The housing market could be favourable for those looking to get on the property ladder with less open homes and auctions predicted due to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.
It seems no corner of the economy will remain untouched by the coronavirus pandemic, and property commentator Ashley Church told TVNZ1's Breakfast today it's expected the housing market will flatten too.
"It's already been impacting on the market in the sense there's already been measures taken over the last few weeks, in particular over the last couple of days, to obviously prop up the market, the overall economy, and make sure things continue as much as possible as they have," Mr Church said.
"A couple of things will change as a result of this, one of them is that I would expect open homes to significantly reduce if not disappear all together for a few weeks and maybe even a few months and that's because people obviously won't want to be in situations when they're in contact with other people."
Mr Church said real estate agents would either make private viewings available or withdraw from that aspect all together.
"The other thing is auctions. So auctions are a crowd environment, they work because there's a number of people in a room. Again, I would expect that to become less popular over the next little while."
Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s multi-billion dollar relief package for businesses hit by the Coronavirus Pandemic will be covered live by Jack Tame on TVNZ1 and 1NEWS.co.nz from 2-3pm today
The Government is announcing details of a package to help the economy weather the storm tomorrow.
Mr Church said he doesn't expect the housing market to plummet though. Looking back at previous history, he said there may be a tapering off before it recovers again.
He also said the market is expected to flatten off ahead of the election anyway.
"I don't see any major impact [due to the coronavirus] but I certainly don't see a huge amount of positive activity in the market for some period of time."
When talking about how long it could take, Mr Church said, "I'm not a medical practitioner, [but] this thing's already slowing down in China so the [coronavirus] incubation period seems to have been relatively short.
"If that follows out around the rest of the world and New Zealand follows that same trend this thing could potentially be over by June or July, if that's the case then I would expect housing to taper off, maybe take a small dip, but not be impacted to any great degree."
However, Mr Church added, if the virus is still rampant by the end of the year "things could be considerably worse".
He said there was an argument that the illness had been treated more seriously than it needed to be, but that regardless it is real because the perception of it is real.
"It's already starting to impact on what people are doing, it's starting to impact on businesses," he said, in talking about staff self-isolating and the tourism industry taking a hit.
"Every sector of the economy is affected, and so regardless of the rights and wrongs of what's actually happening within the disease itself, the economy's going to continue to be affected by some time."
Yesterday, the Reserve Bank dropped the Official Cash Rate further to 0.25 per cent.
Mr Church said people who may have lost jobs or were considering buying homes but had been out off could take advantage of low rates.
The Government will announce an economic stimulus package this afternoon.
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