Home Sweet Home

Now more than ever, your home is a safe haven.  Whether it’s an apartment, a trailer, a single family home or your first condo, we are grateful to have a place in which to ‘hunker down’. A special thank you to Robin Ward, head of Real Estate Services for the MOA, who organized the shelters for the homeless at the Sullivan Arena and Ben Boeke. Lisa Sauder is also doing an amazing job coordinating and feeding the homeless.  Both of these individuals deserve a special thank you when the time comes to honor those who are helping to keep our community safe from the corona virus.

Here at Dwell Realty, we have closed our office to the public; postponed our weekend open houses with our sellers and builders’ cooperation; encouraging our realtors to show homes only by appointment and to provide virtual tours on homes for sale. On the right hand column is a list of Dwell realtors and their cell phones to contact for daily updates on the residential market.

Despite the corona virus, from March 17 to 23rd, the Anchorage market had 30 pending sales, including two over $950,000; one between $750,000 and $799,999; and 19 between $300,000 and $499,999  which is down 24 sales from the prior week but comparable to the 32 reported in 2018. Our single family inventory as of last week was 360 units which is still the lowest in the past five years, when in 2015, there were 371 homes for sale for that same time period. On Monday, the 23rd, there were only 17 new listings entered into MLS. Our market has shown a slight decline in pending sales but lack of inventory continues to create a modicum of stability. When this situation has subsided, Anchorage will still be faced with a housing and residential land shortage for single family homes. Local builders and their subcontractors are still working to provide new housing when our economy rebounds. 

At Dwell Realty we’re taking the extra time that we might not always have with everyday business needs to contemplate how we can provide more and better services to our buyers and sellers.  We’re researching what home buyers will want moving forward after their self-quarantine.  We’re pretty sure that first floor flex room has now really become a home office! And the kitchen island, minus a sink or stove top, is the new learning center. 

Right now is a good time to take a break from all the streaming information on the corona virus and get some outdoor exercise. Thank goodness for Anchorage’s 223 neighborhood parks and 120 miles of bike and multi-use trails; 130 miles of plowed winter walkways; 105 miles of ski trails; 36 miles of dog mushing trails; 24 miles of lighted ski trails plus many of these trails connect to Chugach State Park, a high, alpine tundra park of some 495,000 acres. Personally, I’m partial to walking along the Park Strip and South Addition alleys where I took this photo with Hapa and saw some bear scat! So ‘beware’ out there! Spring is here and so are the bears.