Real Estate and COVID-19 (aka Corona Virus)

I often say how lucky I am to be able to work from home and set my own schedule. I can drop off and pick up my kids from school, see all their awards, take them to hockey or dance and volunteer when I want! When we found out the schools were being closed, I didn't have to scramble to find day care or ask for time off from work. That being said, I have clients who depend on me and still need to sell or buy a home and I’m certainly not going to leave them to fend for themselves. So how are we as real estate agents taking precautions to protect our clients, ourselves and our families? Lucky for us in the past decade, real estate has taken a turn to be more and more dependent on technology for the convenience of our clients with things like electronic signatures and virtual tours of our listings. However, with COVID-19, we need to take things even further. This week, I completed a listing appointment over FaceTime®. I emailed them the documents we needed to go over and we read over them together. They will be listing their property over the next couple weeks and I will need to meet the photographer at the house. I have asked my clients to leave at that time so we are not in the home together. I will arrive with my hand sanitizer and a container of Lysol® wipes and will wipe down anything we touch, such as door knobs for example. These Lysol® wipes along with hand sanitizer travel with me when I show houses to our buyers as well. We ask the sellers to have all interior doors open and lights on to prevent us from touching anything, but my buyers and myself will use hand sanitizer before we enter too. I will keep space between us, and if anything needs to be opened or turned on, I will do it, then I will wipe it down. And while I love taking pictures of my clients with their SOLD sign and often put the SOLD sign up with my clients, today I put the SOLD sign up without them and texted a picture to my sellers instead. We have stopped all group gatherings, including meetings, REALTOR® caravan and public open houses. We will not take unnecessary risks. While we need to sell houses to make our money, our number one priority is to keep our clients, ourselves and our families safe from COVID-19. If you have any questions, please contact me directly and like my Facebook® page at Joelle Fraser-McGaghey Seller Direct Fort McMurray for all your updates.