Low Interest Rates and Strong Buyer Demand Continue to Drive Markets into 2021 

Last year’s remarkable demand and strong recovery were fueled by historic low interest rates and the heightened focus on “home” and “vacation home” as a result of COVID lockdowns and temporary closings of the work, school and entertainment places people would otherwise be. While many took a hard financial hit, others had a windfall of savings—money they didn’t spend on travel, dining and lifestyle activities. The charts that follow illustrate market performance by comparing last year to 2019 with some insight as to what lies ahead. The first two pages focus on the TAAR 5-County condo market. The next two pages deal with single family waterfront properties (23 percent of sales, but 39 percent of closed volume), followed by a section on the single family non-waterfront market (62 percent of total sales). The combination of high demand, low rates and COVID has knocked some of the seasonality out of this year’s market. Despite the number of available listings being less than half of what it was a year ago, the market continues to roar and so long as inventory holds out, it won’t slow much as it heads into 2021. 

Condos 

(15% of TAAR 5-C sales, 12% closed volume)