Unsurprisingly, there has been a decline in the number of Canadians searching for homes on a leading real estate portal in the past month.
Point2 Homes has seen a 38% decrease in searches on its website on March 23, compared to March 5. This decrease has accelerated since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic.
Bloomberg has reported that there were also fewer searches on Google for terms such as “homes for sale” and “houses for sale” in recent weeks.
US market slower
The US has also seen a downturn in home listing viewings and searches and two major online services, Zillow and Redfin, have ceased their homebuying operations for now.
Meanwhile, a survey of real estate attorneys in the US has found that 47% have already seen negative effects on their business as result of the virus outbreak with 95% expecting an extended impact over the next six months.
