Metrostudy | Housing Starts Here Housing Market Intelligence, Proprietary Research & Analysis, Consulting Services Outlook Webinar: COVID-19 Update – May 6
This week during our Outlook Webinar: COVID-19 Update, Senior Managing Principal, Tim Sullivan, and Chief Economist, Ali Wolf, provide real-time updates on how the coronavirus pandemic impacts the housing industry.
Key economic and industry changes discussed in the presentation include:
- States continue to relax containment measures; More than a dozen states let stay at home orders expire and businesses open up in response – Opendoor and Offerpad, to name a few.
- More than 30M Americans filed for unemployment due to COVID-19 job losses and consumer spending has experienced its biggest drop since 1980.
- The U.S economy is anticipated to recover slowly for many reasons, including: the federal debt level has quadrupled, consumers and businesses are forecasted to reduce spending, and increases in interest rates from the Fed to combat inflation will lead to reduce investments.
- Buyers continue to become more virtual in their housing research and buying with a +3% increase in web traffic week-over-week.
- At risk markets like Houston are negatively impacted given lower demand, higher competition and volatile oil market.