As with the majority of industries, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic headwinds have led to unprecedented disruptions in the U.S. real estate market. However, according to the recently launched Housing Recovery Index from realtor.com®, despite continued COVID cases and the large-scale protests that took place the week ending June 6, the U.S. housing market continues to recover...even in cities experiencing civil unrest.
To assess the status of the housing market, the Index leverages a weighted average of realtor.com® search traffic, median list prices, new listings and median time on market, and compares it to the January 2020 market trend, as a baseline for pre-COVID market growth. The overall Index is set to 100 in this baseline period. The higher a market’s index value, the higher its recovery and vice versa.
For the week ending June 6, the realtor.com® Housing Market Recovery Index was 88.8 nationwide, 11.2 points below the January baseline and up 1 point over the prior week. The slight increase in this week’s overall Index represents a 5.7 point increase over the 83.1 low point in the Index, which occurred during the week ending May 2.
What’s more, this week’s Index reading reveals that the positive trend was not impacted in the 11 markets that saw the largest number of protests the week ending June 6. On average, these markets saw their recovery Index increase 0.7 points over the prior week, ending May 30. When compared to other similar-sized markets with reportedly less civil unrest, there was no evidence that the protests had an impact on housing recovery. Of the 11 markets, six areas saw slight increases in their weekly recovery Index:
- Atlanta (+1.5 points)
- Chicago (+4.7 points)
- Cleveland (+3.3 points)
- Los Angeles (+0.2 points)
- Minneapolis (+0.3 points)
- New York (+4.9 points)
And five saw a slight decrease in their weekly recovery Index:
- Dallas (-2 points)
- Louisville, Ky. (-2.1 points)
- Raleigh (-0.7 points)
- St. Louis (-0.9 points)
- Washington, D.C. (-1.1 points)
