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Low interest rates boosting home sales

FAIRMONT — As COVID-19 continues to dominate headlines and upend lives, it can become second nature to focus on the hardships we all face. However, good news still shines through the clouds.

One bright spot comes from Jarod Mathiason of Supreme Lending in Fairmont. He recently received some welcome news from his home office.

“Home sales are up 14 percent from March of 2019, which is really good,” he said. “In February, we saw they were down 4 percent year over year. So that’s good news, because a lot of folks would expect that in this crazy market with the pandemic that sales would be down, but they’re actually up.

“I think what we’re seeing is that consumers are extremely excited. A lot of people who had been renting previously have seen that interest rates have gone down so much and that the Federal Reserve has lowered their rate down to virtually zero percent. It’s generating a lot of excitement, so we’ve been extremely busy.

“In almost seven years, this might be the busiest I’ve ever been coming into March and April. That’s very good news in this climate.”

Mathiason then offered more specifics on how COVID-19 has affected buyers and sellers. He noted that, as with many other businesses, firms are able to work around the social distancing issue via technology and alternative strategies.

“In response to COVID-19, we’ve seen the federal government come out and give us some ways to still get the loan process done,” he said. “For instance, they’re now allowing external appraisals. So an appraiser will be able to just walk around the property from the outside and then view the information that’s available through the realtor’s listing and what’s on the county website in order to come up with a determination of value.

“One of the other issues we’re trying to combat is that when somebody buys a house, we have to get what’s called a verification of employment, where we reach out to the human resources department and verify people’s employment. But there’s a lot of companies right now that don’t have anybody there to answer the phone.

“So we’re able to verify using alternative methods, such as a most recent pay-stub or looking at a bank statement and seeing the money going into their account and making an evaluation based on that.”

When asked if he expects the uptick to continue in the housing market, Mathiason said he does.

“Loan officer, realtors, closing companies and appraisers have all been deemed essential employees, and we’ve actually seen some really great innovation in all of those arenas,” he said.

He added that one person he knows has been conducting virtual tours through houses, even as buyers sit in the comfort of their own home.

“It’s really been limiting exposure,” Mathiason said. “A lot of closing companies are limiting who can come in, where it’s only the signers who can come in. As soon as they sign, they’re ushered back out to their car, where they can wait for the loan process to actually fund.

“We’re also seeing some home-cleaning services where people are able to hire a company to come in an actually sanitize a house. So we’re actually seeing the industry shift to accommodate.

“The one thing that doesn’t change is that people who need to downsize still need to downsize. Young families that are having more kids still need larger houses, and that doesn’t change because of all this. We still have a limited rental market in Fairmont, and there’s a lot of things that can’t be put on hold and it’s hard to shelter in place if you don’t have somewhere to shelter in place.”

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