Just as the global pandemic 'coronavirus' continues to spread, there is fear and trepidation in the air among real estate community, especially as travel and other economic activity have slowed or stopped.

Leading real estate experts speculate that there might be declining interest from home buyers as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

According to them, coronavirus will take out a group of buyers – those adopting a wait-and-see approach or those simply unable to buy due to reduced income. But there’s another group of buyers: those who are in jobs but who face uncertainty about how coronavirus will affect their pay or whether they will keep their job at all.

The Nigerian property market has been weak for some time, and rents have fallen fairly drastically in major cities such as Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt for quite a while now. There appear to sign it could be stabilising but pandemic threatens that notion.

Some areas in Lagos market have been strong and the vacancy rates are very low but there’s no doubt coronavirus will increase caution among many buyers and encourage a lot of sellers to defer transactions.

Specifically, industry watchers say that except the government takes necessary steps to strengthen the economy, the pandemic will push the Nigerian economy into another recession.

To be continued...

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