The coronavirus pandemic has been raging in the U.S. for more than eight months now, but despite that chaos Coldwell Banker CEO M. Ryan Gorman said last week that the real estate market at least is doing extraordinarily well.
“I’ve been doing this a little while and I’ve looked at data a lot longer,” Gorman said. “I have not seen it this uniformly brisk in sales across the country and across price points really ever before.”
Gorman made the comments Friday while appearing on news platform Cheddar to discuss the market. During the conversation, he explained that homes are selling exceedingly fast and “days on market is under three weeks.” Much of that activity is focused on the resale market, rather than on new construction, and is driven by things like remote work policies and affordable mortgage rates.
“What’s driving the overall housing demand today is really family moves,” he added.
Among other things, Gorman said more people are moving in with family, parents are increasingly willing to move their kids during the school year, and some buyers simply want better weather or tax rates.
“Those are very fundamental drivers that we’re seeing right now during the pandemic,” Gorman said.
The comments echo those Gorman made during a conversation with Inman last week. In that interview, Gorman said the strong real estate market is likely to continue into next year.
While speaking Friday with Cheddar, Gorman was also asked how the pandemic was intersecting with real estate tech disruptors. Such companies have proliferated in recent years and provide everything from cash offers on homes to flat fees for consumers. One recurring theme with such companies, though, is that they often seek to upend the traditional client-agent relationship.
Gorman’s company — which is owned by industry giant Realogy — is not one of those new disruptors, though it has made significant investments in technology as well. During his conversation with Cheddar, he acknowledged that this might seem like a time when new disruptors might thrive.
In practice, however, Gorman said he isn’t seeing that.
Instead, Coldwell Banker specifically is increasing its market share. The reason that’s happening, he continued, is because during turbulent times consumers are turning more to agents, not abandoning them, because they need help navigating a difficult transaction.
“It really is all about the trusted advice,” Gorman concluded.
