Knight Frank daily update: Human vaccine trials, London's tall buildings and a mortgage market thaw
Good morning,
2 minutes to read
Economic headlines
Oil markets continued to show signs of strain Tuesday as Brent crude dropped below $20 for the first time in 18 years, illustrating the breadth and scale of the temporary shutdown of economies.
Shares across Asia dipped overnight as investors weighed the release of more earnings reports by companies grappling with the effects of the outbreak against the gradual reopening of economies and the Senate's passing of a $484 billion coronavirus relief package for small businesses.
The first British human trials of a coronavirus vaccine will start tomorrow - one of about 100 vaccine projects in development around the world. Last month teams in China and the US both began testing on people, putting them about four weeks ahead of the Oxford team.
Spain and Italy continue their decline in new cases, with Spain's below 4,000 for the first time in nearly a week, while Italy reported its lowest daily total since March 10, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Austria’s reported COVID-19 incidence is remaining at a low level, following initial steps to relax some social distancing measures.
Property market headlines
We've been monitoring the mortgage market closely since lenders called on the government to temporarily 'freeze' the market three weeks ago. At the time, banks were dealing with the closure of many international processing centres, skeleton staff, a clamour among customers for payment holidays or tracker mortgages, and restrictions on movement that rendered conducting in-person valuations on a large scale impossible.
Though some level of disruption has continued, there is now unquestionably a thaw underway, with banks raising the loan-to-value ratios they are willing to lend at, embracing desktop valuations on a large-scale and hunting for new business.
A quick look at the latest numbers shows there is still life in the residential market despite the lockdown. In the last seven days while new buyer registrations across the UK were 64% down on the same period in 2019, they were up 23% up on the prior week. Similarly new instructions to sell property are down 79% year-on-year but up 40% week-on-week.
Some 60 tall buildings were completed in the past year in London, the highest number on record, according to a Knight Frank/NLA report published yesterday. To get a comprehensive understanding of what's in store, don't miss this virtual 3D fly through.
Though Covid-19 will impact the pipeline in 2020, with many projects paused, Stuart Baillie, our head of planning, says planning policies, land availability and housing need in London are likely to facilitate a return to a stronger tall building pipeline in the medium term.
Finally this morning, Kate Everett-Allen has this view from New York probing how the Manhattan market has weathered previous crises to understand if it can offer any indicators as to what lies ahead.
If you have any questions, please contact me, or the team.