Horsham real estate director Gerry Smith issues advice to renters | Coronavirus

Tuesday: WIMMERA residents worried about their rental future should stay in constant contact with their landlords.

That's according to Gerry Smith and co property group director Gerry Smith.

It comes as the Real Estate Institute of Australia has called on real estate agents nationwide to cease public auctions and open house inspections to slow the spread of coronavirus.

"If there is a personal crisis going on, tell someone," Mr Smith said.

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"Most landlords are realistic and human, but you need to talk about it as upfront as you can. In my experience, most people will try to work with tenants in genuine cases of need, and work out some sort of arrangement will help them get through."

Mr Smith said his organisation continued to work from their Hamilton Street base with social distancing measures imposed.

He said it would implement the measures urged by the REIA, which would have a noticeable impact in the short term.

"We have five auctions scheduled in the next 10 days, so we had already planned to cancel those auctions and those properties will be offered for private sale," he said.

"One-on-one private inspections are normal practice anyway. Clearly the market that will be affected because there are people in pretty ordinary circumstances with enforced business closures.

"We may find what we are doing now is the new normal for a significant period of time.

"With the collapse of the stock market, property becomes more attractive, so that may underpin the market for longer than what may have happened, because people have to put their money somewhere."

Harcourts Horsham principal Mark Clyne said most properties in the region were sold privately.

"Unless they are commercial properties or farm properties, and the reason for that is people can't get finance approval prior to auction," he said. "At an auction you can't put your hand up, bid and make it subject to conditions."

Mr Clyne said homeowners should talk with their banks about financial relief.

"I talked to a national bank in Horsham today and they have the provision to put peoples' repayments and certain loans on hold for six months," he said.

"People need to have discussions with their individual bank because they may have locked into an interest-only loan which they may not be able to alter. The information we have received through the Harcourts network is if people are having financial difficulties with their loans is to have a discussion."

Last week, Coller Rathgeber Property Group Principal Tim Coller told the Mail-Times Horsham had experienced "two of the strongest months... for quite some time" to start 2020.

In a statement on Tuesday, REIA president Adrian Kelly said the new measures needed to be "coupled with the appropriate safeguards as recommended by health authorities".

"With regard to public auctions, these can still occur via telephone bidding or by using one of the many online auction platforms available," he suggested.

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