THE REAL DEAL
CORONA FEARS CHANGE COLOR OF
PROPERTY MARKET SENTIMENT
BY RANIA FAZZA
I
n a world filled with choices and decisions, fear always causes hesitation; and crises tend to intensify such distress when consumers start to reconsider future plans. For the property sector, in particular, uncertainty began to color new market sentiment amid the rising COVID-19 unknowns, thereby making some clients puzzle over home buying and turn to rental options instead. This prompted Invest-Gate to probe if potential customers are reconsidering purchasing and are better off sticking with renting residential units as the Coronavirus-induced slump takes hold, asking real estate professionals to get to the bottom of the matter and map out the prevailing market conditions.
Hesitation Haunts Clients? Over the years, experts have been reckoning residential property leasing as: “An existing trend for non-homeowners who cannot afford to acquire houses.” But does this mean that would-be shoppers are resorting to rentals as housing options in the wake of the current Coronavirus crisis, specifically in Egypt? According to Aqarmap’s “Egypt Real Estate Demand Index,” there was a toll in the local property sector last March, which is the same month COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, as home-buying demand dipped 20%, whereas demand for renting remained stationary. 30
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However, Head of the Real Estate Development Chamber Tarek Shoukry tells InvestGate, “While at the beginning of the germ episode fear and hesitation were looming in the country’s real estate sphere, in general, a clear-cut trend toward renting instead of owning residential units is presently indiscernible.” In a similar vein, Rooya Group Chairman and CEO Hisham Shoukri also believes that the Coronavirus shock did not lead to this kind of reverse trend. He points out, “The buy-versus-rent calculus is not shifting toward renting, at least until now.” Corroborating the above property professionals’ assessment, Invest-Gate’s latest poll reveals respondents were split nearly fifty-fifty on whether or not there is a tendency for lease rather than purchase agreements, given the Coronavirus chaos.
