REAL ESTATE BEEFS IN THE AGE OF COVID

Here’s what’s bugging us right now:

Showings stacked on top of each other.

Space out the viewings at your listings. Check your calendar and don’t double-book people. Last thing anyone’s clients want is to run into strangers in the cramped basement of an unfamiliar house. There are enough hours in the day to accommodate everyone. Serious buyers don’t want to share a house. And we’re all waiting a few days before reviewing offers anyway. The whole point is to give everyone ample time to get through a house. And to do all this safely. Double-booking showings is disrespectful to everyone involved.

Open houses.

There is no way to properly control the flow of people through an open house, or to ensure that everyone keeps their masks on when they’re out of sight, or to be confident the name and address they give is their real one. Houses are flying off the shelves; we simply don’t need open houses right now. They’re an inefficient use of time. And in our opinion they cannot be made safe. 

Houses priced too low, just to draw a crowd.

We all have our strategies. And who are we to say how others should conduct their business? It’s just that we think pricing a house far below market value in order to draw a crowd (and a crowd of offers), is the wrong way to go about things these days. We need serious buyers who can afford the house to be the ones who book showings, not people who really don’t stand a chance. For them it’s like buying a lottery ticket. Pricing too low is a strategy that preys on people’s dreams of finding a real bargain (sorry but the chances of that are vanishingly slight these days). It doesn’t help anyone to create false hope in a buyer (and to draw them out of their safe spaces unnecessarily). Do your research and price your house where the data suggests it should be listed. That’s the responsible, ethical, and safest way to go about business.