What happened to the industry during the pandemic that none of us expected? • Yair Levy, an expert in business real estate, on the warning lights that caught us off guard • Chapter 02
The Corona epidemic. A mysterious virus that came from China and apparently traveled , for the whole world, forced us to get used to a completely new routine in many areas of life. One of them, as requested, is the real estate industry, which changed its face during the confrontation with the isolations, the suspension of flights abroad, and the hybridity that became the order of the hour. Has the arena that concerns us all recovered from what passed, or are its effects still permeating every fertile soil?
The second episode of Atid Mazhir, the podcast that will reveal to you the whole truth about the commercial real estate world, Yair Levy devoted to these questions, and explained why we should take advantage of the current period to make financial decisions that will benefit us. “The corona took us to other places, and taught us that a lack of acknowledgment affects all areas of our lives,” he emphasized. “When we were in the midst of the corona crisis itself, the entire market had one assessment, that as soon as the crisis ended the entire market would crash and fall flat on its face. Everyone unanimously believed that it was impossible for a market that is standing in such uncertainty not to experience a price crash. These were the expectations, but then something happened that One didn’t plan, a complete surprise – not only did the market not go down, but it flew up. This was explained in retrospect by the amount of money that the government spent on the market in order to deal with the issue of the corona.”
“I think there is no time in world history when the interest rate was so close To zero,” admitted Levy. “The fruits of this precedent, for better or for worse, we are eating now that the interest rate has returned to what it was. The world today is conducted as it was conducted in the past. Starting in May or June of the year 2022, we saw a very rapid change. The interest rate increase this time caused the market to stop, so people decided to sit And not to make decisions concerning issues related to real estate”.
How do we continue from here?
What is a real estate crisis anyway, and is there a way to overcome it without collapsing financially? Levy, an expert in commercial real estate, explained: “Usually the market stops at the beginning and no one makes decisions about anything. Everyone is waiting to see what the other is doing. Each company looks at the company next to it, and wonders if it will be brave enough to make decisions. If you want to raise money quickly so you don’t miss the train leaving the station, you need to put your best property on the market first. Your best asset will bring quick cash flow in a time of crisis. You never know what the end of a crisis is, you don’t know when it will reach its end, therefore the decisions that need to be made are difficult decisions.”
