Three months ago our world changed pretty dramatically. As states rushed to close down and people started staying home, isolating and hoarding toilet paper, the economy (and in close association) the real estate market were both in a state of peril. Many of people were looking to the real estate industry to ask what effect the virus had on the value of their homes and the market in general. The truth was at the time that it was simply too early to tell. Few of us had ever lived through an event like this and even if we had it would have been in a different time with completely different economic models and factors in play.
As a broker, it’s easy for me to tell you what happened in an observational manner in the weeks that followed. The real estate world seemed to stop for about three weeks. Showings disappeared overnight and all was quiet for the first time in a long time. Somebody relayed to me a summary of a prominent local attorney’s activity during this period… this particular attorney went from about 80 closings a week on average to 60 the first week, 50 the second week and 30 the third week of the lockdown. I distinctly remember at this point crunching MLS data trying to quantify the anticipated massive impact that this virus was having on our industry and at the time there simply was not enough information to draw any reasonable conclusion.
Now we sit upon the precipice of July with three good, solid months of data at our fingertips and we can finally unveil the extent of the damage that COVID-19 has had on the Liberty County and Bryan County real estate markets. Let’s take a look, shall we?
Looking at Midway, there’s a very clear dip immediately after the news start and the Governor’s orders take effect. 
April 2020 exhibited the lowest number of sales in the past four years (the system throws out data after five years and 2016 was the first full year of data available). This is underscored by the fact that the first three months of the year were actually relatively strong in comparison to prior years.
Although sample sizes are small due to the rural nature of this market (and the low number of average sales as a result), the trends do appear to remain relatively stable from year to year which makes the lull in April significantly noticeable. Thankfully, sales appear to have returned to normal levels in May and June and on an observational basis I can tell you as a broker that my phone has been ringing off the hook and the vast majority of our inventory has been moving very quickly.
It would be much easier to predict the next snow day in South Georgia than trying to forecast a market trend in Hinesville. Even though there’s a faint shimmer of a seasonal cycle if you look at year over year data, it’s not much of one and the market’s propensity to swing wildly from month to month will drive you crazy. This is because Hinesville is so heavily dependent on neighboring Fort Stewart. 
Sales activity depends more on military movement at the base, and whether troops are coming in or going out is going to trigger either a buyer’s market or a seller’s market.
Looking at 2020’s data (the bright red line), we can see a dip in April but it appears to match up pretty well with seasonal troughs (in most years) for this month and data in the following months generally runs in line with the annual figures for previous years. For this reason it really doesn’t appear that COVID had any significant affect on Hinesville home sales overall.
This is the one that I think will provide the most validation to the suspicious that COVID had a negative effect on sales overall. Richmond Hill has a very distinct and reliable seasonal trend where June is the busiest month of the year. This makes it a little bit easier to spot outliers when you’re looking at the overall data. 
The seasonal trend is clear,November and December are the trough for the year and sales very dependably and steadily head upward in a normal year until they peak in June, but 2020’s numbers look a little different than usual. Now if we look at the year over year numbers, the effect is pretty obvious, although not as dramatic as one might expect. There’s a very clear dip in sales totals in April and May 2020 which likely results from a combination of reduced activity in March (as news was pouring in about the health crisis) as well as delayed closings due to stay-at-home orders put in place by the state (which made it difficult for lenders to efficiently process loans). 
There’s one silver lining to this cloud though… smack dab in the middle of Coronavirus, murder hornets and a Saharan dust tornado, somehow Richmond Hill managed to hold *relatively* steady over the period in question (although it clearly doesn’t match the strong upward trend that it’s used to seeing as we move into the summer months) and is beginning to exhibit slow upward momentum over 30 days past the gradual reopening of Georgia. The June numbers, while not cratering, are unfortunately still not nearly as strong as we would hope, especially considering how strong the market came out of the gate in January and February. 
Additionally, looking at each year sequentially, the market has grown steadily over time, with 2020 marking the first year in the half-decade that we have data for where overall sales have gone down.
Given a straight line trend over the past five years, we would expected June 2020 to bring approximately 140 closed transactions within the Richmond Hill market. June’s actual closed sales totaled 105 homes, a figure which is 25% below expected norms.
Given the current atmosphere it appears unlikely that July will buck the trend and we should probably expect lower sales this month as well, although still probably overall in-line within the totals seen over recent years.
All three markets showed a dip in closed sales in April (even though Hinesville’s seem to coincide with prior years). Midway seemed to bounce back a lot quicker than Richmond Hill, possibly due to the difference in median sales prices (making the stimulus checks passed out in March much more effective for use as a downpayment or closing costs, especially given the prevalence of high-LTV financing in Liberty County as compared to Bryan County). It could also be due to the low sample size of that market, which makes analyzing trends a little more sensitive to blind coincidence. Based on Richmond Hill’s historically reliable trends, it’s clear that there is still suppression of sales as a result of the virus. The biggest question is whether this is based on economic or emotional factors. If the later, we hope that we can look forward to a large spike in sales as soon as COVID disappears into the rear view mirror.
Regardless, there is still activity and homes are still moving. If you’re ready to sell there’s no reason to wait it out, give me a call at (912)312-0403 and we can add to these numbers together!
Brandon Boyce is a REALTOR® and Associate Broker with Islands Real Estate Company in Midway, Georgia. He has been a fixture of the Coastal Georgia real estate market for over two decades and specializes in the marketing of coastal and waterfront properties in Midway, Georgia and Richmond Hill, Georgia.