Virginia’s housing market is poised for a strong recovery this summer. Has COVID-19 had an impact on the housing and community preferences of home buyers? Virginia REALTORS^®, in partnership with the National Association of REALTORS^®, will be conducting a survey of home buyers and sellers later this year. In the meantime, we have asked our REALTOR^® members if they are already seeing a change in what buyers are looking for as market activity begins to rebound. We received responses from 760 Virginia REALTORS^®.

Highlights from the June 19-20, 2020 survey include the following:

• About one in three Virginia REALTORS^® (31.2%) say that they think home buyers will be looking for different types of home amenities post-COVID. The two most common home features REALTORS^® think buyers will be looking for are a dedicated home office and outdoor space/backyard.
• More than a third of REALTORS^® in Virginia (35.7%) say that COVID-19 will have an impact on the types of communities that home buyers will be looking for. In particular, REALTORS^® say that they think home buyers will be more likely to look for homes in rural areas than they were before COVID-19.

A note about surveys: This is not a randomized sample survey of Virginia REALTORS^® members. However, the number of responses and the geographic coverage of respondents make it possible to draw conclusions about the population of Virginia REALTORS^® conducting business in the prior week, with a certain level of confidence. These statistics from this survey have a margin of error of between  +/3.6% and +/-6.4%

Virginia REALTORS^® will continue to monitor the economy and housing market in Virginia. New information is updated on the Virginia REALTORS^® website. For more information, please contact Lisa Sturtevant (lsturtevant@virginiarealtors.org).