Knight Frank Daily Update Tuesday 5th May

Track-and-trace, the $8bn vaccine and our prime global forecasts
Written By:
Liam Bailey, Knight Frank
3 minutes to read
Categories: Covid-19

Good morning,

Economic headlines

US futures and stocks in Asia rose overnight as a number of economies moved towards easing lockdowns. US oil prices climbed for a fifth straight day as concerns over global storage capacity eased.

The speed of the UK's journey out of lockdown is likely to depend on the adoption of an NHS track-and-trace app. Officials say that the more people who use it, the more lockdown rules can be eased because the technology will allow Britain to “get ahead of the epidemic” by identifying and testing people with the virus before they are even symptomatic.

The Bank of England will meet on Thursday, with Governor Andrew Bailey likely to signal he’s willing to buy more debt to keep borrowing costs from rising. At the current pace, the central bank will hit its current bond-buying goal around the end of June.  

Daily incidence data from Johns Hopkins reveals a divergence as the virus retreats in Europe, parts of the US and Asia, but continues its spread across emerging markets. US fatalities yesterday dropped below 1,000 for the first time in a month, and New Zealand reported no new cases for the first time since March. Meanwhile Russia over the weekend reported 30,837 new cases, averaging more than 10,000 new cases per day, India is reporting around 2,600 cases a day.

World leaders have pledged $8bn to fund the search for a vaccine, and scientists created an antibody that can defeat the virus in the lab, in an early but promising step in efforts to find a treatment.

Property market headlines

This morning, we map out the fortunes of 20 prime global residential markets. There were signs in several markets that prime prices would rise through 2020, unsurprisingly Covid-19 put a halt to this expansion. 

Of the cities we have analysed, 16 will see prime prices decline in 2020, with only a handful avoiding a fall into negative territory – either because of historic supply shortages or because lockdowns had a minimal impact on transactions or are already been eased. 

Flora Harley continues her analysis of global real-time economic indicators, her article reveals increased numbers of visits to retail and recreation destinations in several markets, most notably in cities that have started easing lockdowns. 

In this morning's agents' diary, Louise Glanville, head of city sales in Exeter and Christopher Burton, who runs Knight Frank’s Dulwich Village office in London, are finding that the progression of the sales during lockdown can depend heavily on the approach taken by solicitors, Both expect a busy second half of 2020.  

The Land Registry has relaxed rules around the need for physical paperwork to buy property in response to the government lockdown. Yesterday, the department started accepting electronic versions of deeds, although documents will still need to be signed before being scanned and sent - a common approach in other industries.

L&G received planning permission to build what will be its first full modular housing development at its 154-home scheme in Selby, North Yorkshire.

Those of you with an eye on commercial real estate markets, our team have published a detailed analysis of what they know, what they expect, and what they question during 2020 across occupational, investment, office, retail and industrial sectors. 

If you have any questions, please contact me, or the team.