Washington
The US real estate market is booming even as the coronavirus crisis intensifies, and the seemingly insatiable appetite for new and older homes has sent prices soaring—meaning more and more families with modest incomes are seeing their dreams of owning property shattered.
“It very much is a tale of haves and have nots,” said Dana Scanlon, a property agent in the Washington area. In a bid to mitigate the economic crisis provoked by the pandemic, the US Federal Reserve slashed interest rates in March to near-zero.
As Scanlon explains, “that gives a very big boost to buying power for those people who still have jobs… where they can work from home.” For some, it has, perhaps counter intuitively, even meant a “little uptick in savings” as commuting and other costs have been cut due to restrictions on travel and dining out, she says.—APP
