The Eye of the Storm
At the time of writing there is no UK property market, plain and simple. It almost seems bizarre to say those words, but estate agents are unable to place new listings for sale or conduct viewings on existing ones. (If people were able to meet around a dinner table in ‘middle England’, what on earth would they talk about?!)
The front page of every newspaper is thick with stories about Coronavirus and right now it could be said we are in the eye of the storm. Lives are being lost every day to the virus. Businesses are folding, and millions of jobs and livelihoods are under serious threat.
But as with any storm, it will pass. History tells us that ‘normal service’ will resume at some point, however unlikely that might seem now. Back in the spring and summer of 2001, the UK was in the grip of Foot and Mouth disease. More than 6 million animals were slaughtered, and there were transport bans across the country for a sustained period, including footpaths. That spring/summer, I can remember the property market was also effectively shut down, and the epidemic was estimated to have cost the UK economy in excess of £8 billion. The UK farming community was devastated and the suicide rate soared. In the eye of that storm, it seemed like it would never end.
There have of course been many, many other tragedies that have stopped the world in its tracks for many weeks and months, including the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean with about a quarter of a million lives lost, and 9/11 in New York, which stopped global air travel in its tracks overnight. At times like these it seemed like Armageddon, and yet some months later these events rarely made the front page, and we were back to the old routines. We have short memories – or perhaps we were designed that way!
The human race has always had the ability to move on from these tragedies, and this will be no different. For those needing or wanting to move home, the property market will come back to life, and I suspect the houses (and their gardens!) going on the market will look magnificent after the TLC lavished on them during this lockdown! In the meantime health and loved ones are the most precious things – as indeed they always should be.