As the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak becomes more widespread, we wanted to reach out to you with an update on the following:
- Auctions have been brought forward to today, tomorrow, Friday and the weekend.
- A property market update.
- Property Planning Australia – Action plan.
- ‘Some Good News’ stories because we are all being inundated with the ‘other’ news at the moment.
- The Singapore containment success story.
- We would also like to advise that The Property Planner, Buyer and Professor Podcast continues unabated for another seven episodes at least……because we pre-recorded it, but please keep that a secret!😉
We will keep you updated and if you would like to have a conversation with your Property Planner or Strategic Mortgage Broker, please feel free to call our office (which is being diverted to our team members), email us directly or contact us here.
We wish you and your loved ones the very best of health.
Long may ‘business as usual’ continue!
Auctions brought forward today, tomorrow and this weekend!
If you are planning to purchase in the near future, we want to make sure you are aware that auctions are being brought forward to weekdays and this weekend. This is because the country may go into lock down for a period and some people will need to sell their homes as they will have already purchased. If you are thinking about purchasing a property right now, then you should communicate with agents today.
A Property Market Update
The current situation will cause vendors to remove listings and our stock levels will reduce significantly once again, except for those who ‘must’ sell which could provide opportunity for those of you who are looking to purchase now.
This relative illiquidity of the property market will provide greater price support, than in the more liquid share market, which is positive news for all of you who own property.
In the event that the virus impact only last months, it is likely that great buying opportunities will present.
The RBA will reduce interest rates to 0.25%, so it is very likely that those willing and able to purchase, will be able to snare properties that are cash flow positive or relatively close from day one. These conditions would provide a significant fillip for a market rebound.
Please call your Strategic Mortgage Broker or Property Planner should you want to discuss your circumstances.
Action Plan – We are committed and ready to support you
Thankfully we began our planning for our team to work from home last week and we are in the fortunate position that our team of 15 are all able to work from home. Our early planning means that all of our Melbourne-based staff have been working from home since Monday this week.
A shout out to Rich who has four kids at home with him and Dave & Sarah who have three kids under 6! Good luck ….
Despite the significant logistics so far, the transition to date for our team, although not without its challenges, has not impacted our ability to provide all our loyal clients with our continued high level of multi-award winning personalised service.
That means that it has been ‘mostly’ business as usual, and the team are getting used to working from home on a daily basis.
We will provide regular updates to you about the mortgage and property markets in the coming days and weeks. Our priority will remain, as always, servicing our wonderful clients and supporting our fantastic team during this time.
The Property Planner, Buyer and Professor Podcast
This will be going out as usual each week and this week’s episode #38 “Are you being true to your new year’s resolution?” is now live. This was recorded some time ago so we have added a message recorded today on Covid-19 acknowledging the situation.
We will let you in on the secret, we pre-record our episodes! 😉
In times like these, this has come in handy. We have up until episode 44 in the bank and we hope you continue to enjoy listening to our episodes. Given they have been recorded a little while ago, hopefully they can provide some respite from the ever-present Coronavirus updates and communications 🙂
Some Good News
During these times, we want to provide some hope for us all. We do not want to live in the clouds, but the overwhelming likelihood is that the country and the world will pull through this at some point in time and that is worth remembering.
It is in that light, that we provide you with some sunshine amongst the gloom, without being flippant about the challenges we face:
- The OECD has stated that Australia and Germany are the two nations best placed from an economic stand point to withstand these circumstances.
- 96% of all of our supermarket produce is grown and processed in Australia. If we all stay sane, and are happy with two weeks or so of a stocked fridge and freezer, we can allow the supermarket supply levels to go back to normal and civilly purchase our groceries once more. How about the government sets that as a goal for our nation – I think we are up to the challenge!
- There are many reports of people being generous in supermarket aisles and letting the elderly, disabled and needy into the queues ahead of them – despite a few images going around to the contrary.
- The first doses of potential Covid-19 vaccines were delivered yesterday in human trials and Australians were the first to successfully grow the virus from a test tube.
- Some countries have successfully contained the virus so far and ‘flattened the curve’ such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
- Active cases of Coronavirus are on the decline in China – going from 58,016 on the 17th of Feb to 8,043 on the 17th of March and reducing out of 1.3 billion to keep in mind.
Singapore Success Story
Singapore has once again shined as an example of clever public policy. As of March 17, Singapore has a very low total number of cases with (243). How did it achieve this?
In the initial phase, Singapore focused mainly on border controls to prevent the virus entering. It was the first to impose travel restrictions with China, then Iran, South Korea, Italy and now France, Germany and Spain. It imposed a mandatory 14-day ‘Stay-Home Notice’ and self-isolation for its citizens and permanent residents arriving from countries affected by the pathogen.
In the second phase, it prioritised hard containment by creating strict measures for tracing the virus’ spread, isolating individuals and treating the ill. Its vigilant digital ‘Contract Tracing’ system helped to locate the infected and map out the virus as it spread.
Third, Singapore pursued economic stimulus packages to support the economy including a $S6.4 billion government programme, of which $S5.6b will assist businesses and consumers, while $S4b is tagged to support businesses with their wage costs.
Singapore achieved all this without enacting a lockdown and remains open to the world.
