As we continue to look for answers to some of the biggest questions surrounding this crisis, we start to wonder what kind of effect the stock market has on the housing market, and how much of an impact we will see as a result. We begin by asking ourselves; When the stock market goes down as quickly has it has been, does it have a tremendous effect on home prices?

Often the best answers to questions is another question itself, and in this case, we look to the last crisis that occurred; being the crash of 2008.  So, we ask, will this be just like 2008?

To help answer this, we take a look at the graph provided above which shows the crash of 2008, to the S&P Correction of the same time. The graph illustrates the S&P Correction at 51% during that time, and the Annual Home Price Deprecation that occurred just under 20%.

In a quote by David Rosenberg, he explains that what we are experiencing now has more in common with what we experienced in 2001 (9/11) than with 2008.

“What 9/11 has in common with what is happening today is that this shock has also generated fear, angst, and anxiety among the general public. People avoided crowds then as they believed another terrorist attack was coming and are acting the same today to avoid getting sick. The same parts of the economy are under pressure – airlines, leisure, hospitality, restaurants, entertainment – consumer discretionary services in general.” – David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.’s Chief Economist.

When breaking down what was said by Mr. Rosenberg, we can see that this event lines up more with how we acted when 9/11 occurred. To help better illustrate this comparison, we will look at the graph below similarly as we did for 2008, but instead observe what occurred with 9/11 as well as the Dot.com crash.

Here we can see that the S&P Correction was at 45%, however cumulatively over the same time, Housing Price Appreciation was up almost 24%. This shows that housing reacted very differently during 9/11 and the Dot.com crash compared to how it reacted in 2008. This visual helps make the case that it’s not unreasonable to say that if what we’re experiencing right now is a lot more like 9/11 and not 2008,  than the housing market will react a lot more like it did during 9/11 and the Dot.com crash than it did in 2008. Annual Home Price Appreciation reacted very well, and based of off what’s occurred so far, we can make the argument that we are seeing similar situations now.

When the pandemic began, the housing market was off to a tremendous start, with home sale reports showing the highest number of houses sold within the last 13 years, on an annual basis. While a bit of a slowdown has occurred due to the events going on, we can say that when this is all over, and it will be, we can expect the market to come roaring back and continue that trend that started the year off.