A housing market is a scary place right now and that's why I wanted to take the time today and give you some real market feedback. I'm not going to blow any smoke or tell you what I think because at this point nobody knows. It's a freaking mystery where things are heading. What I want to do is to give you all of the information for this month's market update and provide the data and share what the experts are saying. So let's get into the real estate market update for Knoxville and beyond for March 2020 Covid-19 special edition.
So, I want to forewarn you of a couple of things. First is this isolation haircut. I hadn't had one in two weeks and the second is this video is going to be a bit longer than I'd like it to be, but I wanted to give you all the data around the market and the impact of the virus. So I didn't want to cut anything out because it could all be important.
Before we get into all of the numbers, though, and what the experts are saying, I want to let you know that I got all this information basically from four places. First and foremost is the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors, MLS, and website and they get all of their information, obviously locally, but also from the Tennessee Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors. That's pretty much where I got all the housing market data and forecast numbers.
The mortgage data I took from basically two sources, the JP Morgan Chase, specifically an article written by a writer by the name of Stephanie Bedard-Chateauneuf titled "Low Rates Can't Stop The US Housing Market Crash". If you want to check out that article, I'll leave the link below, but that's the title. The other article is from TheStreet website by Martin Baccardax, the title is "U.S. Mortgage Rates Hit Fresh All-Time Low, Refinancing Rebound as Markets Stabilize". And finally, I'm going to share some information that I received firsthand from loan officers experiencing the loan application process in real-time. Again, I'll include links for these articles in the description below the housing market stuff you can look upon your own through a pretty easy Google search. So with that being said, let's get into the numbers.
March housing data release... The March housing data release reveals that the US housing market began to show signs of slowing in the second half of March the year over year decline in inventory, soft... the number of newly listed properties declined and prices decelerated compared to earlier in the month. The total number of homes available for sale continued to decline in March. Nationally inventory decreased 15.7% year over year. That's a faster rate of decline compared to the 15.3% year over year drop from February. This amount of to a loss of 191,000 listings compared to March of last year.
The build-up of the weekly data showed the year over year decline in home inventory, hitting a low and softening. This can be an early indicator of buyer activity slowing down in response to the Covid-19. The week ending March 28th showed a year over year decline of 15.2% compared to a larger decline of 16.8% in the week ending in February. This is the largest decline in our records since April of 2015. The numbers were just as intense and Knoxville with a 4.6 decline from February to March. Then a year over year decline of 20%. That's comparing March 2020 to March 2019. The typical property was still selling more quickly than last year and nationally a home sold in 60 days in March, which was four days faster than March of last year in Knox County from February to March the average days on market decreased from about 50 days to about 46 days and then from 54 days to 46 days. When you're looking at the year over year change from 2019 to 2020.
The median US listing price grew by 3.8% to $320,000 in March. This is a slight deceleration compared to last month when the median listing price grew by 3.9% year over year. The progression of the weekly data showed further hints of deceleration that can be linked to Covid-19. In the week ending on March 28th, the median US listing price only grew by 2.5% that's the slowest pace of growth this year and the slowest since realtor.com began tracking in 2013. The slower gains could be indicative of the early market... Of an early market response to the economic uncertainty and the restrictions to the industrial activity along with lower buyer and seller sentiment or inclination to do business on the market.
If continued, this could Mark the start of further deceleration and asking price growth in April for our local market. The median list price increased by 12% year over year or 2019 again to 2020. It grew by three and a half percent from February to March, and due to some positive speculation and the possibility of some States opening back up, including Tennessee or at least Knox County, and despite the US mortgage rates hitting an all-time low last week, new applications have rebounded. Refinance activity has experienced a volatile four week period but did increase 10% last week.
Refinancing will continue to be beneficial for many homeowners and borrowers able to lower their monthly payments as well as getting into some of their equity to help them through these hard times. The Mortgage Bankers Association also said earlier this month that new rules or mortgage forbearance under the two-point $2 trillion Care Act, which allows borrowers to delay repayments by as much as a year triggered a near 2000% increase in requests over the final two weeks of March. This is a huge relief for homeowners. However, it's a bane on the market. That means more homeowners are going to be choosing not to sell as they refinance on their homes, which is going to make them stay put as they start overpaying down their home mortgage.
Before we go further, I just want to remind you that your support helps content like this. Get more exposure online so people can get access to this information. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and then subscribe to my channel. I put content out every week and all of it is relevant to your life or someone you know. Now the US housing market started the year on a strong foot. If you are following things, the market was moving fast, but the economic downturn in the social distancing caused by the coronavirus or Covid-19 threatened to derail the sector.
The preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for April show plans to buy a home fell the most since 1979. Buying a home is not a priority for people who just lost their jobs and they have less money to spend on bills, let alone upgrading their lives. We've seen a dramatic and unexpected job loss associated with the shutdown of the US government... Of government and economy during the week ending on March 27, a record number of 6.6 million Americans claimed unemployment benefits bringing the three week total to nearly 17 million Americans.
Also, even though mortgage rates are low, getting a loan right now is harder than ever with many lenders increasing the bar for qualifying for a loan from the low six hundred, for example, 620 up to 700 points with a full 20% down payment included to get a conventional home loan. At least that's what JP Morgan just announced they're raising their rates to or their qualifications. Since new home loan applications dropped over 3% last week and over 35% from this time last year and with the residential mortgage market already under pressure after requests from borrowers to delay mortgage payments, which increased 19000% or 1900% in the second half of March we're in for some potentially very tight and roughhousing market times looking forward.
Given the hardships that so many of us are facing, it is, it is impossible to quantify how people are going to perceive the housing market in the next coming weeks. Let alone after all this blows over. Will it continue to decline or will we see a bounce back to normal? Nobody knows. If Americans become more frugal as they did back during the great recession. Home buying will likely decline. Affordability will collapse with fewer eligible buyers to buy a house with and home prices will need to follow suit and start going down to attract buyers back to the market.
Obviously, with things the way they are, I'm not here to ask you for your business. I'm only making this video to give you a regular guy, a local boy's perspective on the information out there, and hope that I could put it together in a way that makes sense. Of course, if you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact me directly. What I can't answer, I'll find answers for. But I will say this, many of you will not be able to refinance your home. Especially with the higher standards coming from all the lenders right now and though we're seeing a slow down in buyer activity, it still might be your only option to sell. So far we are still selling homes in the Knoxville market. Every day in Knox County and the surrounding counties, we're seeing homes close. Just since yesterday, 32 homes closed in Knox County and 35 are still in escrow.
In March, we saw 750 homes sell in Knox County with another 838 homes still pending close and that's just Knox County, not County Knox City or Knoxville the city or surrounding counties. We saw an increase in home... In the average sales price as well as an increase in average days on markets. I mean a decrease shortening. We even saw that the actual sales price or what the buyer bought the home for as opposed to what the homeowner wants for it. The sales price versus the list price.
The sales price went up by 2% so I'm not saying that you should sell, but I am saying that if you find yourself in a situation where refinancing isn't an option and a line of credit isn't an option and you have to make some hard decisions and some drastic changes in your life for the safety and the wellbeing of yourself and your family, then the idea of selling and talking to a professional about selling is probably worth exploring regardless of what you do or what you don't do. I just want you to know that I'm here to serve this community in the best way I can. Not just as a real estate professional, but as a neighbor and as a friend.
Look, I've already done a grocery store run for some elderly friends. I've done some trash pickup for people that can't get out of their house or are in fear of getting out of their house due to their high risk of exposure. So whatever you need, seriously, whatever you need, whether it'd be advice of whether it be some help around the house, an errand to run, a contact for home services or just an ear to bend so you could talk about what's going on in your life. I'm here to serve you in whatever way I can.
With that being said, thanks for watching this video and make sure to follow me wherever you're watching this. This video is going to be on Facebook, YouTube, all that, and just be sure to follow me because next week I'm going to put out a video. I've been saying I'm going to be putting this out for a while, but I'm going to sit down and edit it today and release it and it's going to be a video on how to cope during this time of isolation and so that your family will not just survive, but thrive as a family unit and as an individual. It's going to be awesome... A bunch of great content that, again, it's going to be out next Monday, so make sure to follow me and in the meantime, stay safe out there. Take care of yourself and your family and please, have a good day. Make the best of everything.
Resource Links: Low Mortgage Rates Can’t Stop a U.S. Housing Market Crash: https://www.ccn.com/low-mortgage-rates-cant-stop-a-u-s-housing-market-crash/
U.S. Mortgage Rates Hit Fresh All-Time Low, Refinancings Rebound as Markets Stabilize - MBA: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/us-mortgage-rates-hit-record-low-of-3-45-refinancings-rise
March 2020 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report: A First Glimpse of COVID-19 Impact on the U.S. Housing Market: https://www.realtor.com/research/march-2020-data/
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