Absolutely no way am I wading into the morass of the "Partial Government Shutdown" with an opinion or even a scholarly report. But as it is, quite obviously, the most important single issue impacting our local real estate market this fall, I'll address it today - but lightly, and around the edges.
It's not all bad news. The market was pretty strong going into this business so there was some momentum. If it doesn't last too long, we should be able to bounce right through it. There was great fear that lending would freeze because of difficulty getting income verification for some Federal workers and IRS income verification, but many lenders have told me that their institutions are going ahead and manually processing the loans based on old fashioned pay stubs and tax documents. Many lenders are also continuing to process government loans - VA and FHA - with fingers crossed that there won't be any problems sending the loans on when the government re-opens. Good for them! So lending hasn't gotten any easier but with a little good ole American ingenuity, they're getting the job done.
What this will do to consumer confidence in our area's housing market remains to be seen. Obviously, with the largest concentration of Federal workers in the country, there are lots of folks who are sitting home with time on their hands, but somehow I doubt that their first thought is to get online and look at houses. Whether existing buyers will jump right back into the market and / or new buyers enter the market when this is over is hard to say. Assuming it doesn't go too much longer, we'll still have a few weeks of our fall market left. If it goes on into November, buyers might just decide to wait until spring. Some agents I've spoken with think we'll have a super busy late fall season to catch up with the demand; others suspect we won't see the buyers again until February. I tend a bit to the latter, but am hopeful for the former. We'll see.
Barbara, Tom, and Susan
Nalls Home Partners
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