared to the 16.0 percent Y-o-Y decline recorded in April. The areas that are hit the hardest by the pandemic are the ones that have recorded the biggest declines in inventory. These are PhiladelphiaCamden-Wilmington (-38.6%); Providence-Warwick (-35.8%); and lastly BaltimoreColumbia-Towson (-34.5%). It is worthwhile noting that this year, none of the 50 ma jor metro areas have seen an increase on the year-over-year basis, and 43 out of 50 have recorded declines in the last month.
What is the Situation in L.A.? It is hard to predict what the economy will look like in the coming months, leave alone the housing market. Already, there
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