Will there be properties on fire sale for this Covid-19 ?

I saw two interesting transactions in the Edge this weekend.
Both properties are at the Sail @ Marina Bay. I have mentioned previously (in some blog posts long long time ago) that I tried to find one at $1,300-$1,400 psf during the GFC but wasn't successful.

One made a gain of $1.736m. The owner bought it for $1,016 psf in Dec 2004.

He sold it for $1,893 psf in Apr 2020.

The other made a loss of $1.746m on a smaller unit. 

He bought it for $3,001 in Oct 2007 (right before the global financial crisis) and sold it in Apr 2020 for $1,781 psf.

This is a painful loss for the owner who bought it right before the crisis and at record prices. It shows that if you "chase" after the price without consideration to its fundamental value, it may haunt you eventually as the prices never recovered even after more than 10 years.  

Obviously if you had bought some properties during the 2009 crisis, you would have benefited from the rebound in property prices. Will this crisis throw up any interesting transactions in the property market?  I think it is still too early to tell and my gut feel is "No" unless the Covid-19 drags beyond 2021. 

I spoke to many people and everyone is expecting things to get worst. Many are predicting that the economy will take a long time to recover and it will be worse that the last crisis. But when too many people think this way, the opposite is always true.  

Unlike the last crisis, what is amazing this time is how quickly global governments reacted by injecting liquidity into the market, by making sure that landlords cannot evict tenants if they can't pay the rents, by flushing cheap money into the financial systems, by making it legally ok to defer debt obligations if you really can't pay because of the pandemic. 

In Singapore, the government is pulling out the dough to save jobs, save companies and save the economy. The governments are hoping that the artificial injection of cash into the system will prop up the market and sentiments and eventually, when the cure is found (it will be sooner or later), things will get back to normal. 

This Covid-19 is a global black swan event. I have never seen anything like that, but will you find good bargains? The coordinated actions by the government may somewhat lessen the 'true impact' if it had been left unchecked and if companies are "allowed to fail".

Today, if you can't pay the monthly mortgage, you can apply to the banks for help. That is kicking the can down the road in a legal manner. You may also read that MAS had proactively changed some regulations governing the REITs for this crisis as well.

At this juncture, there is "no blood on the streets and dramatic companies failure yet". The sentiments are somewhat saved by government actions and there is "no fear" in the streets. Many governments will be holding elections this year and are hoping their fates will be similar to the "Koreans" ruling party.   

Will you find the bargains you have been waiting for in the local property market? 

My view is "No unless sentiments turned quickly for the worst".  You may see more realistic sellers in the coming months but they are definitely not desperate for now.