NEW Federal Government restrictions have posed challenges for Australia’s real estate market, but Thomas De Garis and Clarkson Livestock and Property director Mark De Garis says Penola was unlikely to feel major impacts.
Real estate auctions and open house inspections have stopped under a new Federal Government crackdown to reduce the potential spread of COVID-19.
Despite the changes, Mr De Garis said the town’s real estate market was still in good condition.
“We have not seen a lot of effects from COVID-19 on the real estate business as during this time of the year, we do not usually host a lot of inspections,” he said.
“If this does continue and it does fall into our auction period, there are a lot of online systems we can use for
different negotiations.
“We might also see a number of expressions of interest to cover that as well but it is becoming difficult when you are only allowed two people at a time.”
Mr De Garis estimated the largest impact in real estate would be on tenants who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus.
However, he said it was unlikely Penola would be hard hit given a majority of the town’s residents were employed in essential occupations.
“We have a lot of good commercial landlords who have already come in and offered free rent periods to help alleviate some of the pressure,” he said.
“We have not had any landlords in residential areas do that yet, but I do not think we will have the pressure in that sense here.”
Mr De Garis said due to quarantine and self-isolation measures, people were not looking for vacant houses.
“We are not expecting to see the Penola area struggle too much in the real estate business, but we do believe it will be the bigger cities that will really start to struggle.
“Their inquiries will really dry up as people feel they need to lock down.”
He said the future of the rural component of the real estate business was dependent on the future of the banks.
“The question is how this will effect the banks and their lending practices, but as for Penola I cannot see this effecting us too much in our day to day running of things,” he said.
“We have had a very good selling period up to date in the rural end so I think we will see a levelling in the rural end, but how far that will be is the interesting thing.”
