Industry experts react to housing market freeze

Following the government’s announcement that the housing market is effectively on hold due to the coronavirus, property experts have speculated on how this will affect the sector moving forward. Hansen Lu, property economist at Capital Economics, expects mortgage approvals for house purchases to drop by 70% between April and June compared with the first three months of the year. Howard Archer, chief economic adviser at consultancy EY Item Club, added that the suspension will hit the wider economy as the world plunges into recession. “Obviously, all the players involved in a house purchase – estate agents, surveyors, removal companies – will not be generating any business, while banks will not be generating any income from new mortgages,” he said. Banks are also expected to take a significant hit because they will not generate revenue from issuing mortgages. Aaron Strutt of Trinity Financial, a mortgage broker, said that even those who had agreed mortgage terms faced major problems. “We can get mortgages agreed and applications submitted, but we cannot confirm exactly when they will be offered.”

The Daily Telegraph (27/03/2020)   Daily Mail (27/03/2020)    I (27/03/2020)