Springfield Business Journal_2020-06-15

SPRINGFIELD BUSINESS JOURNAL · 3 JUNE 15-21, 2020 NEWS IN THIS ISSUE A hair academy with a full- service salon gets going on Park Central Square. PAGE 5 TelComm Credit Union President and CEO Don Ackerman is set to retire at year’s end. PAGE 6 Vol. 40 No. 47 Web Editor Geoff Pickle encourages internet users to think critically about whether they should p ost comments online. OPINION PAGE 47 We have these aha moments and people wring their hands, but they have to go beyond wringing their hands.” —Wes Pratt of Missouri State University/Minorities in Business, on calls for equality and diversity PAGE 1 QUOTE OF THE WEEK MCKENZIE ROBINSON BIKE BOOST Jason Johannpeter, co-owner of Adventure Bicycle, says the shop experienced a sales jump over the past few months, including doubling sales projections in May. Sales, repair surge greets bicycle industry  However, shops still cite supply chain issues  by Mike Cullinan · mcullinan@sbj.net As the coronavirus pandemic is set to stretch into summer, the bicycle industry has been riding on a steady stream of sales and repair work since March.  But local bike shops say supply chain problems threaten to make the path ahead a bit bumpier. At Adventure Bicycle Co., first-year rev- enue exceeded the ownership’s forecast by 20%, said co-owner Jason Johannpeter. Declining to disclose figures, he said busi- ness was 10% over expectations in April, the first full month after the city’s stay-at- home order was issued amid the coronavi- rus pandemic.  “But May was insane. We doubled our forecast for May,” Johannpeter said.  Many states, including Missouri, deemed bike shops essential businesses and were allowed to stay open.  “As soon as people were told to stay at home, they all wanted to be doing stuff out- side,” said Bryant Johnson, assistant man- ager at A&B Cycle. “That’s where the big rush kind of started.” Home supply still limited despite high-end spike by Kathryn Hardison · khardison@sbj.net Nearly two dozen high-dollar homes were listed last month in Springfield, but residential real estate experts say this is not an indicator that overall mar- ket activity is seeing the same spike. There’s still a low supply of homes – of all price ranges – compared with demand, said Faunlee Harle, Realtor with AMax Real Estate. “We usually have a three months’ supply of homes in all price ranges, and we’re down to two right now,” Harle said. “There’s still a low supply, but it’s slowly getting better.” New listings in May for homes priced $500,000 and up in Springfield more than doubled from April’s 10 listings, preceded by 15 in March, according to recent report- ing in Springfield Busi- ness Journal’s monthly series Curb Appeal. The 22 homes listed during May have com- bined asking prices of $16.7 million and bring the market’s high- dollar supply to nearly 80 available homes by press time, according to Southern Missouri Regional MLS data. As for the market at large, Realtor Jim Hutcheson said low interest rates have driven activity, even after a slight dip dur- ing the coronavirus pandemic. By press time, a 30-year fixed rate home loan had a 3.18% mortgage rate and a 15-year loan had a 2.62% rate, according to the Federal Home Mortgage Corp., aka Freddie Mac. Comparatively, 30-year fixed mortgages in spring 2019 were about a per- centage point higher. Hutcheson said the most ac- tivity at Jim Hutcheson Real- tors has been with homes priced $150,000-$250,000. By press time, there were 118 active list- ings in that price range and 249 pending sales in Springfield, ac- cording to the MLS data. “If it’s priced well and it’s clean, it’s selling at the asking price pretty fast … and it has a lot to do with interest rates,” said Hutcheson. “Instead of financing their homes, people are looking at selling their house and buy- ing something else, whether upgrading or downgrading.” He said that’s slowly contributing to market supply. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand to sell and pent-up demand to buy,” Hutcheson said. “It’s kind of a perfect storm right now.” It’s a national trend, too. In April, home sales dropped 17.8% compared with March and total housing inventory was down slightly, according to data released in May from the National Association of Realtors. Of the available listings, over half were sold in less than a month, and nearly 40% of See BICYCLE on page 51 See HOMES on page 51 Faunlee Harle : The local housing market still has a low supply. 22 Springfield homes listed in May priced $500,000 and up