Join Aaron Keck every Tuesday afternoon for Chatham County Roundup, a recurring series that shines the spotlight on Chatham County through engaging discussions and interviews with locals, newsmakers, officials and more. 

 

This week on Chatham County Roundup, join Aaron Keck for a conversation with Bill Horner of the Chatham News + Record about the continuing effects of COVID-19 and how it’s affecting Chatham’s real estate market.

“I was actually, originally was going to work on a story looking at commercial real estate in Chatham County because it’s so pricey, particularly on the Chapel Hill side of the county and then COVID hit,” said Horner. “And, you know, I started thinking about people in the real estate business who just saw things come to a standstill, and I thought it would be interesting to do a story looking at the impact of COVID on their own personal pocketbooks. So, I began talking to a number of different agents and then — lo and behold — we had this market just kind of fell to the ground and then rapidly started picking back up.”

According to Horner — and his story on the state of the Chatham real estate market — the effect of COVID-19 is far different from previous bubbles or disasters. Where long-term fallout would have normally been expected from a stoppage of social interactions and an interruption to business as usual, Chatham’s “hot” housing market heading into the COVID-19 crisis may have a easier path to bouncing back.

“The fact is, you know, the reality everybody’s got to live somewhere and regardless of COVID, despite all that, there were people who needed to buy homes and people who are looking to sell homes,” said Horner. “And so the market kind of found a way to keep going.”

 

Listen below for the full conversation, and tune in weekly for conversations about Chatham County happenings, people, news and more.