Will the Government Shutdown affect the local real estate market?

[Abraham Walker]

Originally Posted by Piney Creek

Would it be smart to contact the IRS ourselves and get some sort of verification from them to give to the buyers for their title search?

I'd suggest telling your listing agent that you would like to choose your title company now. Formally request title company to start the title search process and submit the necessary request to the IRS. This may require some pressure from you to get the title company to take your request seriously since most title companies seem to have a "just in time" way of operating the business.

Even if your request isn't honored by the IRS during the government shutdown, this may help you get ahead of the backlog that would have developed once the IRS reopens its doors.

Your second challenge when selling your home right now involves the buyer's lender ability to perform on their loan. If the buyer isn't able to verify their income through the IRS this may delay your closing. Have your listing agent add a question to their offer intake process to confirm the buyer's lender ability to perform during a government shutdown.

I just looked at the Average Days on Market stats for Sterling for the 1st quarter of the past 5 years.

Avg Days on Market

Q1 2018 - 68
Q1 2017 - 90
Q1 2016 - 114
Q1 2015 - 119
Q1 2014 - 75

The good news is that you may not be entertaining an offer for up to 2 months. Add an additional 30 - 40 days for Contract to Settle and you have 3 months before the Government Shutdown should be an issue.

It's anyone's guess right now the likelihood that the Shutdown will last longer than 3 months and I still recommend taking the proactive approach.

Good luck with the sale of your home.

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an agency relationship. Sales data obtained through Bright MLS and calculated on January 8, 2019.

[Piney Creek]

FWIW, we're selling a property in Loudoun and had the open house this weekend. I wasn't expecting any traffic at all, considering the snow and economic insecurities from the shutdown.

To our surprise, we had six serious buyers stop by, including one who had his realtor call our realtor about closing dates. So maybe the market is doing better than I would have expected.

We had another property that we sold a few months ago, and the open house for that one was right after Labor Day. We had mostly looky loos at that one, and if there were a few serious buyers we didn't get any nibbles.

Hoping this is good news for the spring RE market, even for houses far from Arlington (and thus not part of the Amazon effect).