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My thoughts on the future for the property market under Covid-19 - JJ Heath-Caldwell, Managing Director Local Surveyors Direct

I am getting a steady stream of calls asking me how I see the economic situation at the moment, so I thought it might be useful to put some notes together. These are my own thoughts, some of which you will probably agree with and some you probably won’t. Nevertheless, I hope that they will be useful.

 

Corona Virus (Covid 19)

Regarding the corona virus, the situation as I see it is as follows:

This virus is highly contagious and there is unlikely to be a vaccine until well into next year.

This is what makes it very different from the common flu that most of us have experienced at some time in our lives.
The present lockdown is helping to slow the spread of the disease, but it will not stop it.
What is being achieved, is that by maintaining social distancing, the spread of the virus has slowed and the NHS has not been completely overwhelmed.
This is why the present lockdown is very important.

Over the next 12 months or so, the majority of people in the UK will be exposed to the virus.
There will be some people who do not catch it, as they will have a natural immunity, but we don’t know if this will be a significant percentage of the population or a very tiny percentage of the population.
There will be quite a few people who catch it and only have minor symptoms.
There will be lots of people who will be very sick.
Sadly, as we are already seeing, there will be a lot of people who get it very badly and die, especially if they have underlying health conditions.

There will be some people who, unknowingly, will carry the virus for up to 2 weeks and will spread it to people that they come in contact with, directly or indirectly.

It is likely that people who have had the virus, will develop their own immunity and will then not get it again and will be much less likely to spread it.

The UK economy needs to be kept going, as the economy is what generates the money, and this is what is used to buy food. It should be noted that half of our food is imported and so we are completely reliant on countries overseas producing enough food for us. They will only sell us the food if we have the money to pay for it.

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has announced, 10/5/2020, that we need to start making steps towards eventually getting everyone back to work.
This is difficult, as on the news we are seeing a lot of criticism of the government from people who think we should all stay at home until a vaccine is developed and we are all vaccinated (possibly another 12 months).
On the news we are also seeing lots of criticism from people who say we need to get everyone back to work as quickly as possible, otherwise, lots of companies will become insolvent and as a result there will be astronomically high unemployment.
If the economy is not kept going, we will not be generating money and we will not be able to buy food.

Regardless of which political parties you support, it is fairly plain that our elected government has not got a very easy job at the moment.

 

The Property Market

This is how I see it from where I am sitting.

The market last year slowed down partly due to the Brexit debate.
January and February were incredibly busy with lots of customers making enquiries.
Then from mid-March to mid-April the number of enquiries quickly dropped by 80%.
The lowest point was around 14 April.
Since then the activity has been steadily rising and is now (12 May) around 57% down which of course is still very low but is much higher than 14 April.

My expectation is that the number of enquiries will continue to rise as we go through this year but we will not see the levels that we saw back in January and February.

 

What are the Members listed on Local Surveyors Direct doing?

I have had quite a few conversations with our members and everyone seems to be doing different things.
Most members have significantly reduced their business activity.
Those who are in a risk category, or have family members in a risk category, have stopped working for the foreseeable future and they are self-isolating at home.
Most members have kept working but only carrying out work when it is relatively safe to do so.
Also, some members have been booking work to do in the next few months when things will probably improve.

 

Summary

At the moment everyone needs to continue to follow the government’s advice and apply this to their own particular circumstances.
If you have any queries or anything that I can help you with, please do contact me.

JJ Heath-Caldwell
email: jj@localsurveyorsdirect.co.uk
phone: 01962 761565

 

 

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