The Great Bounce Back
Residential Real Estate Sales Plummeted During the Shutdown. Now Pent-Up Demand is Bringing Them Back
When the pandemic first shut down businesses in Coral Gables, the real estate industry was among the first to be hit. The ability to show houses was initially curtailed, and a wait-and-see attitude prevailed.
“There was initially a slowdown,” says Carole Smith, a leading residential realtor with Compass. “March was frightening and scary, people were freaking out. Then in April people took a deep breath and said, ‘I need a shelter, or a bigger home, or a home with a pool.’ And they [the buyers] started coming out of the woodwork.”
Smith says the pattern was a shut down in March, virtual showings in April, video showings with “booties, masks and gloves” in May, and a return to real showings in June, with everyone wearing masks. “If [buyers] don’t touch anything they don’t have to wear gloves.” The result, says Smith, is that all the Gables properties that she represents, eight properties, are now under contract.
“I think there is a real pent up demand. And a lot of those [buyers] are people who want to move into Coral Gables. They are living on Brickell in a condo, with one child and another on the way. Once they were locked in and the pools and facilities were closed, and the elevators became scary, they wanted a house.”
Rishi Kapoor, whose Gables-based development firm Location Ventures is building the state-of-the art luxury Villa Valencia condominium, says he has seen a recent burst of activity. “In the last 30 days we sold $12 million worth of units there,” says the CEO. “Now we have another four contracts from people who want to relocate from Chicago, Philadelphia and New York… People might have been considering moving here, but now the pandemic and the density in those markets has pushed them to move. First it was taxes and weather, now it’s density and lifestyle. Coral Gables is the destination where the people want to come.”
Ron Shuffield, the veteran realtor who heads the BHHS/EWM offices in Coral Gables, says that one of the problems was that fewer sellers were listing their properties. “One year ago, there were 708 properties on the market [in Coral Gables], including single family homes and condos,” he says. “Now there are 566 properties on the market. That is a 20 percent drop in inventory.”
At the same time, says Shuffield, sales also fell. In the months of March, April and May, there were 145 sales in the Gables, compared with 197 the year before – a 26.4 percent drop.
However, Shuffield expects things to change. “What we are seeing now is a great big burst of activity, of pending sales,” he says. “It was falling for months, and now whoosh, you have a lot of pent up demand.” He also expects a new burst of listings, since “sellers are thinking they should take advantage of any opportunity.”
Shuffield says he was never terribly worried about the Gables market, since it is one of the premier locations in Miami-Dade. “If you compare Coral Gables with the county at large, Coral Gables does much better,” he says. “Generally speaking, looking at the markets over the last 35 years, the Gables has always been more stable, as the markets ebb and flow.”