January home sales dip, but signs of resilience abound

Last month we predicted that home sales in January would see a dramatic dip. It’s common in January to see a decrease in home sales after the holiday months and turn of the new year (between December 2019 and January 2020 there was a 24% decrease) and our model predicted we would see that again this month.

But then, on top of all the usual reasons for a dip, the now historic month of January 2021 happened.

Before you roll your eyes and say ‘yes, every month has been unprecedented,’ ‘every month has been unpredictable,’ January was an entirely different animal.

January was the worst month on record for the pandemic. As of January 27, 2021, we lost nearly 80,000 people in the U.S. to the coronavirus, just in January.

That is an unimaginable loss.

Then, there was also an insurrection, an impeachment, and an inauguration like we’ve never seen before. It was not your typical month, even by 2020 standards.

So, it’s really no surprise that the result was home sales dropping more month-over-month than they ever dropped during any month of the pandemic. During the pandemic, the biggest drop we saw was a decrease of 14% between March and April of 2020.

The good news is though, that we are not worried. As we have said time and again during all of this, we are resilient. This industry is resilient.

We’re confident and still hopeful that sales will pick back up very soon. Our predictor has remained directionally accurate each month, and we predict home sales to pick back up in February and in March with a 2% and 25% increase month-over-month respectively.

February and March Home Sales Prediction

Based on activity inside our products in February we predict there will be 385K home sales and in March there will be 483K. You can see the full scope of these predictions below.

With our predictions that means the number of home sales in February would be 13% higher than they were a year ago and for March there would be 15% more home sales than there was this time in 2020.

All signs pointing to recovery from the last few months.

Brokers and Agents. This is your time.

January proved once again the absolutely crucial role real estate agents play in helping their clients buy or sell a home.

Agents have always had an enormous role to play when it comes to the sale of a home, but right now, as the level of stress people are under continues to tighten its grasp, a professional and quality real estate agent is crucial to keep our ecosystem running. High-quality brokers and agents are needed to advise, mentor, and guide their clients during the buying and selling process, now more than ever.

Our communities have always and will always need you. Hear us as a technology company when we say, let the computers do the things computers are good at so that you can continue to do the things that humans, and only humans, are good at. Building relationships, showing compassion, and helping people buy and sell their homes to continue to build a better life for themselves.

We look forward to hopefully reporting back some positive outcomes for February, March, and beyond!

The Home Sales Predictor is a brand-new set of prediction data that dives into the number of presentations created and the correlated number of U.S. home sales. This data is provided by MoxiWorks with insights from their MoxiPresent product.

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