Jose Urquilla, an Echols County deputy, and his wife, Rebeca Urquilla, are new homeowners.
Pamela Miller, property manager at Anchor Realty of South Georgia, and Tony Barker, broker/owner of RE/MAX of Valdosta and Anchor, said it’s difficult to keep both rentals and homes for sale on the market.
They recently purchased their Valdosta house through Southern Classic Realtors during an ongoing pandemic.
Jose Urquilla, a deputy with the Echols County Sheriff’s Office, spent last year searching for a house with his wife, Rebeca, and their two children.
Rentals are becoming scarce as residents are nervous to move and are renewing their leases, according to property managers.
James Lee Herndon, owner of The Herndon Company, has been a licensed agent since 1969 and became a broker around 1982.
“We were going into a very healthy market, and then, the pandemic slowed the pipeline down,” he said.
“Let’s just call this the perfect storm because that’s what it is,” Herndon said.
“Right now, properties in Lowndes County, for the most part, are worth more than they’ve ever been,” he said.
She said though the real estate market slowed at the onset of the pandemic, it gained momentum by summertime.
Marissa Brooks, licensed property manager at The Herndon Company, said the business’ rental properties were 98% occupied in early March.
Pitchford quoted the Georgia Realtors saying houses costing between $150,000 and $250,000 remained on the market for an average 40 days in past months.
As of early March, there were 395 houses, commercial properties and land properties available for sale in Valdosta, Lakeland, Adel, Nashville and Brooks County, Pitchford said.
Barker said the Valdosta Board of Realtors – which covers Lowndes, Brooks, Cook, Lanier, Berrien and Echols counties – has reached its peak at about 280 realtors.
“If people can buy, they’re choosing to buy because their payments would be lower purchasing it than it would be on a rental,” he said.
1, 2020 through March 1, 2020 – and we went into lockdown 10 days later – I did 35 leases,” she said.
Anchor manages Carriage Crossing, which had at least one vacancy as of early April.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword.
The criteria for rentals at Herndon is the same as it was before the pandemic, Brooks said.
In the past year, Anchor has had four tenants who said they could not pay rent due to the pandemic.
11, 2001 terrorist attacks “to give back” to first-responders and teachers and health care professionals.
“That process was probably the easiest I’ve ever encountered,” he said.
Having spoken to friends who previously went through the home-buying process, Urquilla said he was told procedures were less strict than before the pandemic.