The Hersches planned to list their house for sale last month, but a global pandemic got in the way.
Tana Hersch, 31, has three children and was working from home. Welcoming strangers into the house didn't seem like a great idea.
"We really want to sell, because demand is so high, but I just don't want people coming into the house," Hersch said.
Hersch and her husband, Nick, 34, aren't the only ones wanting but waiting to sell. Thousands of fewer homes came onto the market in the St. Louis metro area last month than normal — just 2,400 new listings each week, a 42% drop over this time last year, according to realtor.com, which pulls data from the Multiple Listing Service. It's the sharpest year-over-year decline in new listings in any month for at least the last three years.
"That is a really significant slowdown in activity in the real estate market," Jeff Tucker, an economist for Zillow.com, told the Post-Dispatch.
And it mirrors the U.S., which saw a 45% drop in new listings last month, said Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com.
"If sellers don't have to sell, if they can choose to wait, they're choosing to do that," Hale said.
It's an abrupt dip that follows months of good housing news — home sales that closed in February had jumped to their highest level in 13 years. At that time, conditions in the housing market were almost ideal, with hiring strong, wages rising, consumer confidence near a peak and the stock market at a record high.
The economy since has come to a grinding halt, leaving more than 33 million U.S. workers filing for unemployment, about 600,000 of those in Missouri.
The real estate industry is now scrambling to get houses viewed, inspected and sold. Home inspectors are doing video sessions with buyers. Title companies are arranging for online, or even "curbside" closings, where buyers and sellers sign paperwork in cars. Realtors are pushing 3-D house tours."It's like a video game," said Dale Weir, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Kirkwood. "You can walk through a house and turn and see what's on the wall to your right and you can turn and see what's on the wall to your left."
Realtors and industry insiders say the dip in house listings is temporary, driven largely by homeowners, like the Hersches, who are afraid to let strangers into their homes for fear of exposing themselves to the virus.
"Most of the people I am working with right now are not that comfortable having people come into their house," Weir said.
Some clients are elderly and can't afford to take the chance with already fragile health, she said. Others have young children and don't want to risk exposing their developing immune systems.
In the last big housing crash, 2008's Great Recession, the market was fat with an oversupply of homes, and mortgages were thinly supported by subprime loans.
But the market this year, before the coronavirus hit, was "very robust," said National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Fewer houses were up for sale. Competition among buyers was often fierce.
"And suddenly the lights are out," he said.
Some, like Meghann and Michael Cobb, just barely squeezed in a sale and purchase before disaster struck.
They closed on Wednesday, days after St. Louis County's confirmed COVID-19 case total coasted past 3,200.
The couple started looking in February. They listed their home and sold it in 48 hours. When they offered on the home they wanted, it was accepted two days before St. Louis County's stay-at-home order took effect.
Even prior to the pandemic, their search was tough. Inventory was so short they'd be en route to a property, and get a call because it had gone under contract, Meghann Cobb, 34, said.
Finally, the Cobbs found The One. It was under their price range and had features they wanted, including a better school district for Michael Cobb's 8-year-old daughter, Harper, and, eventually, the Cobbs' 1-year-old son, Jameson.
Still, Meghann Cobb couldn't deny the increased anxiety, stress and time in the home-buying process during a global pandemic. They did a "curbside" closing.
Cobb has bought and sold property before and said she preferred the old way.
"It felt chaotic, and a little rushed," she said. "It's not the title company's fault. It's just the situation we are in, and it's still good we were able to close."
The limitations are frustrating for everyone in the industry, said St. Louis real estate agent Gail Brown, president of Brown Kortkamp Realty Co.
She got a contract on a house for a client on the first day of May, while negotiating another.
Still, Brown can't deny this isn't the spring season she's used to.
"It's not as fast and furious as it usually is this time of year, where everyone is jumping in cars and going out and seeing properties all day long," said Brown.
But some worry about long-term consequences.
The Hersches, from Overland, are still looking for the right new house, and the right time to put theirs on the market.
But Tana Hersch fears the pandemic will hurt their chances.
Their home should fetch $125,000, she figures. And, at that price point, it will likely sell to someone in a working-class job -- the very jobs decimated by COVID-19, she said.
"I'm afraid we invested all this money and we are fixing this house up through the years and we are not getting any of that back, and having to settle for way less than what we would want," she said. "I'm really nervous for afterward."
