Although the coronavirus has slowed down property activity in London, the housing market still remains resilient. 

Property industry professional body ARLA Propertymark has been informed that estate agents are not being considered “essential businesses” and should therefore shut down their offices with immediate effect. 

Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement on Monday, physical viewings and house relocations will also be banned. However, there is one plus side – the number of online viewings is starting to rise as millions of work-from-home employees browse through property portals, at the same rate that they would in the days after Christmas. 

Significant advancements in virtual viewing technology have facilitated the process of prospective buyers or tenants to lead highly realistic “walk-through” property tours. 

Vice-president of 3D virtual viewing technology company Matterport, James Morris-Manuel, said that demand for its property scanning service has surged by more than seven times over the past week. 

Completed scans – which include features such as allowing interested buyers to take accurate measures of rooms, have climbed by over 80%. 

“People have suddenly realised they need to digitise assets they may not be able to access for quite a while. The UK market was watching Spain and Italy and realised that shutdowns and more aggressive forms of social distancing were coming soon and they needed to get their house in order,” he said.

Managing director of London-based agency Chestertons, Guy Gittins stated: “With most people being responsible and practising social distancing, we have seen a surge in the number of virtual viewings that we are conducting.

“By planning ahead, we managed to get video walk-throughs recorded for many of the properties we are marketing before the lockdown but we are also now asking landlords and sellers to use video conferencing tools to conduct live virtual viewings in their own property, with the agent talking the interested buyer or tenant through the property.”

Gittins said that the firm had recently sold a four-bedroom house in East Sheen to a family based in Dubai for £1.5 million. The buyers had sealed the deal without physically visiting the property and only seeing it via virtual viewing. 

“The current situation has obviously had a massive impact on activity levels in the property market, but the levels of interest remain almost undiminished with our web searches and requests for information not too far below what we would be expecting at this time of year,” he added.