It might well be plausible that the economic consequences of the coronavirus in the UK will cause financial uncertainty for many, especially as regards investing in a new property. The restrictive measures put in place to curb down the epidemic are expected to cause some increase in unemployment and limit business growth, salary increases and, to some extent, cause overall economic uncertainty.
With the awareness that working sustainably from home is actually feasible, Rightmove has reported a surge in property searches away from city centres and high streets.
As people might reconsider the situation in which they live and work, high streets’ commercial properties might be further impacted, as in recent years with the wide-spread development of the e-commerce.
Professor Baum of Nottingham Trent University, lead at the Real Estate Initiative at Oxford University Said Business School, has warned that the potential domino effect of long-term retail downturn could be as high as 20-30% of the capital value of retail properties.         Â
Moreover, this epidemic might be causing some changes to the office property market. As workers might look for more indoor and outdoor space to adapt to working from home, office spaces might become somewhat less demanded. However, Professor Whyte, a specialist in real estate economics at Nottingham Trent University, has noticed that as in the economic boom of the 50s and 60s, when the demand pushed for transforming the capital’s West End residential into commercial properties, the commercial developers will be swift to adapt to match demand, possibly by converting commercial properties for residential use.
It is therefore likely to expect that the shock caused by the pandemic on the property market will have visible effects on the way people perceive and use the space that surrounds them.
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Photo credit: Emma Wurfel
