{"id":65130,"date":"2020-03-23T23:09:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T05:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hindsight-helps-in-making-real-estate-forecasts-coronavirus-to-play-greater-role-than-thought\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:15:07","slug":"hindsight-helps-in-making-real-estate-forecasts-coronavirus-to-play-greater-role-than-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hindsight-helps-in-making-real-estate-forecasts-coronavirus-to-play-greater-role-than-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindsight helps in making real estate forecasts: Coronavirus to play greater role than thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"John
John Wells, owner-broker of The Wells Group, said it\u2019s now apparent damage from COVID-19 will be far greater to the economy and to the real estate market than when his team began preparing for the 2020 Annual Real Estate Forecast in January.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Hindsight is always 20-20, and that\u2019s even more true when you\u2019re making annual forecasts.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic had just become an issue internationally when John Wells, broker-owner of the Wells Group, said his office began researching and preparing data for The Wells Group 2020 Annual Forecast, which was delivered March 12, just as the pandemic was reaching the United States.<\/p>\n

The Durango Herald<\/em> reported on the forecast 10 days later, but a lot changed during those 10 days.<\/p>\n

The forecast ranked the coronavirus 10th among factors that could affect the La Plata County real estate market. Although, Wells noted during the Annual Forecast he had offered a caveat that the outbreak was in its early stages and it might move rapidly up among factors influencing the real estate market \u2013 which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe collect the data in January and February, and we actually finish the forecast 2\u00bd weeks before it\u2019s delivered. Then the article<\/a> about the forecast wasn\u2019t printed until 10 days after the forecast. A lot changed in that time. I certainly would have moved the impact from the coronavirus up from 10th,\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n

Given the massive slowdown in commerce caused by measures taken across the world, the country, the state and right here in La Plata County, Wells said, it\u2019s now more than obvious that economic consequences from job losses, closed businesses and lack of travel will cause problems throughout the economy, including the real estate market.<\/p>\n

The impact of COVID-19 in Durango spotlights the region\u2019s need to diversify its economy away from tourism, Wells said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNationally, tourism is 1% of (gross domestic product). In Durango, it\u2019s 20%. It\u2019s why we need business parks to attract light industry. We need to diversify our economy. Can you imagine if tourism was 5% of our economy right now? Would we be in a better position? Yes, we\u2019d still be hit by the virus, but people could work from home. It wouldn\u2019t be as devastating as what we\u2019re now facing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wells said he remains confident that the tourism industry in Durango, La Plata County and Southwest Colorado is better poised to recover from COVID-19, but he added he\u2019s unsure how long that will take.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople certainly won\u2019t be traveling for the next month, and who knows how long it will be until we return to a point when we can travel safely, but when we do get to that point, I think we\u2019re going to be in a good position,\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n

He remained convinced that Southwest Colorado, with it\u2019s abundance of outdoor opportunities, clear air and low-population density, will be a popular attraction to tourists compared with New York, Los Angeles or other urban tourist destinations now more hard hit by COVID-19.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangohherald.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 changed the world, and Durango, during course of preparing and delivering 2020 outlook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,29,614,421],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-newsletter","tag-real-estate","tag-tourism-and-leisure"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89848,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65130\/revisions\/89848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65130"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}