More and more economists are predicting a recession in 2020 is imminent as the result of the pullback in the economy caused by COVID-19. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research:
“A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”
Bill McBride, the founder of Calculated Risk, believes we are already in a recession:
“With the sudden economic stop, and with many states shutting down by closing down schools, bars and restaurants…my view is the US economy is now in a recession (started in March 2020), and GDP will decline sharply in Q2. The length of the recession will depend on the course of the pandemic.”
How deep will it go?
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No one knows for sure. It depends on how long it takes to beat this virus. Goldman Sachs anticipates we will see a difficult first half of the year, but the economy will recover in the second half (see below):Goldman also projects we’ll have “further strong gains in early 2021.”
This aligns with the projection from Wells Fargo Investment Institute:
“Once the virus infection rate peaks, we expect a recovery to gain momentum into the final quarter of the year and especially into 2021.”
Again, no one knows for sure how long the pandemic will last. The hope is that it will resolve sometime over the next several months. Most agree that when it does, the economy will regain its strength quickly. But in the meantime, it would appear that the Boston real estate for sale market will slowdown until this virus passes.
*Quarter 1 data from Goldman Sachs was updated from 0% to -0.2% on 3/17/20 after the initial release.
Boston Real Estate & The Bottom Line
This virus is not only impacting the Boston real estate for sale market, but also the financial health of the nation. The sooner we beat it, the sooner our lives will return to normal.
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Boston real estate for sale slowdown due to COVID – 19
