Auckland locks down again
Auckland went back into a lockdown for seven days today, after a single positive test for Coronavirus.
Sounds totally proportionate...
Disclosure: I bought some Auckland International Airport (AIA) stock last year, so yes, this is annoying, although travel stocks are mostly looking through this sort of stuff now given the increasingly tremendous results from vaccine trials.
With international travel - and frequently even internal travel banned - Aussies are looking for places to spend their proverbial stimmy cheques.
And just as we've seen everywhere from North Island to New York to Nottingham, that place is mostly real estate.
You can now add the Northern Beaches, North Melbourne, and New Farm to that list, because Australian housing markets are also flying at the moment, as evidenced in this weekend's preliminary auction results:
Source: Domain
In a forthcoming webinar in a fortnight's time, I'll be interviewing former senior economic advisor to the PM Stephen Koukoulas on why we don't think the buying frenzy will last too long (stay tuned for registration details).
Most often what happens is that more willing sellers come to the market as the year progresses, and things calm down a bit as the buyers are dispersed.
This too shall pass.
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The UK budget looks set to include an extension to the stamp duty holiday and further support for first homebuyers.
The measures themselves do make a clear difference to market behaviour and at the margin.
But more importantly the government's message is very clear: there will be no declines in housing prices for as long as the travel restrictions continue.
