Report: COVID Has Not Impacted Home Buyers’ Plans

While the coronavirus pandemic has undeniably upended normal life across the world and delivered major blows to economies globally and locally, there is one thing it apparently hasn’t been able to change. According to the National Association of Home Builder’s latest Housing Trends Report, the coronavirus has had little impact on the percentage of people in the U.S. looking to purchase a home.

The new data shows that in the second quarter of 2020, 11 percent of those surveyed by the NAHB were planning on buying a house in the next 12 months. That number is down slightly from the 12 percent recorded in the second quarter of 2019, showing a remarkable consistency in purchasing plans year over year despite COVID uncertainty.

Interestingly, the share of millennials looking to purchase a home actually rose two percent from 2019 to 2020. Millennials were also the group most likely to buy a home by a wide margin, with 19 percent saying they were planning on it compared to 12 percent of Gen Xers and just five percent of Boomers.

The good news for home builders is that the data also suggests people are not just casually floating the idea of buying a house. Thanks to historically low mortgage rates, large percentages of the same people who say they are “planning” on purchasing a home are already trying — 57 percent of Millennials and 49 percent of the Gen Xers, according to the survey

While the willingness to purchase homes is certainly there, several factors are holding people back. Here’s a quick breakdown of the four main reasons why people who have been on the market for a new home have not been able to pull the trigger:

• 39 percent said they can’t find a home at a price they can afford;
• 36 percent can’t find a home with the features they want;
• 32 percent can’t find a home in the neighborhood they want;
• 29 percent report being outbid.

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