Property markets remain upbeat in China, Singapore, Britain and Australia – despite the coronavirus pandemic
The global stock market may have crashed, but analysts and agents remain remarkably upbeat about the property sector – a traditional bolt hole for investors weathering troubled times
Real estate professionals are a resilient bunch. The ability to put a positive spin on even the worst of times is a skill most successful agents possess.
So, what's their take on how the coronavirus will affect property markets?
John McGrath, founder and executive director of Australia-based McGrath Estate Agents, opportunistically compares property to financial market performance during the crisis.
While stock markets dived around the world, property values have remained (relatively) stable, he points out. “That is because property is not as easily traded and therefore does not have the same dramatic reaction when 'black swan' events like the global financial crisis or Covid-19 come along to disrupt our lives,” McGrath writes on his blog.
There might be some sort of impact on property eventually, he concedes, particularly if the virus leads to large-scale job losses, but “there has been no panic in the market [yet]".
McGrath goes on to say it's the 'sleep at night' factor that makes property so appealing. “Property is a stable, long-term investment that requires time, above all other considerations, to grow in value. It's the tortoise in the race,” he writes.
In Singapore, where new home sales seem to have bucked the coronavirus gloom, surging more than 114 per cent in February compared to a year earlier, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority data, agents were similarly upbeat.
Pointing to the value proposition of the sector, Alice Tan, senior director of research and consulting at Edmund Tie, said new private homes in Singapore commanded a premium of around 40 per cent over resale units last year, and this is expected to continue.