The Housing Market Is in Lockdown
Despite plans to use technology to keep the housing market going, Britain’s famous estate agents are facing a bleak few months.
Safe as houses?
Photographer: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFPThe U.K. housing market — that obsession of middle-class Brits — has been placed in suspended animation. Buyers and renters have been told to delay moving home to limit the spread of coronavirus. While a few transactions are still going through, a functioning market depends on prospective buyers and surveyors being able to view people’s homes. Mobility restrictions and distancing measures make that all but impossible.
Set against the loss of life caused by the virus, the anticipated collapse in housing transactions for at least the next few months is a price worth paying. Still, the knock-on effect will be severe across the sector, from the mortgage lenders obliged to offer struggling customers three-month payment holidays to the home-builders like Persimmon Plc and Taylor Wimpey Plc who’ve closed construction sites. For estate agents, struggling even before the pandemic, the standstill will be particularly painful.