Home sales strong in face of virus

By Tom Peterson

Stuart and Cyndi Reitz recently moved to The Dalles from North Carolina expecting to find a buyers market due to the coronavirus.  

No such luck. 

Home prices are remaining strong in the area, they said, noting they had been looking for the past three weeks.

Houses in that $250,000 to $300,000 range is still the sweet spot. The couple said they watched some already come and go, in just a day. 

They chose to move back to The Dalles to be close to Stuart’s mother. 

On Tuesday, they had toured two homes, the last just down the street from his mom’s place on west 21st Street in The Dalles. 

The price: $325,000 for 1,755 square feet, three bedrooms, two bathrooms.

The Reitz’ circumstances square with market statistics.

There are just 63 homes on the market in our area - while not at its lowest point - it is close. That figure includes pending sales.  Meanwhile, sales of homes are up 12 percent in Wasco County, and prices have jumped 5 percent to an average cost of $251,103, according to Windermere Columbia River Gorge Market Trend report.

“It’s still healthy,” said Connie Thomasian, Realtor with Windermere Real Estate. “People are still looking and buying.”

Thomasian said a recent listing of hers sold the first day and received a back-up offer. Others have been bid up by $5,000. She even had a home go for $1.3 million in Hood River.

Realtor Becky Schertenlieb with Columbia Gorge Real Estate is seeing similar behavior in the market.  

“We still have a strong seller's market although inventory is increasing and could tip the scale as we progress into the summer months,” she said. “At this time buyer activity is still strong and homes within the limit that will finance are pending within days of listing sometimes with multiple offers.”

Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner, who studies Oregon and Southwest Washington real estate trends, wrote that, “Klickitat County led the market with the strongest annual price growth during the first quarter of 2020. Homes there sold for 34.8% more than a year ago.”

Generally, “annual price growth has picked back up after having slowed somewhat in the middle of last year. The takeaway... is that prices grew year-over-year, but I expect to see volatility for the next two quarters until the market completely recovers from COVID-19,” he wrote in the Gardner Report.

Thomasian said Windermere was sticking to strict guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus, noting Realtors are not meeting clients in their offices. Home tours are finished with Realtors wiping all knobs, handles and surfaces with chlorine wipes after clients have completed the home tour. 

Schertenlieb said she was taking similar precautions. 

And Realtors are getting tricky. Thomasian recently had a sale on a high-end home thanks to video.

“Their Realtor used Skype to give the client a virtual walk through of the home,” she said. The client was in Idaho and bought based on the tour.

Thirty- and 15-year mortgage rates are favorable for buyers, ranging between 3 percent and 3.8 percent, based on online offers found Tuesday at Bank of the West. 

Lending institutions have tightened a bit elsewhere, Thomasian said, noting qualifying credit scores jumped from 650 to 680 during the middle of one house deal, which killed it.

Looking west, first quarter sales of 2020 in Hood River County were up 63 percent when compared to the same time period in the previous year, according to the Gardner Report. 

“The gorge is a bubble,” Thomasian said. “You have to watch Hood River - whatever happens there will come this way good or bad.”