Although the spring months usually represent the beginning of the homebuying season, this year the momentum of the housing market was cut short. What looked like an amazing start for both the ‘for sale’ and the ‘rental’ segments became a dream on hold for the majority of home seekers and renters in the country.
Social distancing and home isolation are becoming the norm, and many activities and interests are pushed to the side. Not only have people quit going to restaurants and movies, but looking for a home, buying property or finding a new rental are no longer on the list of priorities.
Proof of that is the sudden dip in Google searches for terms like “real estate,” “homes for sale,” “houses for sale” or “condos for sale,” but also the drop in visits on real estate marketplaces like Point2 Homes.
According to the real estate website’s numbers, “on the 11th of March, visits to the site dropped eight per cent, only to continue the following day with a 20 per cent drop, and then 24 per cent on the 13th of March, reaching the most significant decrease on the 16th of this month – 32 per cent.”
If real estate-related searches are down, based on Google Trends data, searches related to the evolution of the Coronavirus and to activities connected to working from home are exploding.
Keywords like “work from home,” “home office” and “home workout” are climbing. People are more and more interested in searches related to protective measures, hygiene best practices and also indoor activities that could make the time spent in home isolation more bearable.
The novel Coronavirus, a new enemy that is upending lives on a global scale, has so many ramifications beyond the medical that world leaders and local representatives alike are still baffled, reacting to overnight changes and simply course-correcting as the pandemic evolves.
The fight against this new threat is covering multiple fronts, from the medical and social to the economic, with politicians, economists, administrative workers and volunteers all making a concerted effort to stave off both its spread and its fallout.
Andra Hopulele is a Senior Real Estate Writer at Point2 Homes. With over seven years of experience in the field and a passion for all things real estate, Andra covers the impact of housing issues on our everyday lives. She writes about the financial implications of the new generations entering the housing market and about the challenges of homeownership. Her studies and articles have appeared in publications like REM Online, Yahoo Finance, Which Mortgage, and Le Quotidien.
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