Written by Bill Fishburne
Rising Sales & Prices Shattered Expectations Across the Region
The year 20201 was an Annus horribilis. Any year in which a pandemic such as the flu strikes, or worst of all so far, COVID-19, is horrid beyond description. As a result, our national focus from late January through the end of the year was rightly targeted on preventing the spread of COVID-19, on treating those it infected, and on developing a vaccine to protect us from it. In the last few weeks of the year, we had the vaccine and some glimmer of hope, even as a newer, more virulent strain of the disease began to spread. Our national focus shifted again from development to distribution and to resurrecting the economy by whatever means possible.
Virginia, at year’s end, Santa Claus was actually coming. Thanks to the scientists from multiple pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies, we had vaccines in our hands and in some of our arms. We will continue to hope and pray for relief in 2021 and the years ahead. Meanwhile, we will look at the real estate market in Western North Carolina to assess the impact this most terrible of years may have had.
Perhaps the best way to start is to acknowledge that despite it all, Americans persevered and continued their lives without willingly cowering in fear as some thought they should. Rightly or wrongly, North Carolina was put under a tight quarantine in March, and real estate sales were not considered an essential business. This created an abnormal dip in sales from which we more than recovered before year’s end.
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