Earlier this month Amazon Prime released a movie called Greenland starring the Scottish actor Gerard Butler. Despite the fact that he keeps referring to his son as “kiddo” every two minutes, It’s an entertaining watch and certainly got some good reviews from the likes of Empire and The Guardian.

The basic premise is, in the event of a global disaster, certain people are chosen by the government to shelter based on their professions so that a new society could be created if the worst happens and humans have to start again.

Without revealing too many plot spoilers Butler’s character, alongside his family, gets chosen to escape to safety because he is a structural engineer/architect.

It got us thinking that in the grand scheme of things the construction industry does play a hugely important part in modern society and in any society. Where would we be without houses or schools or supermarkets or roads?

The pandemic has helped to focus the minds on who are the key workers in modern society. Without Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Paramedics frankly we would have a far higher death toll than we do currently but even journalists have been included in this list because they have been vital in keeping the wider public informed on what is happening.

Back in 2019 the World Economic Forum published a top ten list of the world’s most highly respected or important professions and it’s unsurprising that the likes of doctors, teachers, nurses and engineers are universally seen as having the most value to any society.

With the increasing influence of Artificial Intelligence what impact will this have on what jobs are deemed are important? According to another report developed by the World Economic Forum millions of jobs globally will be lost to automation and robots and it concluded that half of all ‘work tasks’ will be capable of being carried out by machines by 2025. And there are plenty of Ted Talks that paint a bleak future for many jobs and professions. But even in the future world overrun by Bots, drones and self-driving cars there will still be a need for new buildings. People will still need homes to live in. The work of Estate Agents for example may change and there may be the need for less of them, but new jobs will be created in the property industry, for example, we could see the need for Sustainable Building Regulators, who would be charged with ensuring buildings are 100% environmentally sustainable and free from fossil fuels.

The property & construction industries get a lot of flak at times. The stereotypical images of rowdy groups of builders with their jeans that could do with a good belt continue to exist, and we all know how often estate agents appear in polls as one of least-trusted professions so it’s good to see the wider industry getting some love, albeit indirectly, in a major Hollywood blockbuster. Isn’t that right kiddo?!

▶️ Stamp duty debate continues – With up to 70,000 potential property deals predicted to be affected the stamp duty deadline of 31st March, Zoopla is the latest stakeholder to call for an extension. They suggest an extension of only one month, enough to help buyers who agreed a sale in 2020 to secure the savings they would otherwise have to pay in tax.

▶️ Supply of housing stock for sale down – Zoopla also found out that in the first few weeks of 2021, the flow of new homes coming to the market for sale was 12 per cent lower than a year ago with sellers likely to be waiting for COVID19 case numbers to drop further before listing their homes. However, contrast to this, demand continues to be high with demand in the first 3 weeks of January being 13 per cent higher than the same period in 2020.

▶️ Number of EU tenants in London drops – Unsurprising, with a large part of Brexit now completed, there has been a sharp drop in the number of EU nationals taking up tenancies in London and across the UK. According to Goodlord, the PropTech company, in London in particular, during 2017, the average proportion of tenants who were originally from EU countries stood at 29%. In 2020, EU tenants accounted for just 22% of London residents.

▶️ London prices continue to rise – Property prices in November 2020 in the capital rose on average by 4.0% since October 2020 and by 9.7% year on year taking the average property value in London to £513,997 according to the latest UK House Price Index data.

▶️ First time buyers still buoyant – In a survey conducted by Peabody and property portal, Share To Buy, it was discovered that almost 50% of potential first time buyers said that they are keener to purchase a property than compared to pre-pandemic, with only 4.5% of respondents now less inclined to consider buying a home than previously.

▶️ Plea for stamp duty holiday continues – With average UK house prices in November at the highest ever levels, reflecting the high levels of demand triggered by the stamp duty holiday, many conveyancers are now not guaranteeing completion dates to buyers before the deadline of 31st March. As there is a huge backlog of deals in process the danger is that some buyers will not complete in time through no fault of their own and be faced with the prospect of having to pay the stamp duty tax. Some experts think this could cause a swell of collapsed deals.