By Mike Bodeen · 26 March 2020
NEW BODEEN TEAM MEMBER!
I want to personally apologize for our delay in the snap shot this week! We know that many, maybe most of you are probably hungry to learn how this COVID-19 business is impacting the world of real estate. Generally, my dad, Mike is the writer of our poignant real estate articles, and I do the editing, visuals and send the emails. Well this Monday, when I’m normally preparing the weekly email to go out, I was instead at the hospital welcoming our newest Bodeen Team member and my third daughter, Isabelle Joy Bodeen 🙂
We are overjoyed to have her and been in a bit of a haze the past few days, and they kept us at the hospital until yesterday. But we are back home and getting back to “normal,” and a strange new normal it is! Be confident that our regularly scheduled programming will now resume!
-JONATHAN BODEEN
THIS TOO SHALL PASS
*Written 3/23/2020
In the residential real estate industry, there are at least 4 days out of the year when clients DON’T expect us to work: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Easter. And for my son and business partner Jonathan, he can add today, March 23rd 2020 to that list. He called me last evening to say that Sarah’s baby’s birth contractions are moving on up and so he won’t be working today. As I type, (do people still type?) the child is not yet out of the womb, but she’s a comin’ soon!
Our times have changed. BCV (Before Corona Virus), ACV (After Corona Virus), and where we’re at now, DCV, (During Corona Virus) is our new reality.
We knew what to do before the virus struck. Business as usual. 3 months to 6 months comparable sales to determine value.
“Do buyers want to see a home with a current resident living there? Do sellers want buyers and agents coming into their home to show it?”
ACV, or after the Corona Virus, we’ll also know what to do. We’ll get back to normal – whatever that is. It will be different, however. Our vision will adjust to new realities, just as it did following 9/11, only this will be on a larger scale.
DCV is the most difficult time because it’s the time of the unknown. And when a time like this comes upon us, we tend to freeze, or worse perhaps, we react, and it’s not often pretty when we do.
But this is a Phoenix real estate newsletter, not a philosophical treatise about life, though it’s hard not to go there during this time.
For the Phoenix Metro residential real estate market, we’re in for a short-term real estate slowdown. Some current buyers will pull back. Some sellers will take their home off the market, especially if they’re living in them. Do buyers want to see a home with a current resident living there? Do sellers want buyers and agents coming into their home to show it? Is this a window for buyers?
It’s hard to know what the current trouble will be like in Arizona versus, say our neighbor California. But I have a thought about that.
Arizona is unique. BCV, our local economy and real estate market was on fire due to the desire for many outside the state to work and live here. Maricopa is the country’s fastest growing county. Jobs and wages are increasing at nearly exponential levels. I don’t think the current trouble changes that. In fact, because of desirability, it could expedite more Californians to cross borders permanently, especially with positive job opportunity and affordable living. Also, our state is huge on health with a steady expansion of hospitals, clinics and health professionals increasing throughout the valley. In other words, our foundations are strong.
So yes, there will be short term pain, but this could also be a possible window for buyers should we find an increase in homes for sale on the affordable side of things with still lower mortgage rates. Hope matters!
Every week we will dig more into the numbers and show you how this effecting real estate in real time. Stay tuned. This too shall pass!