By Cheryl Hentz
The way the world does business has changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes how real estate agents and brokers approach the business of marketing and selling houses, even renting them.
Instead, agents are meeting buyers at listed properties, sometimes even letting them tour vacant properties by themselves.
In cases where the properties are occupied, agents and buyers are donning masks and sometimes gloves, using hand sanitizer, and touring the homes while physically distancing, not shaking hands, and making sure not to touch things for fear of possibly spreading the virus.
Some agents are now slowly starting to hold open houses again – especially in the case of vacant properties – but when the pandemic first hit, sellers were reluctant to have a lot of strangers coming through their homes.
Some real estate offices are closed to the public, but in cases where they’re open, when buyers and sellers go to those offices, the staff are masked and, in some cases, gloved.
Many documents that need signatures during the sale process are handled with E-signatures – making home buying and selling more impersonal. And at closings, everyone is masked.
The realities of COVID-19 have created even more frustration for Debbie Cox at Service First Realty in Globe – a firm that primarily handles property management.
“Having to do things by E-sign doesn’t give me the opportunity to have a person across from me to explain to them how things work, our expectations, and to just get a better feel for the person,” Cox says.
“Because our tenants stay with us for five to nine years, I like to get a sense of who my tenants are. COVID has definitely kept me from being able to develop a good rapport with our tenants right off the bat.”
Patty Hetrick with Stallings and Long Realty says their current sales are better than when she first opened her office in 2003. She estimates that sales this year have doubled when compared with this time last year. And since March, when COVID-19 first hit, things have exploded. They’ve never been busier, despite low inventory.
“Every one of our agents have been just hopping busy; it’s unbelievable,” Hetrick says. “I thought we’d be fizzling out and wasn’t sure how we’d all work from home and sell houses. But it just kind of took off.”
The same is true at Smart Concept Realty Group. “We’re very busy right now. The inventory is low in the Globe-Miami area, so that’s great for sellers. A lot of times they are getting multiple offers,” says Adrea France.
When you can have lower overhead and start an investment business here, you can grow in a small town like this, and that offers a unique opportunity here in Globe-Miami.”