How has Covid-19 affected the Real Estate Market in Your Country? Let's discuss.

Hello my lovelies, how you all doing? You all know that i will continuously ask after each of us especially during this pandemic that has literally changed the course of our lives; i mean the lives of every individual around the world. Please stay safe and maintain social distancing if you can and remember to at all times, guard yourself with your face masks and hand sanitizers because we are facing a trying time that has claimed millions of lives and only hope for an end to it.

Today’s topic will be a bit different from what we are used to talking about on the blog which we all know is about fashion and its components but rather it will be about another aspect of the basic human needs. As we all know, the three basic human needs if we must be realistic are food, shelter and clothing and that’s why we will be talking about the shelter aspect of the human needs because of the times in which we have found ourselves which is not of our doing.

In this post, i will be as realistic and factual as possible with a little bit of personal touch to it. For many of you that might not know, I am a Nigerian and I live there. Nigeria is known as the giant of Africa and also the pacesetter country and just like every other country, this pandemic has in a terrible way caused rives in the life and performance of most sectors even though some sectors were lucky to withstand the shock e.g the telecommunication sector (every company and business be it small or large had to rely on over the internet work), while others were not so lucky e.g the real estate market which it self has been trying to find it's footing since the 2015/2016 recession.

The pandemic came as a very rude shock to everyone,a virus that just started in a small town quickly spreading it's tentacles to every part of the world thereby leaving behind it's aftermath of severe pain which includes a total lockdown of all personal and business activities.

The Nigerian real estate market experienced a major nose dive since the Covid-19 began, it abruptly forced halt in many businesses which caused a decline in income and Expenditure as people were no longer allowed to go to work therefore salaries were no longer paid it slashed in half.

Many landlords were unable to get their annual rent as workers and brick and mortar companies faced harsh shut down of businesses. There were huge losses in most industries and a lot of real estate projects were also affected by the novel coronavirus lockdown.

I recently came across an article on Bloomberg that says "a pandemic is a terrible time to invest in real estate" the article further explained that "Regret is already in the air. LendEDU, a financial information website, surveyed 1,000 mortgage holders in August and found that most people who bought houses after March 2020 already regretted taking out a mortgage" while across BBC news, "It is fairly clear that with massive unemployment, wage cuts, business failures, and job uncertainty, many people are likely to be cautious about making the biggest investment of their lives - buying a home.

Normally that leads to falling house prices, and during the last recession and credit crunch that is what we saw in the UK, US and many other countries." so all over the world, the real estate market has seen a major recession.

 Progresses were hurt and there were decline in homes and lands purchases as against the pre-pandemic period coupled with the fact that minimum wage salaries in the country is nothing to write home about and running a home front must be backed up with extra source of incomes to be able to meet up.

Developers who took loans to finance a real estate project were also badly affected because the lockdown lasted over a year of zero activities.

Many workers lost their jobs and that negatively impacted mortgages in real estate because people were no longer able to keep up with the monthly payment plans.

In July 2020, my cousin and her family called me and said to me that they had moved to a smaller house as against the bigger one they were staying at and that was due to the fact that she was no longer receiving her salary and barely 3months after paying for the present year rent, her landlord called hand said she needs to pay full upfront rent for next year that he was in n dire need of money so she was left with no other option than to ask for a refund of the present year rent and even at that, he couldn't cought it out because the money has gone into personal use.

People that confidently had their plans all mapped out to pay for their dream home via mortgage,were caught unawares that for almost 6months, they were unable to meet up with the monthly payment and that became a terrible issue for both the real estate companies and buyers.

Of recent, I've come to understand that before venturing into becoming a home owner which is the aspiration of many that's why we work really hard, indulge in proper research especially on their mortgage plans you can even do yourself a favour by going the extra length to make use of apps that will help you in calculating your mortgage repayment plans yourself properly.

Nobody wants to venture into anything and stop half way and with that, you have to be fully equipped by planning the sources of income that will help in offsetting your or your monthly mortgage payment plans.

I would want to hear your own personal opinion on how covid-19 has Affected in your own country.