Coronavirus leads to NYC real estate pounding, but city will bounce back: Expert
Resilience will help NYC out of coronavirus, said Douglas Elliman CEO Dottie Herman
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New York City real estate is taking a beating but will bounce back as soon as coronavirus lockdown rules are relaxed, according to Dottie Herman, the CEO of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, one of America’s largest real estate firms.
“I've been in real estate my whole life and I put my money on New York -- it's resilient,” she told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Thursday.
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Stay-at-home orders have been in effect since March 22 and are set to expire May 15.
Consequently, the city is seeing a big uptick in inventory. According to StreetEasy, an online database of New York City residential property listings, since April 1, the share of rental listings offering short-term or month-to-month leases has increased by more than 70 percent.
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Even so, New York has suffered through a number of unfortunate chapters in history including a recession in the early 1990s, 9/11 and the Great Recession from 2007 to 2008, Herman said, but will come out of the coronavirus.
People wearing masks walk past a closed-down restaurant with a 'For Rent' sign in the window amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 28, 2020, in New York City. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
“We're going to have some tough times,” she said. “But at the end of the day, New York, they said it never would come back after 9/11, and look at downtown now, it's vibrant. It's the number- one place for people to go for tourists and things.”
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However, Herman noted that there is also a trend of people, especially young families, fleeing the city and moving into short-term rentals in the suburbs.
Normally busy Queens Boulevard in Queens, New York, is deserted because of the COVID-19 pandemic on April 6, 2020.
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Meanwhile, with mortgage rates averaging 3.2 percent for a 30-year loan, an all-time low, Herman believes it’s a great time to jump into the market.
“As soon as people get a little confidence that things are safe I think you're going to see a pent-up demand, especially on the first-time buyer,” she said.