Pricing Homes in Pittsboro NC for Sale During Coronavirus and 2020

Pittsboro Real Estate Broker Eric Andrews says that pricing homes during the Coronavirus pandemic and other issues in 2020 is difficult, especially in the higher-priced homes around the $350,000 plus price range.

Eric says that tody, it’s much more guesswork than it’s ever been to price a home. “Anybody that tells you what your house will sell for is fibbing,” he said. This is because the way homes are priced is that you look back a few months to determine what the value is today, but a few months ago everything was pretty good. Until there’s more data on how homes will sell,  we just don’t know.

Why so Tough to Get a Price?

Normally, we look at what has sold along with what’s selling right now. But it’s difficult to do this, so we just don’t know. Today, we don’t have enough sales under the current conditions, so we can’t make an assessment on how homes should be priced.

Some things a bit more clear than others, but this is because of forces that seem to come together despite COVID. For example, the $200,000 to $350,000 range is still smoking hot, but anything above that is soft.

Another problem is that sellers push back on selling their house for a potentially lower current market value. Eric gave an example: Let’s say Bob across the street sold his house for X, and this is in the seller’s mind that X is what they should get. But the problem is, that was two months ago, and we just don’t know if that’s a good price now.

So it’s tough for sellers who want to put their house on the market.

What’s Different About Chatham County?

Eric says that in Chatham County, things are different and we’re lucky people want to come here from other parts of the state and from other states. He gave an example of people who are from New Jersey and New York that are looking to get out of there and want to come to areas like Chatham County.

Eric says that what makes Chatham County so desireable is that people coming from bigger cities and heavily populate regions out of state as well as people from Charlotte or Raleigh say they’ve had it with the urban life and want a change.

Then they find they can buy the same size or bigger home on 20 or 30 acres for the same price and they are just blown away. They want their garden, their space and to get away from the cities.

Not Just COVID, but a Perfect Storm of Events

There are other reasons why the market is affected. For example, the boomers right now want to downsize but not go to a retirement home. The gen X and Y crows aren’t ready to upgrade because of the job market, and the millennials are just starting out, so you have all these demographics competing for the same lower range home. This is why we have multiple offer situations on may of the homes priced in the $150,00 to $200,000 homes.

All these make it difficult to price houses right now. The most important thing is to look at the current competition and the absorption rate to price properties right now.