There’s no doubt that 2020 was the year of big change, and the real estate industry is no exception. In places like San Diego specifically, the housing market took a big hit after the pandemic started.
According to a SANDAG report, at least 176,000 people left unemployed in San Diego, and $4.8 billion in wages lost in those first six months alone.” You can read more about the COVID-19 impacts on the San Diego Regional ecomony here: https://www.sandag.org/uploads/publicationid/publicationid_4712_28193.pdf
That being said, many are looking to see what 2021 will bring to the real estate market as the economy starts to recover. We sat down with Sawyer Winston, real estate entrepreneur to talk about what the next year might bring. Let’s get started.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
I am a San Diego native and have always been interested in interacting with my community. I started in real estate pretty early, at age 17.
By the time I was in college, I was taking on bigger and bigger roles. I started building my own companies, the biggest growing to nearly 50 employees and spanning two different countries.
How has the coronavirus impacted the San Diego real estate?
I would say that San Diego initially took a pretty big hit with the pandemic. The real estate trends we saw in 2020 has drastically changed. It’s usually a thriving community that always does really well, but this year things got pretty bad.
People were not able to see homes in person, and many sellers pulled their homes from the market. However, in the second half of the year as restrictions started to get better, home prices rose more than 10% since the start of the pandemic.
San Diego is a very resilient place. There are many ways San Diego can recovery from the pandemic and I’m happy to see things are getting better as we approach start of 2021.
What trends are we seeing in the real estate business right now?
In San Diego, we’re seeing a pretty low inventory rate right now, a lot lower than usual. One recent report showing that inventory is actually down 45% from previous years, which is pretty crazy.
However, mortgage rates are still low which is awesome. This means that people who couldn’t usually invest in the market have their chance now.
What’s next for you?
At the moment I’m expanding my real estate work even more, but this time outside of San Diego. I also have a project underway that I’m very excited about but am keeping private for now.
I want to help rehab communities that are experiencing a stalled economy. I’ve made it my mission to help communities which are facing economic hardships and get them back on their feet. I hope to expand this across this country, helping communities in need.
