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50 | M REPORT O R I G I NAT I O N S E R V I C I N G DATA G O V E R N M E N T S E C O N DA R Y M A R K E T THE LATEST DATA Economists Confident About Housing Recovery More than 90% of respondents said they are already seeing buyers return to the market. D etails from a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) revealed that the vast 9 out of 10 of its expert members believe that the housing industry is on its way to recovery. While many states across the nation slowly edge toward reopening and the economy begins to climb its way out of its slump, hope seems to be on the rise among NAR's agents. This sentiment among the real estate professionals was pro- cured from the analysis of data taken from NAR's 2020 Market Recovery Survey, which polled agents about the current condi- tions of—and their feelings about— their local real estate markets. Also, 92% of the responding agents reported that they are already see- ing their buyers begin to return to the market or that they never left in the first place. A further break down of this 92% revealed that 18% specified the latter (buyers never having left) to be the case, with 9% claiming the prior (buyers already returning to market). Of further note regarding those buyers who satisfied both these niches were shown to be more concentrated in those small towns and rural areas spread across the U.S. versus other larger metros and the like. Regarding sellers, the survey showed that 89% of Realtors responded that a portion of their clients has either returned to the market or never appeared to have left (meaning they never delisted their properties). Of this 89%, just shy of a quarter specifically stated that their sellers never removed their property listings from the active market. Just as with the buyers, it was reported that fewer sellers are to be found in the sub- urban and urban areas versus the smaller, more rural locales. Lawrence Yun, NAR's Chief Economist, offered his expert insight on the current state of the housing market, specifically in light of how it has been affected by the pandemic: "The residential market has seen a swift rebound of activity as numerous states have begun to ease mandatory stay-at-home orders. Many poten- tial buyers and home sellers were kept at bay in the initial stages of the coronavirus outbreak, but Realtors nationwide were able to quickly pivot, embracing technol- ogy and business practices to ensure the home buying process continued in a safe manner."