Changes in Home Buying and Selling as States Reopen

All right, hi, everybody out there on Facebook, Live world. And hello everybody on the Zoom meeting. This is James and I's weekly time where we try to just tell you what we see going on in the world and in the marketplace. And since states seem to be opening back up quite a few of them, we thought it would be a good idea to explain to agents and to buyers and to sellers what that experience should feel, look and be like in this. I don't know whether we're quite to new normal, but in our journey towards new normal, what this should look like. So I've got my good friend and colleague James Duiggins with me, like I do most Fridays, and we're gonna get this up and rolling. So question and answer tab is on the right hand side. Please use that with abandoned. Abandoned. No, abandoned. Abandoned is like, you know, when James leaves me, I feel sad. But abandoned with abandoned means recklessly, infrequently. So there you go. I'm going to share the PowerPoint. James, let's get this thing rolling. Say hi to them. Say hi to them.

Hello, everybody. TGIF again for sure. All right, cool. Let's dive in.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right. This is the question that we actually covered in a webinar a week ago. So we aren't going to go too deep on this one. But the short answer is, as buyers and sellers are asking, should I buy now? How does it even work? Can I buy now? The answer is it depends. And the answer actually was it depends on before coronavirus. And the answer when coronavirus is no longer on this earth, the answer will still be it depends. Because it mostly depends on your life situation. How long do you intend on staying in the home? What are your plans in and around that? The in and out costs of real estate are relatively high. You pay about 11% combined when you purchase and when you sell. So the in and out costs are relatively high. And because of that you need time in it just to make up the costs. So most people are buying because of timing in their life, not timing in the market. But there isn't. But yes, if the timing in your life is right, then yes, you should consider it if the timing in your life is wrong. I wouldn't anyway.

Yeah, and I would add a couple comments to that. Like we covered before at the worst point possible, which I believe was 2007, a Keith on a slide we did in a previous webinar. Basically, in most areas across the country, properties in 10 years later had already recovered. So the point I would make there is. When you're talking to clients, make sure you're letting them understand if your plan is to stay in the place long term, then yeah, it's the right time to buy. Interest rates are low. There's an opportunity right now where you can get into the market. And then Keith and I have been very consistent and we still are very consistent with our messaging that we do see real estate being a bright spot. So if there's opportunities to jump into this now, then I think it should be something you look at as the economy recovers, there'll obviously be more inventory. And if you're a seller, then you may have more inventory to compete with. So just I would tell people that as Keith pointed out, it depends upon your life situation. But theoretically, if this isn't a flipper and you want to do something long term, then there's always a good moment in time to make that happen.

Absolutely. All right, so now we are entering, and this also varies state by state. We are entering the new normal and there'll be differing phases of new normalness across the nation. But talk to us just a little bit about what's this going to look like? And as maybe as business people, as business owners, we probably have some non real estate business owners that are listening to this webinar too. How should I approach this?

Yeah, so the thing that we're gonna do with this, and this isn't gonna be a very long webinar, we're just gonna give you the to do this is coming from both a buyer, seller and agent perspective just to clear all the nonsense that we continue to hear on social media and the news. Covid's gonna be around for a while, as we've talked about, until such time as we have a vaccine estimates as early as September. I don't know if that's correct. Maybe next year sometime. The point is you have to be coming at this from a defensive play. What I would be doing is planning everything around the idea of how to protect the health of your clients, your health, and also your business. So I don't care if there is a very minimal number of classified people with COVID in your area, you should go at it with the assumption that people have it that you don't know about and you should protect your business and your client's health. So everything we're going to cover is from much more of a legal defensive play. And you should implement this across your business. Brokers should have this be something that's mandated across your brokerage. Agents should be doing this. And you should treat it with the same with a client. To be clear, if a client doesn't want to wear a mask, do not allow them to the house. Like, if people are like, well, I don't. That's a violation of my personal rights. Congratulations. You're not coming into the home. Like, you have to treat it from a perspective of you need to be defensive because there is already cases happening where a seller is suing the agent because they didn't know the buyer had Covid, the buyer didn't disclose it, and everyone's getting sued in the process. So I'm trying to just basically say, take all your personal opinions out of it and just be defensive with your business and the health of your people. So, yeah, that's going to be the rundown of this whole webinar.

Yep. And it really is about protecting your business, protecting yourself, protecting your clients, protecting your colleagues. This is about protection, not about anything else. And I promise you, there are already started there. There. There are lawsuits that are started now. There will be more. And if you don't have a plan, like, we're going to sell you our plan. If you hate it, that's cool. But make sure you have your plan. And your plan can't be, I'm doing it just like I did it two months ago or three months ago. That should not be your plan. You will get, you will lose if you are sued. So define a plan. We're going to share ours with you. What we care about the most is that every person is defining how they're going to operate their business in this new, vaguely normal. And really. And we just anchored into this, it's how to stay safe. So first thing, virtual showings. That is a great place to start.

Yep. So two things on this. One is with Zoom, for example, we would recommend that if you can get into a property, try to limit the number of people coming through it. Less involvement with physical activity is better from a legal perspective. You can set it up where you can. You can personally view the home for the buyer as one example. So set a date and time. You turn on Zoom on your phone, walk them through the home, tell them everything about it. Make sure you're essentially weeding out the number of properties they need to see during that process. That's a service you should advertise in all of your marketing material. We're going to cover some of that in a minute. Number two is if the seller isn't. And this is now listing agent side. If the seller is not comfortable with having people come in the home, then get the selling agent to do a virtual walkthrough and either record it or just one person's coming through that property. But what's most important is everything you own that advertises your business. Your website, your social media, your marketing material, your listing presentation, your buyer presentation. These should be options you are including in everything that you do to let the buyer and the seller choose how they want to have their home marketed or how they want to view properties.

Yeah, I mean, when I was showing property, it was, you know, it's pretty standard. I would show three to five homes every time I took out a buyer. What you might do now is virtually show three to five homes and then they're going to come meet you for a second showing at the one that is their favorite of the ones they've seen. Or if they found that house, that makes it feel like the love connection. So it's so important that you and that you think about how you're going to. It's all about as minimal contact as possible. That is the goal and that is what you are trying to accomplish. That's virtual showings.

Yep.

One at a time. And drive separately. No carpooling.

So the idea here is. And Keith, I don't know if this is. Did it go to the next slide or is it just me? I know we're having some Internet connection issues here.

Yeah, I'm not.

There we go. I got it. So the thing here, as Keith mentioned, again, everything is from a health perspective. There's actually information that's been put out from national association of Realtors and states. You do not have anybody in the house other than the one person, as we talked about, do not drive in the vehicle with them. Practice. Practice the safe, proper social distancing with it. Even if the husband and wife are together. I would try to limit the amount of interaction between people. So that's something to consider as well. But just these things kind of sound simple. But people. I'm talking to people and I'm actually hearing people like, oh, yeah, you know, I went with the buyer to the property and I was like, you did, like in the same car, you know, so make sure. You're obviously keeping some of these mandates to be clear, and we're going to cover some of this. You also have to be following state law and whatever health requirements are being put out by the government, both locally and state. So make sure you're keeping all that in mind. Again, anytime you violate any ordinance or requirements, even involuntarily you are putting yourself at risk of getting in trouble for doing that. Meaning there's potential liability risk there if somebody gets sick. So.

And I think you can, you know, there's a way to maybe do this that is a little. That you can make it fun, right? Like you could think about buying walkie talkies and giving the buyer a walkie talkie and you take one and you're talking to them while you're driving, or you call them and you're debriefing about the house that you just saw, which is normal. The reason we like showing property with the buyer, although that sounds archaic now, but the reason that we did was because it was good rapport building. You can still build rapport at distance. You can still have the conversation. You just can't have it the same way you used to have it. All right, the next one is don't touch anything or use the restroom. I mean, you need to use the restroom, just not when you're showing houses, which you should have been doing anyway, you sickos.

As we talk about this, you'll see the PPE requirements that we're gonna tell you that you need to do, which is again, also being requested by the CDC and others. The point here is they are not allowed to touch anything in the property. Only have yourself open a door. Don't have them touch railings unless they have to. We're going to cover the gloves and things they need to be wearing, but basically limit the amount of exposure of the client on anything in that home at all. And again, unless they have to use the restroom because of an emergency or something, they need to be using another restroom somewhere else. So that limits the liability of, of everything that you're dealing with.

No food or drink, no sharing sticky cups, no, you know, no double dipping. Basically, just pretend you're, you know, you're at a. You're at a nice cocktail party. Don't act weird.

Yeah, yeah. And the no food or drink thing, I know it's customary that we, like, have water and all of that stuff. No, none of that. Get rid of the food, get rid of the drink. It's. Think of it as a showing somebody comes through one on one like you do now, and that's it. There's absolutely nothing that the person should be touching in that home. The more that you do that, the more you're opening yourself up for potential issues of liability.

This was a question from the audience, and we told you we're going to cover. We're at that place. Wear masks, gloves, and booties, you're going to have a new uniform and it'll feel weird at first if you haven't already been doing it, but. But it is what we strongly recommend.

Yeah. So two things there. Isn't this weird. Keith and I decided to be a little more open. This weird debate going on about masks and whether somebody should be forced to wear it or not. Look, you can take all your own personal stuff out of it for a second. Again, I'm gonna go back to what I said before. Limit your liability. I don't care if your state doesn't require masks or whatever. If you want to increase your liability, don't wear a mask. If you want to increase your liability on stuff, then don't wear booties or gloves. If you want to protect yourself and your client, it should be a requirement that the buyer was wearing latex gloves to protect themselves. Masks and booties, I realize there is only a limited amount of protection from that. I get that. But every percentage of protection is more coverage of liability and risk. So you have to look at it from that perspective. Somebody asked if you're required to provide it. I would. If your client doesn't have a mask that they're wearing, if they don't have gloves or booties, I would get them. The other question that was asked in the audience is what do you recommend? What brands? Any brand that you can buy them right now. You know, and to be clear, a cloth mask is fine. Preferably N95 is going to be better. That being said, N95s need to go to healthcare workers before we do. So at the minimum, a cloth mask, you can make them very easily by just making them. They don't cost a lot. So I'd provide them to your clients. At the very minimum, you should be wearing them. Your clients should be wearing them. If I was showing property today, if a client refused to wear masks, gloves or booties, do not let them in that home. Telling you right now, it's just. Sorry, it's a requirement of what we need. The seller requires it. It's out of respect to the sellers. If somebody doesn't want to do it, then good luck, go find another property. So that'd be how I would handle it.

Yeah. I'll tell you, the gloves that I found. If I went and looked for medical quality gloves, I couldn't find them. But for restaurant gloves on Amazon and was able to buy boxes of them. So you got to get sometimes creative in what you are looking in how you solve the problem. Question was asked, should I change every time. The answer is I don't know. I think you could probably do. Certainly I would change gloves with every house showing. And booties, you could probably wear a mask for the showing.

Yeah, you should basically. So let me answer that a couple ways. If you do cloth based material, when you're done, as I talked about, make sure you take it off, do not touch it. So that way you can put it in a place that's getting washed. Use hand sanitizer to wash your hands after so that if there is potentially any type of virus or bacteria you're doing that, you can use cloth. Washing it in the washing machine will take care of those issues. So if you want to make a couple of them and reuse them, that's fine to do. Just basically just make them a washable item and then you can do that with your clients. If you, you can't buy stuff, if you're buying latex gloves and things, obviously pull them out, throw them out. So that's important to do. Provide hand sanitizer. We're going to talk about that. You should be even telling people, please use hand sanitizer, you know, and make sure that you're doing it as well. So.

Yep. And by the way, your states, I believe most states all is a really dangerous word. Okay. But I believe most states, states, real estate associations will put out showing guidelines that you will be responsible for adhering to. But if your state hasn't or doesn't, then you need, you should do it on your own. And I agree, sanitize your hand before and after each showing. Even if you had gloves on, just be safe. Just. That's what it's all about.

One comment on that, Keith. I don't, I mean, look, every state in this country has different opinions on lots of things. I would take the California approach just from a liability standpoint of even if your state says you don't need to wear masks, screw that, wear a mask anyway just to protect yourself because it doesn't matter what your state says, somebody can still sue you for whatever they want to sue you for. So just, again, every level of protection lowers that risk. And I'm talking, you know, like how an attorney would talk because I have five of them. So.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, Ann said it and I'm gonna echo it. Have your plan so that you can show that you have a plan. That is how you protect yourself and your business. Okay, we're cool on questions. We'll keep moving from here. What about a hold harmless waiver, James?

Absolutely. You should have a hold harmless waiver for your seller if you're gonna show the property so that they agree and understand they're not going to sue you. If somebody comes in and has Covid and and the reverse of that is the same thing for the buyer, I would get them to sign it. If they refuse, don't let them in. I want to be very clear about this. This is going to be around for a while and what you have to think about here is some sue happy person who's like, I got sick because I was in that property and now they're going after you and they're going after the other agent because they're looking for money. I mean, that's how unfortunately some people are. So hold harmless waivers should be in place for your seller and every buyer that comes through that home so that they're not going to go after anybody for being in a property that you don't know if this virus is there. You just don't. So I would absolutely do it as a standard. Yep.

Pre qualify, pre qualified buyers only. And this one, you know, I know there are times where maybe someone isn't all the way pre qualified but they've started talking to a lender or you know, those sorts of things. But I really would try my hardest to make sure this isn't the time. There will be a time where it's fun to go look at nice houses again and you know, do those sorts of things, but right now isn't that time. And so putting the pre qualified hurdle in front of them, which often, you know, many people think you should be doing that anyway, doing it in this time just makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. And again, I'm going to just explain this. You want to explain to the seller that you have this process in place so you're going to limit the number of buyers that are coming into the property because they have been pre qualified. Again, it's a small percentage of reducing risk. Goal is to reduce risk to zero. That's impossible. But we can do little tiny steps and bring that in. So, you know, pre qualified meaning obviously they've got the ability to buy the property and have a pre qual letter from a lender. So do what you can to limit the amount of people that go through the property so that you're reducing that risk base.

Yeah. Bruce asks concerns with pre qualified only and fair housing requirements. Well, first of all, let's start with James and I are not any of your brokers. Okay. On anything. We're not attorneys either, nor are we Attorneys. Right. But I did get a really good night's sleep last night. So, you know, there's that. Right. So I think pre qualified isn't a protected class. So you're not. In my opinion, that's not discriminatory. And if you don't feel like that one fits for you, take it out. No problem. I would just at least ask if they are and if they aren't, encourage them to start the process. You need to have some protections in place for people just viewing the home. All right. Screening questionnaire. Some states have a Covid disclosure. Yeah, I think all. I believe every state has one now at this point. But how do you think we should handle this when we're talking to people about it?

Okay, so this is a. I'm gonna give you the exact reason why I threw this in the deck. So when I went to pick up a car from the service department, they had a questionnaire that you answered. And it's very basic screening questions. Have you traveled outside the country in the past 14 days? Have you been in contact with somebody who's had COVID 19 in the past 14 days? Like, it asks a bunch of standard questions. And so it was, if you answered. Let me answer to it. If you answered yes to any of them, then you were not allowed inside the service department to get service. They said, go away for 14 days, come back. It's a standard questionnaire that I've seen in a lot of different companies. You can look one up online. They're everywhere. And it doesn't. As long as you make everybody to be clear, every single person has to fill it out, then you're not violating any sort of housing laws or fair housing laws. So it's just a standard questionnaire that asks about health. The CDC has put out a lot of this information. So again, just look up a standard questionnaire. I would encourage you to do that purpose here. Again, reduce risk. So if they are acknowledging on that document that they don't have any of these things and then you let them into the property, you are reducing your risk. If they got sick or they were sick after, you can show that you had them sign, fill out the questionnaire and that you did the proper screening possible to limit the exposure. So I would personally do this as well. And if somebody doesn't feel comfortable with it, sorry, you know, like, it's a health and safety issue.

So provide PPE and hand sanitizer.

Yeah. Goes back to the question we said before. We can probably move past this, but you guys need to provide it if they don't have it, if you want them into the property, provide them the material. If you don't have it and they don't have it, you have to make that choice on your own. But I'll go back to my statement. Don't increase your risk.

And that means you need to have a certain supply of this available and change what's in your go bag for showing properties. Right. Take up, take some time and really think about what you're stocking in your car when you're running to do a showing and make sure that you're adding to the checklist the new things you'll need to safely show off social distancing. And I don't know about you, it's necessary, but I'm sure getting sick of it. I miss my friends, I miss my co workers. You know, it's very technical term that I learned in business school, but this is really starting to suck. But it is important. It is a very important part of what is working in flattening the curve. And that phrase we keep hearing. And this is something that we need to continue until there's a good treatment and a good. And a vaccine.

Yeah, Keith, just to add two things and we'll move forward here. If you, whatever you guys want to do in your own personal time and all of that is certainly that's that. But when you are with your clients, you need to continue to do social distancing. Again, reduce the risk. I know it's awkward. Don't give them a handshake. Do like a distance handshake or something and be like, I respect you guys. I wish I could give you a handshake and a hug, but we can't do that. I'm going to keep my space. If you have any questions, let me know, I'll answer it. I'll be behind you walking around the property. Just practice this anyway. Again, it's a small percentage of risk. But if they're like, oh, well, the agent was next to me and they walked through the house and then the agent got sick and I got sick. Because they weren't practicing social distancing, boom, there's potential legal action. So you want to reduce this at all times.

Clean up behind yourselves, clean up on your way out.

I mean, it's pretty common sense, but I would again, just incorporate this into your presentation with your clients. If you're representing a listing, let them know that after the. Not only are they not going to touch anything in the property when they're here, we're going to Keep distance. The booties, the gloves, the mask. But I'm also going to go around and clean the flat surfaces and the door handles and all of those things after we're done, just to reduce the amount of risk as well. So just make it part of your presentation.

This is somewhat duh. I don't think we need to spend too much time here. But, you know, if you are one of the still one people printing paper, they're driving to the house, you probably need to go ahead and stop doing that and go ahead and unplug your fax machine and go ahead and set free your carrier pigeons and usher yourself into the year 2020. But remote signing is awesome. This is something that if you aren't super comfortable with it, get more comfortable with it because you should have been there already. But if you aren't. And I know, and I will stop with the. With the joking because there are some clients who prefer pen and paper and who prefer to hold it and read it. I've worked with them in the past, but again, I would steer heavily towards DocuSign. Imagine you could come up with some structure where you could put in an envelope and leave it at the house and leave it in the sun for a day or whatever. But whenever possible, you should be doing this already. But make sure you're using DocuSign.

Yeah. And one final comment is that the point of this slide, in addition to using all of that, is you need to advertise this as a service that you do with your clients. So if you do not have it as part of your listing presentation or your buyer presentation, incorporate it now, get it in there, talk about this as an option. You can do the entire transaction mobile. We can have a mobile notary, if it's available in your state, come by to do everything. Like, we can make this a virtual transaction completely. It's a service I offer. We've been doing it for a while or whatever. So just that's the point behind this, is make sure it's part of your advertising and marketing that we're going to get into in a minute.

Yeah. Which is really like, we're giving you the scary part right now, the unfun. Right. The legal attorney part. And then we're going to get to the part where you can talk about this as part of your value proposition. Jason asked a good question. You recommend listing agents supply the PPE and hand sanitizer in their listings. My answer is I would. I would have a stash of it almost. You know, you walk in and there's usually where people throw their keys right there when you walk in. I would have it there. Think of it like when you're stocking the house with flyers and whatever else you are putting in the home for marketing purposes I would include those items. So this is the checklist. I'll pause here for a second because I know some of you are going to want to screen capture it. So that's cool. I'll let you.

And real quick, and real quick, this is interesting question here from Wayne Keith. So he says that some of his customers don't have computers or smartphones, just a landline and the doorbell. It's frustrating for our demographic. Totally get it. Not saying there isn't that demographic. So here's gonna be my weird off the cuff answer to this. I would. If you're gonna have them sign something via paper, I would leave time in there for when you drop that those documents off and when you pick those documents up. I know that sounds extreme but what I'm leaving the time in there for is if somebody was sick and you didn't know it. If you're gonna touch that sleep stuff, give it a little bit of time because as we know the virus will basically kill itself off within 24 hours theoretically. I know that sounds extreme, but just take whatever safety precautions you need to do in order to protect your health and your clients. Even if it sounds really far out there, just be mindful of that stuff as you go through it.

Yeah. And there are some people where that is just the way you have to do it. Think about it. Apply precautions that make you feel safe and make them feel safe. Alright, so there is the lawyerly fear and loathing part. Now let's talk about how a cool tool and then we'll talk about how you can start to position this as part of your value prop and as part of the service that you provide.

I love this.

Yeah.

Yeah. So this is a new product out there. Basically it allows you guys to swap out the door handle on the door. We're talking about vacant homes. Just be clear. The door handle on the door. And basically the person can go and download an app register. It gives them a one time access code. It's a lot like what Offerpad and Opendoor were doing with or at least Open Door and Zillow with opening up properties remotely. So it gives them a one time access code. They can go in and view the property. You can set up some cameras to see them as well at the same time if you want. And then once the code's done and they leave, the code's no longer usable. That limits you from being in that property. It lets you know who people are that are coming through. It's also a lead gen tool. There's lots of ways you can market this, but I like the idea of it's a way to keep less people involved in the home and it reduces your risk as well. The cool part is you can keep the door handles and then you can reuse them on other homes that you have for vacant properties. So I would look, personally, I would just look at incorporating this now, but just as part of my service offering for the future, anyway.

Yeah. All right. So now the be Covid conscious. And what this is really about is thinking about and we put some bullet points up here, but really what it's about is designing your communication to your sphere of influence, to your leads, to the human beings that you're coming into contact with for how you have thought about this and you have changed your business and are approaching it in a safe way. I think that it's so important that as an industry, we are out there and communicating this to our people and making it part of what we do.

So the idea here is Keith and I were trying to come up with the word, but like being a Covid conscious agent, I don't know. Covid conscious realtors. Come up with whatever you want.

It'll be a designation in two months.

So the idea here is really simple and we'll move on from this. Incorporate, create your plan and then.