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MarketNsight recently announced a state of the Atlanta new home market at April’s month-end. Compared to the same four months of data in 2019, the final results of January through April 2020 are almost a wash.

“Sales from January 2020 through the first week of March 2020 were so execptional that it has compensated for the negative effects of COVID-19 (coronavirus) that we have experienced from the second week of March on,” MarketNsight Principal John Hunt said.

According to Hunt, with this update being so close to the end of April, there is a data lag in week four of the month. He is reporting the actual data with the lag, and also giving a forecast accounting for the gap.

The Big Picture

MarketNsight data shows that even with a lag in the fourth week of April 2020, new pending sales in Atlanta totaled 4,306 from January to April 2020. That compares to a total of 4,342 new pending sales in 2019 from January to April.

“That means new pending sales in Atlanta for January through April 2020 are only down 1% from last year,” Hunt said. “When the lag is accounted for, we will essentially be on par with 2019.”

New Pending Sales YTY Change with Covid-19 Georgia Cases

MarketNsight has graphed weekly coronavirus cases and the year-to-year percent change for new pending sales though the fourth week of April.

“The numbers show we appear to have found a bottom in the first week of April,” Hunt said. “With a lag, the last week of April was 24% below the same week last year.

“Accounting for the lag, the last week of April looks to be down only 9% from the same period last year. With the lag accounted for, the entire month of April in 2020 will be down 20% over April last year.”

New Pending Sales January through April 2019 versus 2020

New homes were selling well from the beginning of 2020 through the first week of March. New pending sales were up 16% year-to-year at that point. From the second week of March to the end of April (accounting for the lag), new pending sales were down 19% year-to-year.

Looking Forward

“If you read this and find yourself in a state of shock, you are not alone,” Hunt said. “Keep in mind that this is data for the entire 26-county Atlanta metro. Every submarket (for example, 305 different high school districts) and price can be experiencing this pandemic differently.

“Also bear in mind that housing and the economy were in an exceptional place when this crisis started,” Hunt said. “Unlike the 2008 recession where every player was over leveraged, overpriced and had far too many lots and spec homes, the fundamentals today are sound.”

Through February 2020, the Atlanta market experienced record job growth, population growth, household formation, in-migration, extremely low lot and home inventories and moderate price inflation, according to Hunt.

The U.S. House passed another massive spending bill on May 15 in response to COVID-19. In the unlikely event the Senate and President Trump approve it, that measure would spend another $3 trillion, including $1 trillion to aid state and local governments.

State and local governments are experiencing large drops in income and sales tax receipts, but it is premature to know how large those shortfalls will be. A Morgan Stanley analyst predicts state revenues will fall by $180 billion and localities will see drops totaling $90 billion; news outlets report Georgia’s budget might have a $5 billion gap over the next 15 months.

Small-government advocates might hope state budgets, which by law must be balanced, would have projected deficits remedied solely by budget cuts. Some cities are discussing employee furloughs to reduce spending – as is the University System of Georgia – but it is unlikely the public will tolerate budget reductions of the magnitude necessary for balanced budgets.

The focus must therefore be on how to help governments with financial hardship genuinely arising from COVID-19 while being aware of the possibility of poorly run state and local governments trying to pawn their fiscal problems onto the rest of the country. Congress must also be mindful of spending even more on top of the massive $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March.

Fortunately, there is a way to take a significant initial step toward helping struggling state and local governments without adding more the burgeoning deficit.

A notable provision of the CARES Act was Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, which pays people receiving unemployment benefits an extra $600 per week through July. With the $600 federal benefit on top of ordinary state unemployment insurance payments, many laid-off workers get more money being unemployed than working or searching for new jobs.

One analysis by University of Chicago economists estimates 68% of unemployed workers are eligible for unemployment benefits greater than their lost earnings. They also calculate the median replacement rate is 134%, or more than one-third above workers’ normal pay. Georgia’s results are even more striking: The median-income unemployed resident would receive benefits equal to 154% of lost income.

People respond to incentives, even perverse ones created by government policy. During the Senate’s CARES Act debate, one senator warned, “We don’t want this piece of the bill to create an incentive for folks to stop working.” News reports attest to his prescience:

• CNBC reports a spa owner in Washington state was met with a “firestorm of hatred” by her employees for obtaining a Paycheck Protection Program loan to pay their normal wages instead of laying them off.
• NPR told of a Kentucky coffee shop that closed; employees asked to be laid off “because it would cost them literally hundreds of dollars per week to be employed.”
• Newsweek reported on a Maryland restaurant owner whose employees did not want to return to work because they make more unemployed.

Herein lies the opportunity to help states without doing long-term fiscal damage. Congress should revisit the hastily enacted $600 supplemental unemployment benefit. Ending it after May – by which time most mandatory shutdowns will have been lifted – would end the perverse incentive against working and free up significant funds for state and local governments.

Those whose jobs are cut or in danger would still have two forms of protection. One is ordinary unemployment insurance benefits, which a different provision of the CARES Act extended for an additional 13 weeks. The second is the recently expanded Paycheck Protection Program, which gives employers forgivable loans to pay their employees.

How much would this proposal help state and local governments? Eliminating the $600-a-week benefit eight weeks earlier would save $4,800 per unemployed worker. With a staggering 36 million new jobless claims in the past two months, saving $4,800 per person would allow more than $170 billion to be redirected to struggling state and local governments.

While $170 billion may not replace all state and local government revenue lost because of COVID-19, it should cover budget gaps in the current fiscal year and allow more time to better estimate ongoing economic effects. And it is more responsible now than the House approach of $1 trillion more in funding.

Just as the federal aid restricted to direct COVID-19 response “overshot the runway,” as Georgia state Rep. Terry England recently put it, the House’s $1 trillion proposal exceeds current estimates of state and local budget shortfalls.

Another large state/local bailout is likely on top of the CARES Act. This free money approach – “Just put it on the government’s credit card” – is problematic. The federal government is already on track for an astounding $4 trillion budget deficit, publicly held debt is now roughly 80% of GDP, and interest on past borrowing already consumes a significant chunk of the federal budget. Maintaining a perverse incentive against working while adding hundreds of billions of additional borrowing is not sound policy for the present or the future.

Pageviews of homes in small towns surged 105% year over year during the seven-day period ending May 1, an acceleration from the 85% gain that occurred during the week ending April 1, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. In rural counties with fewer than 10,000 people, views climbed 76%, a sizable increase from the prior year but a deceleration from the 170% rise a month before.

Meanwhile, homes in urban metro areas with at least 1 million people saw a 16% rise in pageviews during the week ending May 1. That marks a reversal from the 13% decline Redfin saw a month prior, but still represents a much slower increase than small towns and rural areas are experiencing.

“During the first month of the pandemic, interest in rural areas skyrocketed while interest in cities fell, with many urbanites dreaming of packing up and heading for the hills,” said Redfin lead economist Taylor Marr. “Some of that boost in rural areas proved to be temporary, but it appears to be more sustainable in small towns, which may be a more realistic option for those looking to work from home primarily or commute into the office once or twice a week.”

The draw to small towns and rural areas is not only evident in home-browsing habits; it’s showing up in actual sales. While pending homes sales are down across the board, less-populous areas aren’t being hit quite as hard as large cities are. Pending sales plummeted 39% in urban metro areas during the week ending May 1, compared with a drop of around just 25% in both small towns and rural areas. That gap is wider than the one Redfin saw during the week ending April 1, when urban metro areas had experienced a 28% decline in pending sales, compared with a decrease of 20% in rural areas.

While cities and remote areas are dealing with different levels of fallout fueled by the coronavirus, sales overall have shown signs of recovery. There were 40,952 homes under contract to be sold nationwide during the week ending May 1, a 35% decrease from the same period the prior year. That’s an improvement from the 41.7% drop that occurred when pending sales bottomed in mid-April.

Key highlights from this report: Many Americans have entered mortgage forbearance in recent weeks. Forbearance is when the lender temporarily pauses or reduces payments. Many of these plans were launched due to coronavirus (COVID-19). It’s possible to buy another home, after undergoing the process. The government issued new guidelines for buying a home after forbearance. […]

The post Yes, You Can Buy a Home After COVID-19 Mortgage Forbearance appeared first on HBI News.

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The High Museum of Art we will reopen to members and frontline workers free of charge with valid ID from Tuesday, July 7 through Friday, July 17. The museum, which closed in mid-March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, will reopen to the general public on Saturday, July 18.

The museum will be following following local, regional, and federal recommendations for reopening, according to the media announcement. On June 23, the High will release a plan outlining the new health and safety measures for members, visitors and staff.

Exhibitions on view when the High reopens include “Paa Joe: Gates of No Return,” “The Plot Thickens: Storytelling in European Print Series,” and “Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection.”

The museum will reopen with revised hours to accommodate necessary sanitation protocols. The updated hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

For continued updates on the High’s reopening procedures and online ticketing, visit https://high.org/tickets/.

The post High Museum set to reopen to members and frontline workers July 7, public on July 18 appeared first on Atlanta INtown Paper.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has announced that the City of Atlanta has met the metrics to progress to Phase 2 of a five-phased reopening plan to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

As of May 24, the city sustained the necessary 14-day downward trend in new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and percent of positive test cases while maintaining sufficient hospital and critical care bed capacity to progress into Phase 2, the “Easing” phase. This phase does not include reopening the City of Atlanta government facilities.

The five-phased plan, drawn from the recommendations of the Mayor’s Advisory Council for Reopening Atlanta, can be found online here.

“As we continue to monitor the effects of COVID-19, we are now prioritizing a safe transition into Phase 2 of our reopening plan,” Mayor Bottoms said in a media statement. “Data shows that we are in a position to move forward. We encourage Atlantans citywide to continue to follow all precautionary guidelines as community transmission of COVID-19 still poses a threat to our city.”

Starting this Thursday, May 28, the city will begin bi-weekly reporting on progress towards meeting the Phase 2 gate-keeping metrics, and each report will be posted on the ATLstrong.org website.

During Phase 2—the “Easing” phase—the city proposed the following guidelines:

Individuals:

• Stay home except for essential trips
• Wear face coverings in public
• Frequent hand washing
• Social distancing
• Small, private gatherings of no more than 10 people, with social distancing

Businesses/Non-Profits:

• To-go and curbside pickups from restaurants and retail establishments
• Continue practicing teleworking
• Frequent cleaning of public and high touch areas

City Government:

• Non-essential city facilities remain closed
• Continue moratorium on special event applications
• Continue communication with local and state authorities to monitor public health metrics

In order to leave Phase 2, two critical gate-keeping measures have been added for contact tracing and testing capacity. The city will continue to Phase 3 after reaching and sustaining Phase 2 metrics. If there is a sustained increase in new COVID cases or hospital or critical care capacity falls below 50 percent, the city will revert back to Phase 1.

For a snapshot of the most recent data and metrics related to the city’s progress and updates on Atlanta’s current reopening phase, visit the COVID-19 Atlanta Reopening Dashboard.

Anticipating the transition to Phase 2, Bottoms issued an administrative order on on May 21 directing the Chief Operating Officer to work with the Atlanta Department of Transportation to develop a plan for Atlanta’s streets. This plan recognizes the role of the city in the economic recovery of local businesses and the ability to use public space to support quality of life during the reopening.

The plan will address how the city will use streets to support reopening through:

• the evaluation and the development of administrative actions to create “tactical sidewalks” to improve mobility in communities to essential services;
• the evaluation of potential temporary road or lane closures to create more pedestrian and cyclist space for improved safety and access;
• the development of a street closure plan to create more public space in support of Atlanta’s communities which are practicing social distancing;
• the evaluation and development of recommendations concerning the potential creation of a safe community streets permitting process which would support traffic calming in neighborhood streets;
• the evaluation and development of recommendations concerning the streamlining of the sidewalk dining permitting process, including a review of the permit fees associated therewith and the locations of such permitted activity;
• the evaluation of the potential re-purposing of certain parking locations to areas where curbside restaurant pick-up could take place; and
• the development of a process by which the Commissioner of the Atlanta Department of Transportation may execute further administrative changes concerning the City of Atlanta’s operation of its right of way which are necessary to support the recommended guidelines for the reopening of the economy of the City of Atlanta.

The mayor’s order outlines that the plan should be submitted and initial actions within the plan should begin implementation by June 1.

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