How COVID-19 Reshaped the Real Estate Market

Covid-19 basically reshaped a lot of things in the whole world.

Not only we had to manage, teach, and re-teach things in the Health Department, in how we socialize with others, in how we gathered the strength to stay at home and try and focus psychologically in work (at home…and for those that still have a job), and with our families apart (not forgetting our kids’ home-school), and how we do miss fresh air in the streets without masks (wear the mask!).

There is the other side of what Covid changed: Real State.

Buying and selling houses, flats, plots, renting… everything went overboard.

Buying and Selling

The market is more expensive. Yes it is. At the start of the pandemic, people thought that houses (in general) would come down, price-wise, since people wouldn’t have a job and needed to sell their assets. The fact is exactly the opposite.

Because of the instability of jobs, redundancies and/or furlough, the government took actions regarding mortgages relief by the beginning of March that helped families and individuals during these times, and the Real State market saw 2 new things that haven’t happened before: shortage of houses to sell and the prices going up as the hunting for houses grew up enormously.

Buying or Renting

This is a very interesting topic. In my opinion, buying is always the cheapest option and is always your own house.

The thing in buying is that many countries like us, UK, the buyer needs to give at least between 15 to 20% of the final price of the house of their own money and ask the banks for the rest. For 1st time buyers, some banks agree on 10% with the help of the government scheme for 1st buyers.

Buying your own house takes a lot of effort, but is really an investment for you and your family, there any many ways on how to calculate your mortgage monthly, council tax and utilities, but as I said previously, in the end is an investment for you where you own something.

Renting is an option of course. When you’re still gathering your monies to buy your own home, or simply studying abroad, or you have no possibility to buy your home, there are options with banks that can help you out. Again, check for houses available, check how much of a mortgage will you pay and talk to your bank for a direction or help. Keep those hopes high and you will get there.

Agencies too busy or lacking business?

Depends on where you live. For example, London agencies have seen a huge boost regarding demanding houses vs the prices. Price lowered between 0.2 to 2% in UK mainland, vs the rest of the world – For example in Portugal and Spain, housing went up 38%!

The North of England prices went down but the demand for houses now is so high, and houses so scarce, that in a bit of a couple of months, the prices will grow instead of lowering. So if you’re thinking of investment or exchange houses or even buy your new home, this is the perfect timing to go ahead of it.