Will house prices be affected by swine flu?

[sasguru]

Dying boring?

Indeed. Sadly its too late for Dim to become interesting. He confuses money for charisma.

[BrilloPad]

Go on, stick me on ignore. You know you want to.

They might need to buy extra houses to use as mortuarys.

[Bagpuss]

Do you ever grasp even the most basic of ideas?
Prices (and markets) are driven by the difference between supply and demand. When demand is high and supply is low prices go up and vice versa.
The demand in the housing market is created by new buyers wanting in. If they are all killed off (according to you) then there will be no demand. Those wishing to move up the ladder will not be able to get a decent price as there is nobody lower down the ladder to sell to. As the old folk pop off the top of the ladder more properties become available and the price falls.

Get it?

To caveat that, the last housing boom was mainly driven by the supply of cheap and easy credit and specualtion not largely by the demand for housing to house people. If it were simple supply and demand the boom would never end.

[centurian]

Do you ever grasp even the most basic of ideas?
Prices (and markets) are driven by the difference between supply and demand. When demand is high and supply is low prices go up and vice versa.
The demand in the housing market is created by new buyers wanting in. If they are all killed off (according to you) then there will be no demand. Those wishing to move up the ladder will not be able to get a decent price as there is nobody lower down the ladder to sell to. As the old folk pop off the top of the ladder more properties become available and the price falls.

Get it?

Given that the world's population is growing by 218,000 per day, Swine Flu will have to kill a whole lot of people to make a difference.

That said, the planned population increases have already been "priced in" to house prices (which is why they have been rising for the past 20 years).

So it could certainly trigger a temporary correction.