Coronavirus has pounded the Beaufort County real estate market. Here’s what experts say
When March rolls around and tourists are typically pouring onto Hilton Head, Realtors in Beaufort County and on the island usually begin a busy selling season.
But the coronavirus has flipped the U.S. economy on its head, and local real estate sales have hit pause.
Pending, or potential, sales for properties in Beaufort and Jasper counties dropped 23 percent from the same period last year, according to data from Beaufort-Jasper County Association of Realtors (BJCR). New property “for sale” listings are also down nearly 11 percent compared to March of last year. These figures do not include Hilton Head Island.
“March is one of our busiest months, selling-wise, in Beaufort County,” said Christian Sherbert, president of the board of BJCR and an agent for Bay Street Realty Group. “We’re going to be missing a lot of sales we would usually get in the spring,”
On Hilton Head Island, new listings are down 27 percent for single-family homes compared to the same time last year. The monthly inventory of available villas and condos for sale also shows a downturn of 19 percent compared to March 2019, according to data from the Hilton Head Area Association of Realtors.
While Sherbert says the numbers for March indicate listings and pending sales will continue to drop for a few more months, he anticipates home sales will kick back up by June when “people are ready to pull the trigger.”
For now, though, “people don’t want to list because they don’t want people to tour,” he said.
The local market’s decline in pending sales “could mean a lot of things,” according to Jean Beck, CEO of the Hilton Head Area Association of Realtors.
It could indicate that properties are not being shown or that buyers have backed out of sales at the last minute, she said. But mostly it’s because “we don’t have buyers in the area.”
The overall supply of houses for sale is going down as well.
In a statistic that tells home-sellers how long their property will be on the market correlated with the total stock of housing, the number of days is projected to shrink as fewer homes are available to sell.
In March 2019, properties on average stayed on the market for 5.5 months until being sold.
Last month, it took around 4.7 months for a home to be sold, a nearly 14.5% decrease. The figure serves as a “look into the future,” according to Sherbert.
While it may be a plus for sellers to get their homes sold more quickly, as there are fewer homes for sale, it does not indicate there are more buyers entering the market, said Sherbert.
“You choose to live here”
Beaufort County, and Hilton Head specifically, are not like normal housing markets.
“We’re certainly a destination market,” said Beck.
The island is filled with resorts, vacation homes and retirement communities. That means that the interest in living in a place like Hilton Head or nearby is not going to waver.
With coronavirus concentrating in cities like New York, Sherbert said he is seeing increased virtual interest expressed in living in Beaufort County.
He said these potential buyers can be people wanting something “more rural, more slow-paced.” Others with means are seeking “to have second homes” and are looking “to shelter” from the virus.
The rise in virtual interest makes the Beaufort County market different from larger ones such as New York, where people may be moving from one end of the city to another.
Buyers here are usually relocating to the county. They “choose to live here” and need someone familiar with the area to show them around.
Essential service?
“If you must show property, and you can’t do virtual showings for your client, take all necessary precautions recommended by the CDC.”
That is part of the guidance Sherbert sends to the 550 Realtors his organization oversees, as real estate has been deemed an “essential service” and exempt from S. C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s order closing non-essential business.
Realtors remain open for business in South Carolina, so that if essential workers such as police officers, nurses, firefighters or teachers need somewhere to live, they can get a home.
S.C. Realtors are also required to screen potential home-buyers if they are coming from coronavirus hot spots such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or New Orleans, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The biggest question for every industry affected by coronavirus is whether this moment is merely an economic pause or will have lasting effects.
Sherbert said for local real estate, the answer is somewhere in between.
He expects interest and sales to pick up aggressively once things calm down, but he worries about the jobs that rely on real estate, such as landscapers and construction workers.
“A lot of people are employed by the transaction of home-selling,” he said.
There is one more question, as well, Sherbert said..
“How long can some of these Realtors survive when not selling in the busiest months of March, April and May?”
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 4:01 PM.
