In a short time, the world has changed a lot. What happens when you’re trying to buy or sell a home, and something like this comes up? What can you do, and what are we doing in the real estate community?
UPDATE:
You should be wearing a mask. Homemade is fine. Just cover your face to keep you from touching it, and to avoid coughing or sneezing on anyone. The key here is to avoid the type of contact that is going to spread the virus. A suggested video on this matter: https://youtu.be/WxyH1rkuLaw
VIDEO DIALOGUE:
I wanted to talk a little bit about how this pandemic is affecting Nashville and Davidson county in particular currently. Of all counties in Tennessee, Davidson County has the most cases. This is not unexpected, as we have a much more dense population directly around Nashville, but people are doing a great job of staying home during this mess and keeping their hands clean and faces covered. We’re also all basically working from home – YES, I’m in my pajamas right now…
But social distancing isn’t as bad as it looks – We can all still FaceTime, Facebook Live and Instagram the crap out of each other. My two year old keeps asking to call his grandparents, which I know they enjoy, and we are live on Facebook more than we should be. Kids are working from home just like parents as most schools are shut down until later in April. The times are varying, but I found an easy to use resource at newschannel5.com – I’ll put the link in the description below so you can check it out if you need that. (https://www.newschannel5.com/weather/school-closings-delays)
The main thing I wanted to talk about here today is whether you can still SEE homes during this outbreak. A lot of buyers are putting things on hold, which makes complete sense. We should stay safe at home during this mess if possible. However, some of us can’t put the search on hold, we have to have a solution for the folks that are looking out of necessity. What I’m recommending for clients, is a virtual tour where I’ll actually go visit a home (or set of homes) for the first look and do a walkthrough FaceTime or video chat of some kind. If you love it we’ll go back out together. In some cases you can just come and join me right away, or the same day, depending on timing, so we can get that offer in as soon as possible.
We’re asking sellers to turn on all the lights, and go ahead and open all the doors to help limit what our buyers and agents have to touch to do the walkthrough. And for that matter, we’re keeping that 6 foot distance from one another, as needed. It’s not ideal, but it seems to be working well. Some people are weird about shaking hands anyway. I’ve got a box of gloves that I bring, hand sanitizer and recommend people take whatever other precautions they feel are necessary.
Now, I’m not sure that anyone is doing open houses. We’re not supposed to gather in groups of 10 or more to help curb the spread of this virus. So, another thing I’m doing is to post walkthrough videos, just like the virtual tours I do for clients, but on Facebook and Instagram.
Obviously if you are sick, stay home, you don’t want to be going near anyone to put them at risk, and you don’t want to make yourself worse. But if you are healthy, drive yourself to the house behind your agent. Keep a safe distance from your agent the whole time you’re in the house. When you’re finished, call the agent from your car to help limit your exposure to one another. Is it a good fit, do you need to check it off the list and keep looking?
For sellers that still have houses to sell. I’m going to do as many virtual tours as possible, offering high quality images and video of every room, even more so now than I have in the past. Host a website specific to the house, and run ads to get your listing in front of as many people as possible. We’ll talk about it on social media, and really hyper focus on the type of buyer that’s going to be right for the house.
Finally, I want to speak on the current market. From what I’m hearing and seeing from economists, there’s no indication that there will be any kind of crash, especially the likes of which we saw ten years ago. That was caused by giving loans to people that really didn’t qualify for those loans. This slowdown is because of a complete different reason. Rates are low, and they probably will go even lower before this is through. I, and colleagues of mine that I’m in touch with, do not think that the real estate market will come to a halt, and I am here to serve my clients in the best way that I can. If I need to drop off a roll of toilet paper at your doorstep, that’s what I’ll do – as long as I can still find at the store.
In the meantime, binge watch all the shows you’ve been meaning to catch up on. I highly recommend Tiger King on Netflix – it’s hilarious and unbelievable. I’ve been combing through all those weird 90s movies that are popping up in all my apps that I would normally have no interest in, and finding that a lot them still hold water.
Please let me know however I can be of assistance, and send me your binge watching recommendations, cause I’m home too. Hopefully we’ll get through all this very soon. I’ll see you later.
