WCTB Real Estate

Pending home sales still turning in strong gains

The U.S. housing market continued to see strong demand from homebuyers for the four-week period ending July 26. The seasonally-adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index was up 27% from pre-pandemic levels in January and February. Pending home sales were up 12% compared to a year earlier, driven by mortgage rates that remain near historic lows.

One factor spurring strong pending sales and keeping sales from declining more quickly may be buyers who delayed purchasing in the spring now rushing to buy before school starts in the fall. “School districts are still important even

Melbourne homebuyers could miss out on the federal government’s $25,000 HomeBuilder grants as a result of the stage four lockdown.

Victoria’s construction industry groups are urgently negotiating fine detail to the planned restrictions amid fears they will hit harder than intended.

Key concerns are understood to centre around whether tradespeople will be able to move between sites and projects during the six-week shutdown, as well as if land development and civil works will be able to continue — vital to preparing land to be built on for the grants.

Melbourne homeowners will only be able to bring tradies into their properties for “emergency” maintenance under the city’s stage four COVID-19 lockdown, but Premier Daniel Andrews has indicated sale settlements and moving home will be permitted.

And the construction industry — described by Mr Andrews as “in many respects the lifeblood of the Victorian economy” — will be allowed to keep operating at a scaled-back level.

The announcement follows Melbourne’s shift into stage four restrictions, which have placed the city

45% of surveyed homebuyers said they made a bid on a home without first seeing it in person, up from 28% in 2019. Redfin agents cite health concerns around the pandemic and competition fueled by a worsening housing shortage as reasons more buyers are bidding on homes before visiting them.

Almost half (45%) of people who bought a home in the past year made an offer on a property that they hadn’t seen in person, the highest share since at least 2015, according to a Redfin-commissioned survey in May and June of more than 1,400 people across 29 major markets.

The Victorian Government has declared a state of disaster due to increasing coronavirus cases, with new lockdown restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne coming into place from Sunday night.

Premier Daniel Andrews announced the stage four restrictions on Sunday, which include an 8pm-5am curfew in metro Melbourne for non-essential activities, for a six-week period until 13 September.

He said the decision for tougher measures was not “easy to make”, but with forecasts that stage three restrictions could drag out to the end of the year if virus case numbers continued to escalate, it was a necessary one.