Though 2020 started out with national showing activity that outpaced last year, the situation has flipped since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. ShowingTime, a showing management technology provider for the residential real estate industry, is monitoring the situation with a new dataset, updating daily, examining how scheduled listing viewings are falling off in an era of social distancing.
Click on image to view larger version. Credit: ShowingTime
The company set Jan. 1 as a baseline, looking at how showings have changed since that moment in both 2019 and 2020. As of Sunday, March 22, showings across North America are down 18.2% since the beginning of the year. To offer an idea of what late March should look like in terms of activity this time of year, showings were up 33% by this time in 2019.
In Illinois, showings had decreased by more than the national average by this past Sunday, down 22.2% since the baseline set on Jan. 1. Last year, showings were 45.2% higher than what had been seen on the first of the year.
I think that this is great info. Buyer showings have slowed but there are still people out there looking for homes. The serious ones that want a home. I actually thought that it could be worse but the numbers in my office do not show this at all.