Lockdown has hammered the auctioneering business
SALES HALTED BUT STILL HOPEFUL SIGNS FOR FUTURE MARKET
Business is at a near standstill for Wexford auctioneers who are nonethless hopeful that the property market will bounce back after Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
A few clients making offers on houses that they’ve never stepped inside, is a new experience for some firms attempting to weather the lockdown.
‘We have two properties under offer at the moment after we did a facetime video walk-through of the rooms before the lockdown because the prospective purchasers didn’t want to view the houses in person’, said Edel Keane of Keane Auctioneers.
The auctioneering company has a professional virtual tour of new houses at Hawthorn Heights in Whiterock Hill launching on its website this week.
‘It’s really brilliant - you get a detailed view of every corner of the house’, said Edel, adding that business has stalled but they are continuing to work with what they have.
‘We are dealing with what we had in progress before the lockdown. We have two houses going live to the market in the next two weeks because we already had the photos done.
‘We are receiving a decent amount of enquiries by telephone and email on a daily basis and there is a lot of activity on our social media, which augurs well for business after the lockdown is lifted. Things have been stalled until people are on the move again.’
‘We can’t go into properties to do measurements or take photographs. We are just working with what we have.’.
Some of the current work involves closing deals that were agreed before Covid-19 restrictions were imposed, with solicitors emailing documents for signing, scanning and return.
Edel said a couple of deals fell through with earlier offers on houses withdrawn because of changed personal circumstances,caused by the coronavirus outbreak, with the purchasers opting not to proceed, including a buyer in the UK.
She is unsure whether Covid-19 will have an effect on property prices after restrictions are lifted.
‘It’s too early to say. We would be hoping that things would go back to normal. Judging by the enquiries we’ve had, I think many people will be anxious to get going again’.
‘After this period of home confinement, I think there will be a change in the type of properties people want to buy. They are going to be looking for a garden or extra space, a spare bedroom than can be turned into an office. I’ve already noticed that from the enquiries coming in’.
Colum Murphy , managing director of Kehoe and Associates said people will make an offer after a video view of a property but generally, they will want to see it in reality before they buy.
Professional video tours place an added expense on the vendor and even with that, people still need to view before closing a deal. ‘You may make an offer and even agree a price but you will want to view the house before you decide to buy.’, he said.
Five auctioneering deals have been completed by Kehoe and Associates since the lockdown, on properties that were viewed and subject to offers before the restrictions came in.
‘We can’t do viewings or anything that puts anyone in harm’s way. We are a restricted business. We can’t really work at the moment.’
‘We do a lot of commercial valuations. We would have some of those ongoing, on properties where the assessements were completed, and we are preparing the reports.’
‘I would forsee that the type of work that is there at the moment is going to be closed off in a week or ten days. We are hoping that the restrictions will be eased at the beginning of next month and looking at the
Chinese example, we would anticipate that things will pick up quickly.
‘There was zero property business in China for five weeks and when the restrictions were lifted, it was back up to 50% of what it was previously, in a very short space of time’.
‘It’s difficult to say about prices. Since time began, the price of property has been linked to the economy. If the economy reduces dramatically in the medium term, it will have an effect. But if the government can inject enough pace into the economy and get it going to a decent level of recovery, that will help, and you will see the property market mirroring that’, said Colum.
He said the price of new houses in Wexford is at the level where they can’t be built for any less. ‘There is a set margin and if the value drops, they simply won’t build them.’
‘To be honest, I think there are a lot of buyers out there. I think the third quarter of this year will be busy. We had only one or two deals fall through in the last two weeks and we had a lot of deals. I think people are staying with this. It’s like it has been placed in the freezer for a few
months.’