Interesting discussion going on above. Majority of people in Pakistan are still bullish and think everything to return back in some weeks to same situation as it was before the virus. However I believe, it's time to protect your investments rather than making speculative investments. I've seen some people investing in stock market and real estate even in these times thinking everything to rebound. In fact, the brokers and real estate agents in Karachi are super active these days and calling to tell that property market will jump so better to invest now or lose out. Due to this, prices have also increased a bit around Defence and Clifton areas as there are few sellers in Covid times and buyers are being lured at higher prices by hungry dealers.
However, people fail to see the worsening macroeconomic conditions and foolishly make investments out of emotions rather than hard numbers. Income for majority of population has suffered after Covid, unemployment rate has gone up, foreign remittance (which formed the backbone of real estate investments here) have vanished with workers being laid off abroad, GDP rate is negative in this fiscal year and it is projected to be negative even for the upcoming fiscal year, and more debt in future would mean more PKR devaluation that will make property investment in Pakistan less lucrative to expats. All these trends mean that demand for property will be very low. People with documented or undocumented money are already heavily invested in property and would look to dispose some of it in order to use that wealth. Above all property market in Karachi has been severely overvalued as it has increased by at least 400-500% since 2010 in Defence and Clifton areas. Such kind of growth isn't there even in most developed cities around the globe and we are talking about areas where even line water isn't available. Just to give some examples which I personally saw, a decent 12 marla (300 yard) house in DHA Karachi phase 4 isn't available even in 6.5 crores, even though the same was available at 1.6 cr in 2010. Plot prices are even higher as a 1 Kanal (500 yds) plot in DHA phase 8 D cutting was available for 60 lacs in 2008, now it is around 5.5 crore at same location. Although IMO the prices won't go down as Govt is protecting the rich elite by giving them package, but the price appreciation won't likely be much for next few years.
I'd advise better to invest in Gold. Even if global gold prices won't appreciate, the investors will still benefit from the upcoming depreciation of Pak rupee as the gold prices are linked with USD rate. So your gold investment will effectively protect against rupee devaluation and may give you a higher return than everything else.
