CLEARCREEK TWP., Ohio — The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way many of us shop for homes, and that includes a very specific type of Miami Valley buyer who is now prioritizing if the house has a pool.
News Center 7′s Molly Koweek discovered that pool companies cannot keep up with the demand.
A crew from Knickerbocker Pool and Spas spent the day working on putting in a pool at a house in Clearcreek Township. And, the company has five other crews working at other locations throughout the Miami Valley, but they are still booked until August of 2021.
Nikki Funk said, “We hope to have some more family time, so late-night swims.”
The Funk family signed up in April to get a pool put in their backyard.
Nancy Knickerbocker said, “They were way ahead of the crowd,”
Knickerbocker owns the pool company and said that business has really picked up in mid-Spring.
“When people started really figuring out that a lot of the public pools were not going to open this summer and they really started panicking and our hones rang off the hook,” Knickerbocker said.
Billie Duncan-Hart, the Treasurer for Dayton Realtors said the pandemic has changed buying preferences for families in the luxury market, homes with a $500,000 starting price.
“With the interest rates being so low, you are finding a lot of people moving up into that price range and if they are, they really want the entertaining aspect to be able to stay at home so if it doesn’t already have a pool, they want the ability to put one in,” Duncan-Hart said.
Knickerbocker, said,” We had several Monday mornings that we came in and from our website, and our six retail stores, we had over 60 inground pool requests on any given Monday, and it wasn’t just one Monday, it was a lot of Mondays.”
Duncan-Hart said people in the luxury market are also looking for outdoor living areas, places to entertain with firepits, lawn sprinkler systems and areas where multiple people can work from home.
Cox Media Group
