The Los Angeles home of Penny Marshall is available for $6,950,000. Her longtime residence initially dipped its toe on the market at the beginning of the year for $7,195,000.
The Mediterranean-style property, which Marshall had owned since the early 1980s, was the site of star-studded parties, including joint birthday bashes with her friend, the late Carrie Fisher, according to the Wall Street Journal. Marshall, who directed “A League of Their Own,” died in December 2018. She was 75.
“You get the most exceptional views of the city and the ocean,” says listing agent Jonathan Nash. “It really is the jewel of the Outpost Estates,” an exclusive Hollywood Hills neighborhood of about 400 homes.
Built in 1953, the 9,500-square-foot, eight-bedroom home on 2 acres could use some updates. However, the new buyer might consider preserving some of the star’s quirky decor choices. We love the original, diner-style kitchen with watermelon-design flooring and a built-in banquette. Another highlight is the baseball-themed wallpaper in one of the lower-level bedrooms added by Marshall, who was a sports fanatic.
Access to the pool and views
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Floor-to-ceiling windows
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Vintage kitchen with built-in banquette
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Terrace
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Pool
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With floor-to-ceiling windows, the living and dining rooms are light and bright, and open to terraces.
A screening room with adjacent kitchenette as well as three bedrooms, including the master, sit on the home’s top level.
The lower level features a ballroom and kitchenette/wet bar. Sliding doors open the space to the backyard, which features a pool, palm trees, fruit trees, and grassy areas.
Other features of the lower level include a darkroom, safe room, and two more bedrooms.
The property includes two guest suites and bath house with aseparate entrance.
Marshall was famous for playing Laverne DeFazio on the ’70s TV sitcom “Laverne and Shirley.” She moved on to directing, including“Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Big,” and the Oscar-nominated “Awakenings.”
Jonathan Nash and Stephen Resnick, both with Hilton & Hyland, hold the listing.
Video from the scene showed the main house engulfed by flames. Love and his wife, Robin, were reportedly in the home at the time of the fire, but thankfully escaped without injury.
“The fire was fairly alarming,” says Larry Hobbs, a reporter for the Brunswick News. “It’s way too early to tell what caused it. All the [Glynn County fire] chief could say … was that it started in the garage. A fire of this magnitude on St. Simons to a home of this size is rare in my experience. That it happened to a celebrity golfer, as well as a very popular local couple known for their philanthropy in the community, makes it all the more shocking.”
Davis Love’s estate before it was burned to the ground
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“Mr. Love was straightforward enough to reach out to us with a comment barely before the smoke cleared, to let the community know they plan to remain a part of this community,” Hobbs says. “Speaks to the kind of character that makes him so popular with the local folks.”
“On Friday, March 27, our family home was destroyed by an early morning fire,” Love posted on Twitter. “While everyone in our family is saddened at the loss of our home that was filled with so much laughter and incredible memories, we’re very blessed that everyone is safe and unharmed.
“We’re very thankful to the first responders who made a valiant effort to save our home,” he continued, “and we’re keeping things in perspective as people across our community and around the world are struggling with the current unprecedented health crisis.
“We’ve been proud members of the St Simons/Sea island community for many years and will continue to be for many more,” he said.
A long look for a buyer
Although the Loves were living in the house when the fire erupted, the property had been on the market for a long time.
Initially listed for $5.5 million in 2013, the golfer’s summer getaway on one of the Golden Isles had steadily dropped in price over the years. At the time of the fire, it was available for $4,475,000.
The plantation-style estate has 10,253 square feet of living space, including five bedrooms and 6.5 baths. It comes with horse stables and marsh frontage.
Last year, we looked at the reasons for the property’s lack of offers and cited its size as a potential roadblock for buyers. But the home’s size was a boon when it came to local civic life.
“The loss of the Loves’ St. Simons Island home is a significant loss felt by the entire community,” says local listing agent Cindy Jacobs. “Robin and Davis are longtime and much beloved residents of St. Simons, who have opened up their once-beautiful home and stables to numerous philanthropic events.”
Now, it faces different challenges.
Safety first
A property loss is a sobering reminder that safety issues, though easy to overlook, should be kept top of mind when going through a home purchase.
“Hard-wired home fire alarms, garage smoke detectors, and locations of municipal fire hydrants are rarely thought of when buyers first preview property or eventually purchase property, but clearly are game changers when it comes to personal safety and property preservation,” Jacobs says.
“Fire safety is an issue for any homeowner, [whether it’s] a primary residence or a second home. We are lucky to have exceptional access to both a paid and robust volunteer network of fire fighters on St. Simons and in Glynn County as well as significant resources provided by the county’s infrastructure,” Jacobs continues. “Both of these issues contributed to the two-minute response by local firefighters to the fire at the Loves’ property.”
Sadly, it wasn’t enough to save Love’s luxurious home. But if he’s true to his word, the golf legend will return to this exclusive enclave.
Concerns about the coronavirus have made leaving the house to go grocery shopping, surrounded by other people, feel downright dangerous. But one can’t exist on rice and spaghetti alone. If you’re concerned about a shortage of fresh vegetables in your fridge, you might be a prime candidate for the victory garden trend.
Victory gardens first became a thing about a hundred years ago during World War I, when Americans at home, away from the battlefield, were urged to contribute to the cause by growing vegetables in every flowerpot and patch of land available. These victory gardens resurged during World War II, and they’re enjoying yet another rebirth today due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the New York Times, seed companies are currently inundated with requests, and some are reporting a shipping backlog of close to a month.
“Even with a small amount of acreage, homeowners are able to grow large gardens—and these assets can reduce the number of trips to the grocery store and reduce your odds of contracting the COVID-19 virus,” says Tim MacWelch, owner and lead instructor at Advanced Survival Training in Northern Virginia.
Here’s more about the history of victory gardens, plus some advice for planting your own little patch of edible foliage fast.
Food rationing was a part of life during both world wars, so the government urged Americans to pitch in by tending home garden plots.
“There were also labor and transportation shortages during these periods, which made it difficult to move large harvests to stores, so everyday Americans helped out by planting fruits and vegetables at home—and millions participated by creating victory gardens,” explains Susan Brandt, president of Blooming Secrets.
Empty lots, front lawns, rooftops, and random pots—all were worthy spaces for sowing these wartime seeds.
“Neighbors grew different vegetables and shared their produce with each other, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 20 million American homes had a victory garden,” says Brandt. The result? This program made a significant difference in food production.
“Harvests from private homes were estimated to be 9 or 10 million tons,” Brandt adds. Some estimates say that at one point, victory gardens produced 40% of the country’s fresh fruits and vegetables.
And even before the novel coronavirus came along, home gardens have actually been taking off, thanks to the farm-to-table trend that has people interested in growing their own fresh food.
“For a few years now we’ve seen a heightened interest in edible gardens as the concepts of living a net-zero life, avoiding GMOs, and eating organically appeals to so many people,” says Isara Ongwiseth, lead designer at FormLA Landscaping.
So while there aren’t any breakdowns in our national food chain, since grocery shopping has become stressful, you could start digging in the dirt with the goal of reducing your number of store trips.
Plus, since we’re supposed to stay close to home for the coming weeks, tending a mini plot is a fun task to tackle right in your backyard.
“And gardening is a real workout since planting and weed-pulling strengthens your back, arms, and legs,” Brandt adds.
How to grow a victory garden
“Planting your own garden is perfect timing right now because the weather is getting better all over the country, and you can even sow some seeds inside and then transplant them to the ground later on,” says Brandt.
Plus, you don’t need an actual yard to plant seeds.
“You can definitely use containers, a windowsill, or even grow bags, which is another type of container, if your space is limited—and if you have a balcony or access to a roof, try growing them there,” says Brandt. All you really need, beyond potting soil, is a sunny location so the seeds can germinate.
“Depending on what you plant, a 3-by-6-foot garden can meet much of a family’s need,” says Oscar Ortega, maintenance care manager at FormLA Landscaping.
Community gardens also have space where you can sign up to garden, though you’ll have to keep social distancing in mind when you enter.
Many of the healthiest veggies are also easy (and quick) to grow, including leafy greens like arugula, bok choy, and Swiss chard.
“Other good candidates are zucchini and cucumbers, and herbs are probably the fastest ones, such as thyme, oregano, chives, and parsley,” says Brandt.
“It’s easier to grow plants from small 4-inch starters, which can be obtained from some grocery stores and farmers markets, but if you’re going the seed route, lettuce is a great place to start,” says Ortega.
Home-price growth accelerated in January, the latest indication that the U.S. housing market was poised for a strong year of sales before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 3.9% in the year that ended in January, up from a 3.7% annual rate the prior month.
Economists and real-estate executives had expected robust home sales this year due to a strong job market and low mortgage rates. U.S. existing-home sales rose to a 13-year high in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
But with the pandemic now keeping potential buyers and sellers on the sidelines, experts expect the pace of home sales to sharply decelerate. Capital Economics forecast in March that home sales would drop 35% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
The Case-Shiller 10-city index gained 2.6% over the year ended in January, up from a 2.3% annual change in December. The 20-city index gained 3.1%, after an annual gain of 2.8% in December. Prices rose in all 20 cities.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected the 20-city index to gain 3.2%.
Phoenix had the fastest home-price growth in the country, at 6.9%. Seattle, Tampa and Seattle all posted the second-fastest price growth, at 5.1% each.
A separate measure of home price growth by the Federal Housing Finance Agency released last week found a 5.2% increase in home prices in January from a year earlier.
The singer and songwriter Halsey has sold her rockin’ home in the Hollywood Hills for $2,375,000, Variety reported. She put the angular, one-of-a-kind space on the market in November for $2.6 million.
The sale price is just a bit more than the chart-topping singer paid when she purchased the pad for $2.23 million.
Built in 1990, the bold, contemporary-style residence includes four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and 2,490 square feet on a 7,699-square-foot lot.
It’s located in Beachwood Canyon, gated and well-shielded from looky-loos by tall hedges. Indoors, light floods the ultramodern interior, with its walls of glass, concrete flooring, and asymmetric lines.
Halsey’s Hollywood Hills home
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Sunken living room
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Kitchen with bar seating
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Master suite
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Master bath with concrete vanity
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Patio with lounge space
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The open floor plan includes a sunken living room with vaulted, wood-beamed ceilings, as well as a dining room with wood buffet and bar. The sleek kitchen features an L-shaped counter with bar seating and offers easy access to the patio and barbecue grill outside.
Upstairs, the master suite includes a bath with a poured concrete vanity. According to the Los Angeles Times, Halsey removed a wood wall in the bedroom and added string lights that float overhead. The space includes a sitting area, floating shelves,and a large picture window framing leafy trees.
Outside, the living area extends to an entertaining spot with multiple sitting areas, water features, and an infinity pool and spa with a cantilevered deck, a prime place for a party.
Last March, the musician shelled out $2.4 million for a restored and updated midcentury marvel in Sherman Oaks.
And we know she’s been staying close to home. The “Bad at Love” singer recently posted a video of herself dancing in her bathroom on Instagram, with this cheeky message to her 19 million followers: “Quarantine update. Sorry I haven’t been online, clearly I have been very, very busy. Trying to make the best of this weird time and thinking of you all.”
Just 25, the popular artist (whose given name is Ashley Nicolette Frangipane)has accounted for billions of streams of her popular tunes. Her third album, “Manic,” was released in January.
Joshua Myler of The Agency held the listing. Brian Campbell of Compass represented the buyer.
An Aspen, CO, home on Hopkins Avenue in the heart of the tony town is perfect for stargazing of all kinds.
“What is really unique about this house is the fact that it’s right in the center of downtown Aspen, where we have just a handful of single-family homes,” says listing agent Carrie Wells. “You’re half a block away from restaurants and shopping.”
Listed for $17 million, the historic Victorian home was built in 1888. It’s across from Francis Whitaker Park, a 4-acre park where people play horseshoes, picnic, and relax.
“As you’re looking from the house toward Aspen Mountain, you overlook open space, which is also very unique,” says Wells.
Another distinctive feature of the home—and the reason for its moniker—is the observatory house. Previous owner Elizabeth Jones installed a rooftop observatory as a gift to her son. According to Wells, Aspen’s altitude combined with a lack of city lights makes the area perfect for stargazing.
Rooftop observatory
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The home also offers spectacular mountain views.
“It has views up toward Aspen Mountain so you can see the ski runs,” Wells says. Red Mountain is also visible.
The current owners have used the home in the summers and rented it out during the ski season. The monthly rental income is about $40,000.
The 3,944-square-foot home has six bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, and its exterior might be a bit deceiving.
“It looks one way on the outside, and when you walk in, it’s modern and open and very different from what you would imagine,” Wells says. “The current owners did an extensive renovation on the interior, and it’s very contemporary. It’s Victorian on the outside, but contemporary and open on the inside.”
The owners also took down walls to better display their art collection and open up the flow for entertaining.
“It actually has a really nice outdoor entertaining space, so that’s also unique and great for this property,” Wells explains. “It’s a property that works well if you like to entertain.”
Interior
Michael Brands/Ross Kribbs
The remodeling project won the 2002 Colorado Award for Remodeling Excellence. According to the CARE website, the awards are the state’s largest and longest-running award competition, which honors Colorado architects, custom builders, interior designers, landscape designers, remodelers, and other industry partners.
Downtown Aspen is the place to see and be seen, and this house provides great access to everything.
“Because you’re in the center of where all the action is, you can walk right outside your door and have dinner at all the top restaurants just a half a block away,” Wells says. “It’s where everyone seems to walk around, so there’s a certain lifestyle.
Wells says the eventual buyer will probably use the house as a vacation retreat.
“What attracts people to a house like this is its location, because they’re buying for the lifestyle of being able to walk everywhere,” Wells explains. “So many of our buyers don’t want to rely on their cars; they do that in their primary location. So to walk everywhere is just very desirable.”
Dating to the early 1700s, the Colonial-style home may be the oldest residence on this small island along Maine’s southern coast,
“You sort of look around and you go, ‘wow.’ You can just feel it. You walk into this house, and you really have a sense of [the] history that’s there,” says listing agent Terry Sortwell of LandVest. “It’s just the proportions of the windows, the layout of the house, the stairs are a little steeper than they would be today. You get this feeling of timelessness.”
Exterior
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Interior
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The 2,558-square-foot house has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Despite its age, this home comes with modern conveniences, including a pool.
“It was purchased by the current owners in the late 1990s, and they completely restored it … with some new things like a new kitchen and new bathrooms,” says Sortwell.
The property also comes with what the owner calls his Think House, a small studio with a bookcase and slate fireplace.
“It matches the historic building … and is an open, lovely studio or office,” Sortwell explains.
The owner’s “Think House”
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Think House interior
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The 6-acre property sits on Crabtree Point, which is about 37 acres of conservation land on Penobscot Bay. It’s partly on an easement held by Acadia National Park, and the owner of this property and a few other residents have the right to walk on the conservation land and use the existing deep-water wharf.
“It is some of the most beautiful property that you’ll see in terms of beaches, rocks, granite ledges, and fields,” says Sortwell. “The views are expansive looking down the fields over the conservation land. No one is ever going to build down there, and no one is ever going to interrupt your view.”
Conservation land
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North Haven is a 70-minute ferry ride from the mainland and has about 200 year-round residents. The summer population is about three times that, which is still small.
“A lot of summer people have been coming there with their families for a hundred-plus years,” Sortwell explains, noting the area is known for its fishing and lobstering. “The locals are fishing, or doing carpentry work, caretaking, or running the businesses that are out there on the island.”
The island is a perfect place for a getaway.
The perfect buyer “is somebody who wants a quiet lifestyle with access to the water and the ability to be out in nature and wants to use it as a retreat,” Sortwell says. “It’s certainly not splashy. We attract a lot of people to Maine who are a little more individualistic perhaps.”
It’s for “people who don’t want to be on Nantucket or don’t want to be in the Hamptons. They’re looking for something a little bit different,” Sortwell says.
While Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West reside mainly in a swanky gated community in Hidden Hills, CA, there are apparently big plans afoot for their property in Wyoming, the western branch of the Kimye real estate empire.
According to the Wall Street Journal, West has been meeting with designers and architects to come up with a plan for an eco-friendly compound on one of his properties.
While it’s unclear which property will undergo these upgrades, West has two massive parcels to choose from. In September, he acquired Monster Lake Ranch near Cody, which was on the market for $14 million. Then mere weeks later, he added another property nearby listed for $14.5 million called Bighorn Mountain Ranch.
Among his ambitious plans, which are being attended to by the architect Claudio Silvestrin and light artist James Turrell, are a series of dome-shaped rooms that feature closed-loop ecology to capture and save energy and water.
Also on deck: a vegetable garden, skate park, orchards, a bio pool, and a urine garden.
Yup, you read that right—urine, in the garden, where peas and carrots take root. West’s plan is to install a system that converts human waste into plant food, which is actually an ancient gardening practice used all over the world.
But does that mean having a urine garden is a good idea?
Can urine be used as fertilizer?
As strange as it sounds, urine does contain certain components that make it great fertilizer for certain plants.
According to Cassy Aoyagi, president of FormLA Landscaping, urea (the main substance found in urine) helps with nitrogen uptake in plants.
“Synthetic urea is a major component in commercial-grade chemical fertilizers,” she says, “and organic fertilizers contain urea of animal origin.”
Could you skip purchasing fertilizer and sprinkle your own free pee on your veggie rows? No! There’s a good reason you see signs that say “Curb your dog” around flower beds.
“As with dog urine, human urine can kill plants when applied directly,” Aoyagi says.
Concentration problems aside, “another drawback is the possibility of cross-contamination with fecal matter, which is a big health risk,” explains Susan Brandt, the green thumb at Blooming Secrets. Because you should never, ever consider human feces as fertilizer. Got that?
“While chicken waste is useful in compost, we do not recommend composting with human or pet feces since many horrible diseases have fecal-oral transmission,” Brandt adds.
The only way to avoid such cross-contamination is to shell out for a new toilet designed specifically for the purpose of recycling urine (which is likely what West is doing).
“You’d need separating toilets, where a divided bowl and independent set of pipes separate urine from other waste,” says Brandt. “And this could end up being expensive.”
But even if you could ensure your urine weren’t contaminated by fecal matter, there are other potential problems. For one, medications and urinary tract infections can mess with your urine quality.
A far easier bet is to buy organic fertilizer, which has urine in the right amounts.
How to use urine in a garden
Still, if you are truly determined to use urine in your garden, there are ways to give it a go that are relatively safe if you take the right precautions.
“There are several ways to use urine in the garden, including adding it to your compost pile, applying it to mulch, or diluting it to make a fertilizing solution,” says Brandt.
The first step is to collect your output carefully. While West probably isn’t peeing into a cup for his romaine rows (he likely has his own pipes that store and process his DIY fertilizer), homeowners can catch their own in a plastic or glass container and then transfer it to a watering can.
Next, you’ll need to dilute your urine with water.
“For corn, the water to urine ratio is 4-to-1, and you can use this solution every two weeks,” says Brandt. As for other veggies, such as peppers, cabbage, spinach, and eggplant, a 10-to-1 ratio is recommended every two weeks or as needed.
When watering with this mixture, fertilize vegetables only at their roots—not on any part of the plant you plan to consume. And in case you’re wondering, no, that pee smell and taste won’t transfer to your plants!
How to use urine on compost
If you’re tending to an outdoor compost pile of leaves and paper at your house, these can benefit from occasional direct applications of urine. (The nitrogen in pee helps to speed the breakdown process, according to the Cornell Waste Management Institute.)
“Undiluted urine is also a weed killer, and the uric acid in urine may deter or eliminate fungus on plants,” says Brandt.
Want to keep rabbits, fox, and feral cats away from your garden? Just add pee around the perimeter, particularly early-morning pee.
“Apparently the scent of human urine, especially the most pungent batch you’ve created first thing in the morning, can keep these animals from digging in your plants,” says Brandt. “And if deer are an issue where you live, you can put early-morning pee in a spray bottle and mist the trees to keep them away.”
The index measures real-estate transactions where a contract was signed but the sale had not yet closed, benchmarked to contract-signing activity in 2001. It serves as an indicator for existing-home sales reports in the coming months.
What happened: Compared with February 2019, signings were up 9.4% nationally.
On a monthly basis, pending sales were up in every region with the West seeing the largest gain at 4.6%, followed by the Midwest (4.5%) and the Northeast (2.8%). In the South, contract signings inched up just 0.1%.
The big picture: Before the coronavirus outbreak hit the U.S., the residential real-estate market was in a decent position. While the short supply of homes for sale had put a ceiling on the number of sales that could happen in any given month, there was an excess amount of demand in the market. In particular, the low interest rate environment that had prevailed since last summer was keeping sales volumes elevated, as it helped make buying a home more affordable.
The question now for the market is how much the COVID-19 pandemic will hurt the country’s economy and real-estate market. Studies based on previous widespread illness outbreaks have shown that the real-estate industry has historically rebounded fairly well in areas that were hard hit. Much will depend on how quickly those who lost their jobs or income as a result of the coronavirus pandemic can recover.
What they’re saying: “Housing, just like most other industries, suffered from the coronavirus crisis, but once this predicament is behind us and the habit of social distancing is respected, I’m encouraged there will be continued home transactions though, with more virtual tours, electronic signatures, and external home appraisals. Many of the home sales that are likely to be missed during the first part of 2020 may simply be pushed into late summer and autumn parts of the year,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were both up in Monday morning trading as investors were upbeat on efforts to contain the coronavirus. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was down slightly.
The former New York Knicks All-Star was forced to forfeit any profit on the mansion, which had spent years on the market. The home sold for $2.65 million—more than 60 percent less than its initial 2016 price of $7 million.
After the property was listed four years ago, its price was steadily slashed each year, in hopes that a buyer might take a shot. It was last on the market at a price of $4 million in 2019, but the winning buyer managed to carve out an even larger discount.
After several years without any action, the Georgetown University basketball coach pivoted last year to renting it out, at a monthly rate of $25,000.
Ewing picked up the spec house in 2007 for $6.35 million.
“He put a lot of money into it,” listing agent Michele Kolsky-Assatly told us last year. The home was customized for his unusually tall frame and featured raised counters and heights. Ewing also put in a screening room and added a basketball court outside.
Patrick Ewing’s NJ mansion
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Family room with interior balcony
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Dining room
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Office with memorabilia
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Kitchen
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Screening room
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Lower level with bar
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Lagoon-shaped pool
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While the home is perfectly tailored for an outsize athlete, it’s possible that some buyers were turned off by a home tricked out for a 7-footer.
On the plus side, the parcel in exclusive Tamcrest Estatesis “totally private,” Kolsky-Assatly said. With the major discount, any updatesto the interior (resizing the counter heights, for example), could be factored into the budget.
The 10,524-square-foot brick house opens with a grand foyer with a curved staircase. The two-story family room features floor-to-ceiling windows, a double-sided fireplace, and an interior balcony.
The large chef’s kitchen comes with stainless-steel appliances, an island with bar seating, and a breakfast area with a fireplace, and looks out to the well-manicured grounds.
The main floor also includes a formal dining area and an office with built-ins, ideal for showcasing sports memorabilia. Upstairs, you’ll find a second-floor master suite with a fireplace, as well as four more en suite bedrooms.
In total, the layout includes seven bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, and two half-baths.
On the lower level, there’s a wet bar, recreation room, media room, and gym. Plus, the space also includes a guest bed and bath. This floor opens out to the basketball court. The property also comes with a four-car garage.
The backyard also boasts a lagoon-shaped pool and spa. Ewing apparently never spent much time in the home, reserving it for family get-togethers in the Northeast.
Ewing, 57, had an 18-year career in the NBA, mainly as the center of the New York Knicks. He’s currently the head coach of the men’s basketball team of Georgetown University, his alma mater.
The 11-time NBA All-Star is considered one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time.
Just about everyone has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic—and the crisis, according to most experts, is only beginning to play out in many parts of the U.S. America now has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world. And beyond the devastating human toll, an economic one is looming. The unemployment numbers are staggering, and the economy appears to be headed for a recession, if it’s not already in one.
That’s bound to affect just about every housing market in the country, some worse than others. But which are the most vulnerable? The realtor.com® data team found the counties that could be most at risk in the worsening financial crisis.
Tourism and vacation-home hot spots could be affected more than others, at least initially. These places that depend on visitors to frequent local hotels, restaurants, and attractions to keep their local economies afloat are starting to see big job losses. And when local economies suffer and people aren’t working, housing markets hurt.
“The biggest initial coronavirus hit will be felt in the tourism and hospitality industries,” says realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. These are the same places where folks tend to buy vacation homes.
“Second-home markets tend to be hit a bit harder in a recession. … When people are cutting back, that’s where they’ll cut back,” says Hale.
The luxury home market is also expected to feel the pain.
“Luxury buyers [typically] have a lot of their money in the stock market, and the stock market has taken a huge hit,” says Ali Wolf, chief economist at Meyers Research, a national real estate consultancy. “They’re saying, ‘Let’s wait. Let’s ride this thing out.’ Buying a luxury, new home right now is something that can wait.”
Popular retiree destinations may also experience a slowdown. Older Americans, who are more vulnerable to the virus, are increasingly reluctant (or unable) to visit potential forever homes in warmer-weather states. Many of these retirees and soon-to-be retirees hail from the Northeast, the epicenter of the crisis, and the Midwest. And most already have homes, so moving to a retirement community or a sunny, new locale isn’t urgent—it can be put off until the crisis has passed.
But real estate professionals are optimistic that these near-term vulnerable markets, like the rest of the nation, will likely bounce back once the virus is contained.
“Most housing markets in the country will take a significant short-term hit due to COVID-19,” says Wolf. “[But] ultimately the housing market is going to come back.”
To come up with our list, we looked at the counties with the highest percentage of workers in the industries that are most likely to be affected by this coronavirus-fueled crisis. These included a wide range of tourism, hospitality, retail, and other face-to-face fields, ranging from personal fitness, restaurant, and performing arts workers to those employed at car dealerships, casinos, and cruise lines. The data came from the 2017 County Business Patterns data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The manufacturing industry was not included in our analysis. We counted only the counties with at least 100,000 workers and included one county per state to add some geographic diversity to our list.
We broke out the different trends affecting these markets, and took a deeper dive into each. All of the places on our list fall into more than one of these buckets; a few of them fall into each of them.
1. Popular second-home destinations are beginning to slow
All of the counties on our list, most of them on the water, are popular with tourists and vacation home buyers for a reason. They tend to offer lots of natural beauty, plenty of local, unique attractions, and a plethora of places to grab a bite and a drink. And those are the same things that make them more vulnerable to a downturn.
After the housing bust that triggered the Great Recession, home values in resort areas plunged about 25% to 50% depending on where they were located, Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting, previously told realtor.com. Meanwhile, nationally home prices fell only 17.5% from 2006 to 2011, according to McCabe’s analysis.
Myrtle Beach, in the most vulnerable county of our analysis, could take a double hit since it’s both a popular vacation home market as well as a major lure for retirees. (Median home prices in Horry County, at $239,050, are the lowest of our list.) About two-thirds of sales in the area are vacation and investment homes. And those sales slowed in mid-March after President Donald Trump first addressed the nation on the pandemic, says Laura Crowther, CEO of the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors®, based in Myrtle Beach.
Myrtle Beach, SC
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Many second-home buyers come from out of state, and now they can’t physically travel to South Carolina to view properties.
But Crowther is seeing an increase in virtual tours of Myrtle Beach listings, and for now, locals are still buying properties, buoying the market.
“It’s a very difficult time right now for Myrtle Beach and other areas like it,” says Robert Salvino, director of the Grant Center for Real Estate and Economics at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. “Transactions will decline. There’s simply a real difficulty showing and looking at homes.”
The area, like all of the others in our analysis, relies on lots of visitors to eat at its restaurants, stay at its hotels, and visit its attractions—basically pump money into its economy.
Some of these markets were also badly affected by last decade’s housing bust. Single-family home sale prices in the Myrtle Beach metro area peaked at $242,310 in July 2006, according to multiple listing service data provided by Salvino. Prices bottomed out to $160,000 in November 2012. They’ve since rose to $241,900 for the full year of 2019—still short of the previous high nearly 14 years ago.
“Second-home markets are the first to be affected” by a recession, says Salvino. “People are going to hold off on buying until they know they’re secure and prioritize affording the first home.”
The crisis is also likely to hurt the short-term rentals market, like Airbnb. Investors may hold off on buying properties in tourist areas until the crisis passes.
After the housing crash, prices for Honolulu’s short-term rentals, mostly condos rented out to visitors, fell by more than 50% in some cases, says local real estate broker George Krischke of Hawaii Living. This could happen again as most Americans are hunkering down instead of jetting off to the tropics during a global pandemic.
In Atlantic County, home to Atlantic City, NJ (No.3 on our list), folks struggling to pay their bills may sell their vacation homes to help alleviate some of their expenses.
“Some people rent [out] during the summer season to help alleviate some of the expenses,” says David Fiorenza, an economics professor at Villanova University in the Philadelphia suburbs. “It’s going to be harder for people if they have two mortgages, one at their primary residence and one at their secondary residence.”
And while this is likely more of a short-term crisis, it could have some serious long-term effects.
Once the virus is under control, vacation home buyers and retirees may want to buy property closer to their primary homes and family, says Sudesh Mujumdar, dean of the College of Business Administration at Savannah State University in Georgia.
They may fear another pandemic or crisis. And that could hurt markets like Savannah, which has a growing retiree and second-home market.
“This might have a longer-term impact on our social fabric,” says Mujumdar.
2. Retirees may put home purchases—and relocations—on hold
Retirees tend to be attracted to many of the warmer-weather, tourist, and vacation home areas on our list. But those hailing from the particularly hard-hit Northeast as well as the Midwest aren’t likely forgoing social distancing to head to South Carolina, Florida, and Hawaii to tour homes. Older individuals are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, with some of the highest mortality rates.
So many of them are holding off on their home searches.
“Right now people are adopting a wait-and-see attitude,” says Brad O’Connor, chief economist of Florida Realtors®, the state’s Orlando-based trade group. “Everyone’s going to put some stuff on pause right now temporarily while we get a handle on things.”
3. Luxury markets could see slumps
Luxury markets won’t be exempt from the distress. With the stock market in turmoil and the economy in a downturn, many buyers are more likely to hold off on big-ticket purchases. A pair of such markets likely to be affected are ultrapricey Honolulu County (No. 6) and Monterey County (No. 8).
After the housing bust and the Great Recession, home prices in Honolulu County fell about 10%, says Honolulu broker Krischke. He believes the price declines this time around will be much milder.
“We will always be paradise, but right now we’re having tough times just like everybody else,” says Krischke.
The market in Monterey, CA, an affluent, seaside county just south of Silicon Valley, is already beginning to stall. The market is split between primary and vacation homes.
Carmel-by-the-Sea
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There has been only 12 closings for Monterey County homes costing $1.5 million and more as of March 18—typically, that number would have been closer to 30, says real estate broker Andrew Oldham of Compass, who’s based in Carmel-by-the-Sea. But now he’s seeing extensions, cancellations, and mortgages that are taking longer to process. Some sellers are pulling their properties off the market or even dropping prices. Few new listings are appearing.
However, his team is still seeing multiple offers on less expensive fixer-uppers that are priced right.
They’re also seeing buyers make offers on homes they’ve viewed online with contingencies that would allow them to back out of the deal—just in case problems with the properties crop up once they’re finally able to see the homes in person.
Prices plunged 33% to 40% during and after the Great Recession, but he doesn’t expect anything that drastic this time around. He anticipates there could be a 5% to 10% dip.
“So far we’re not seeing too much of a correction right now,” says Oldham. “If you go in thinking you’re going to get a good deal, you’re probably not.”
4. Gambling meccas will likely be hard-hit
Las Vegas Strip after the statewide closure of nonessential businesses
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Two of the counties on our list, Clark County’s Las Vegas (No. 2) and Atlantic County’s Atlantic City, were clobbered by the financial meltdown in the mid-aughts. Both had struggled to recover and were finally on the upswing—that is until the spread of COVID-19 forced the casinos, hardly centers for social distancing, to close tight.
Just last month, median home prices in the greater Las Vegas area surpassed their height-of-market highs, just before the crash, according to Las Vegas Realtors®, the local trade group. (This was for single-family, existing homes.) Home prices in Southern Nevada reached $316,000 in February compared with $315,000 in June 2006.
“That’s kind of ironic,” says longtime real estate agent Bryan Kyle of First Serve Realty. “It had been a long time coming.”
The recovery had taken much longer because the city’s real estate market had fallen much further than in other parts of the country. So it had more lost ground to make up.
But unlike last time, Las Vegas is better positioned to weather this storm as there hasn’t been rampant overbuilding, says Stephen Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There is no longer a vast supply of empty homes.
The problem is the city hasn’t diversified its industries to protect it from a downturn. About 29% of Clark County’s employment is in leisure and hospitality, says Miller. And 1 in 7 visitors is coming to the city for a convention, most of which have been postponed or cancelled.
“We’re so heavily reliant on leisure and hospitality,” says Miller. “The problem is we don’t know how long this is going to last.”
And if it doesn’t end soon, that could spell trouble. In Atlantic City, May through September are the make-or-break months.
“If we’re not able to get the casinos running by May, we’re not going to see any good economic impact this summer at the Jersey Shore,” says Villanova University’s Fiorenza.
