Coronavirus Affects Stock and Real Estate Markets

The coronavirus has already killed more than 3,000 people worldwide. Although most cases are concentrated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the virus has left the country and has spread to up to 30 nations. On February 16, 2020, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the growth of the world economy that is currently estimated at 3.3% for this year, could be cut between 0.1% and 0.2% due to the coronavirus. The optimism at the beginning of the year for Asian markets has blurred in the shadow of the coronavirus epidemic. In the medium term, so long as the epidemic is contained in the coming weeks, equity markets will probably rise again. This is partly because global growth should benefit from the delayed effect of the decline in fixed income yields and an improvement in the global industrial sector due to significant restitution of stocks. Housing is another sector that is affected by the coronavirus. For instance, in the first week of February alone, house sales plummeted 90% year-over-year in the 36 main Chinese cities and most real estate agencies are closed to the public. The price of housing in the country has registered the most moderate growth during the past year and a half. The real estate industry in the U.S. has had to take its own challenges to keep the market moving as well. The presence of the coronavirus becomes a new hurdle to overcome within luxury real estate in cities like New York, Miami, and San Francisco. The federal government suspended the entry of foreign citizens who have visited China in the last 14 days in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, a situation that could affect the housing sector due to the blocking of access by potential investors. Foreign entrepreneurs often get an idea of their future homes with the offer presented on the internet; however, investors have less incentive to buy real estate if its uncertain he or she can visit the property. Therefore, in the short term, the virus could further reduce luxury sales. Time will tell.