COVID-19, also known as Corona Virus, has turned the whole world upside down in many different aspects. Lockdowns have become pretty much the rule in almost every country around the world to maintain the infestation in control, and an incredible amount of sanitary measures were taken to make sure that people are safe, reducing the sanitary burden of every country.
Lockdown and Quarantine
When the quarantine started, the most serious problem was related to the economy: a lot of people began to lose their jobs. Considering how most of the clientele and profit would be incredibly reduced for most companies, stores, and service providers, it was no surprise.
Hotels, for example, were affected vastly because of the safety measures taken worldwide, disabling people from traveling to other states and countries through automobiles, ships, and airplanes. Bars had to shut down to encourage social distancing, and even one of the oldest discotheques near my house, with more than 20 years on the market, went bankrupt because of coronavirus.
For most countries, trying to maintain people in their homes to avoid the spreading of the virus was certainly a top priority. Curfews started to be declared worldwide, only allowing people to run errands or purchase daily consumer products such as food, personal hygiene products, cleaning goods, among many others, twice a week.
This changed in many countries over the days, making some curfews pretty light-weight in comparison, allowing people to leave their house once every two or three days.
The UK Property Invetment Sector
Still, the biggest problem of them all remains unsolved: the number of people who lost their jobs as well as how the lockdown affected the global economy, and property investment.
Considering that purchasing a house, business building, or office is a pretty big investment, most people would prefer to reach a point where the situation with the pandemic is solved or at least more predictable before committing with such risks.
Prices have fluctuated all over the world. In the UK, specifically speaking, prices of houses have declined by up to 1.7%, which may sound low, but it is actually the largest price fall of real state properties witnessed in the last 11 years. Property specialist Thirlmere Deacon LLP might have more detailed information about it. The situation is expected to stabilize after the situation with the virus is solved, and as time goes by, it has slowly been going back to normal.
Another thing to add is how houses that would normally not be as attractive to your regular purchaser have now become more and more requested, and those houses are the ones that are far away from cities, resulting in lower risks of infection by reducing contact with potential carriers of the virus. This is predicted to be a non-permanent result of the pandemic, but it has still affected the prices of this type of property.
How COVID-19 Affected the World
Let’s start with something no one was expecting during the beginning of 2020: the greatest drop in the price of oil all around the world. The logic is simple: with a great reduction of traffic and the use of transport requiring gas, the amount of oil required in many countries was greatly reduced, thus, reducing its overall price.
It also affected the market in several areas. Restaurants and food delivery apps, for example, are used more than ever, with people getting food through apps whenever they have the chance. Some restaurants, like famous chains of fast food like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Domino’s, have increased their sales exponentially in certain areas.
With that said, multiple areas such as the entertainment industry, as well as the transportation and tourism sectors, were badly affected by the social distancing. Places where a conglomeration of people where usual have been affected as well since they are now closed, forbidden, or controlled, as mentioned in this article.
Companies applied a great change in how people work has arrived in multiple companies. The model of the home office has now gained a lot of fans all over the world, showcasing how in many cases, working from home is as effective.
Of course, this might bring permanent changes to several industries around the world, which will be well received by many. On the other hand, a lot of people miss the interaction human/office, since they believe that working on an office creates a mood that is necessary for proactivity.
There’s much to know about how coronavirus is affecting the world, and what to expect from the months to come is even harder to analyze, but, certainly, we are still waiting for a moment where we will be able to live our lives normally once again.
Websites such as https://www.cepal.org/en/pressreleases/covid-19-will-have-grave-effects-global-economy-and-will-impact-countries-latin have their own predictions, though. Economically speaking, the pandemic has already affected us on a whole new level, bringing problems that no one has expected or lived through in recent years.
We Can Get Through This Pandemic
Of course, if we stick to the sanitary measures, and contribute as much as we can to keep the situation under control, we will be helping a lot.