Even though it seems like everything has come to a screeching halt in the world, that’s not entirely the case across the board. The process of buying and selling a home has surprisingly not stopped outright. The process has just had to adjust a little.
“The MLS system is no longer allowing us to advertise open houses, and we as a company at Shorewest are no longer providing open houses just to be able to flatten that curve,” Shorewest managing broker Jaime Kristof says.
They do everything in their power to get potential buyers to get good looks at the properties without actually having them in there.
“They’re usually doing it with Facebook Live. That way, if buyers are viewing the virtual open house, they can ask immediate questions, they can have maybe a particular room, they can take a second look at online,” says Kristof.
Once the potential buyer is ready, safety stays at the forefront.
“For occupied properties, we do have some good systems in place. We have listing agents and sellers who are requiring that a COVID-19 questionnaire be filled out and returned to the seller prior to allowing the buyer to see the property,” explained Kristof.
Things asking how the prospective buyer is feeling that day, and if they’ve been exposed.
“So we do have some really good systems in place so that once that has seen the property online and has really made that decision to go see it in person, they’re probably pretty close to writing an offer,” says Kristof.
The overall affect this pandemic has had on the industry is it weeds out the people who are not serious about putting in an offer.
“The buyers that are out there now are very very serious,” said Kristof. “They’re not tire-kickers.””