Within any crisis exists opportunity. The COVID-19 outbreak and lower oil prices have generated a lot of uncertainty in the Anchorage economy, and finding positive news sometimes can be difficult. However, a recent Barron’s article pointed out some byproducts to world events: cheaper gas prices and reduced costs to purchase or refinance real estate.

Real estate is the major beneficiary, since a typical homeowner spends five times more annually on housing than on gasoline. The article noted that the real estate windfall could be worth $600 billion to consumers.

Here are two positives that point to why Anchorage’s real estate market should be able to weather this world crisis. The first is that the supply of homes for sale — inventory — remains low throughout most of Anchorage’s real estate market price ranges. We use the following to gauge the market status of inventory for sale: A seller’s market has less than four months of inventory; a balanced market has four to six months of inventory; and buyer’s market exceeds six months of inventory.

According to an Anchorage MLS Supply and Demand report for March 11, the price ranges between $100,000-$350,000 had an average of 1.56-months supply, and $350,000-$549,999 had an average 2.34-month supply….

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