【Zillow】Information From Past Pandemics, And What We Can Learn: A Literature Review

• During epidemics such as the 1918 influenza or the 2003 SARS outbreaks, economic activity fell sharply during the epidemic (a 5-10% temporary hit to GDP or industrial production over the course of the epidemic) but snapped back quickly once the epidemic was over.
• This pattern differs from a standard recession, which is a situation in which economic activity falls for 6-18 months and then recovers more slowly.
• During SARS, Hong Kong house prices did not fall significantly, but transaction volumes fell by 33-72% as customers avoided human contact (“avoidance behavior” like avoiding travel, restaurants, and public gatherings). After the epidemic was over, transactions snapped back to normal volumes. 
• During the current episode in China, early news reports indicate that home prices have so far not fallen but transactions have nearly ceased.
• During standard recessions, home prices and transaction volumes may fall but this is not always the case (e.g. the 2001 recession).
• Before February 2020, leading economic indicators (job openings, the yield curve, interest rate spreads, and sentiment indicators) were giving mixed signals about the risk of a standard recession this year, with betting markets (PredictIt, 2020) giving probabilities ranging from 30% in December 2019 to 15% in January 2020, rising to 44% as of March 1. PredictIt defines a recession as at least two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.
• It is difficult to precisely forecast the probability of an epidemic-related downturn and/or how such a downturn could provoke a standard recession because this depends on how COVID-19 progresses and how this progress interacts with preexisting recession risks and policy responses (ranging from doing nothing to shutting down entire cities for months at a time).

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