The Market is Strong: Selling & Buying Real Estate During COVID-19

Buying or selling your home is a big step that’s often emotionally challenging. Trying to do it during a pandemic can feel even more daunting. However, despite the fluctuations in different markets, real estate has been resilient – buying real estate and selling real estate are both active. Or, as The Economist puts it, America’s housing market “seems strangely oblivious” to today’s current issues. Is this something we will continue to experience? Our perceptions of what normal looks like are being challenged more so than ever before.  

But in this post-COVID-19 real estate market, what is the new normal? Now isn’t time to pass up on your dream home or avoid listing your home. There is solid evidence showing that not only is now a great time to buy or sell your home but that doing so now could be an advantageous long-term investment.

Buying Real Estate: Incentives Await You

Buyers, we’re always waiting for the “right” time. And with all the things going on in the world, now might not feel like the right time to buy a home. However, COVID-19 isn’t having quite the impact we expected. While we have to change our behavior to keep ourselves safe and healthy, it doesn’t have to stop us from establishing a life in a new place. Here are some reasons I believe now is a special window of opportunity for home buyers:

Interest Rates are Low

In the past few weeks, Freddie Mac has reported the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has dropped to record lows – down to 3.03%. This means your dollar will stretch more. Over a 30-year mortgage, you can find homes with higher price points, opening the menu of homes available to you.

Home Buying Assistance

In Illinois, during COVID-19, people buying real estate had 60 home buyer programs to choose from, depending on their requirements. For many millennial home buyers, this might be your chance to stop renting and own a home. Homeownership is a worthwhile investment because, as this pandemic is proving, the real estate market is relatively stable.

Flexible, Safe Options for Home Tours

You don’t have to put yourself and your loved ones at risk to find your future home. Instead, you can book special private house tours, view virtual tours, or utilize several other ways to access the details of a listing. With the varieties of technology at our fingertips on our mobile phones alone, you have options for safe home tours.

Selling Real Estate: The Demand is Here

Demand is putting it lightly. With fewer homes on the market over the past few years, buyers are motivated to find their home and put down an offer. Therefore, now is the time to list your home on the market.

Interest in Single-Family Homes is Strong

Demands for single-family homes are increasing. It’s now higher than pre-pandemic days. According to Forbes, buyer demand is now 25% higher than before the pandemic. That’s impressive, but it’s also reassuring. When you put your home on the market, you can do so knowing that the current environment weighs in your favor.

Homes are Selling – Fast

With fewer houses on the market and lots of buyers, it’s easy to see why homes are selling fast. While it might make things more challenging for home buyers, it’s a boon for home sellers. If you’re selling real estate in this COVID-19 world, your success is almost guaranteed. Fast sales and bidding wars are not uncommon these days. Constant communication is necessary, and you’ll rely heavily on your agent to guide you through this exciting process.

Marketing a Home Has Never Been Easier

Since COVID-19 led to a stay-at-home order in Illinois earlier this year, real estate agents like myself were faced with a special moment. To keep our clients and ourselves safe, we had to leverage the technology we already had at our disposal. And it was extremely successful. Here are some ways I am using digital channels to market my client’s homes:

Virtual Tours: Virtual tours can be pre-recorded or hosted in real-time using apps like FaceTime, Zoom, or Duo. These virtual tours are a great substitute for in-person home tours. For a live virtual tour, prospective home buyers can ask questions and learn as many details as possible without stepping foot in your home.

Digital Flipbooks: Digital flipbooks are interactive online brochures. The high-quality layouts and stunning photos cast your home in the best light possible to attract interested buyers. These digital flipbooks are convenient, and URLs can be provided to anyone who wants to see your home.

Videos: Videos are common enough in the real estate world and are no longer in the purview of high-ticket homes. With a mobile device, high-resolution, motion-stable video recordings are possible.

Social Media: Social media is the place to be when selling your home. I love using social media to reach home buyers. It’s a great way to reach a lot of people at once. Images and hashtags make it easy for buyers to find your home.

Buying real estate or selling your home doesn’t have to be much different than it was five or six months ago. Agents, along with buyers and sellers, have become savvier in the face of disruptions to the way we’ve been doing things. The new normal is this:

1.  Increased virtual communication

2.  More flexibility in the way we do business by utilizing technology

3.  Optimism in the face of adversity by continuing to live our lives the safest way we can

3.  Relying on our communities to keep our neighborhoods protected and local businesses flourishing

 I hope we can enjoy this vision of the new normal together as we continue to live life and do business in 2020.

Work with the Best, Talk to Terri Buseman – Your Chicago Realtor: 1-312-208-5166

THIS ARTICLE WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AT: https://www.terribuseman.com/selling-buying-real-estate-during-covid-19/

Good News! It’s the Right Time for Selling or Buying a Home

If you have been keeping tabs on the pandemic as I have, you know that the stock market has been affected tremendously, and the economy is taking a colossal hit because of the coronavirus. Naturally, many wonder how that financial hit translates into the real estate market. If you were thinking about buying or selling a home in 2020, the pandemic may have you wondering if you should rethink that plan. Despite the challenges of social distancing and life in the age of COVID-19, signs of resilience in the real estate market are strong and the news is good. Buyers are buying and sellers are selling!

According to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist with the National Association of Realtors, after a pause from the pandemic “home sellers are gearing up to list their properties with the reopening of the economy… plenty of buyers also appear ready to take advantage of record-low mortgage rates and the stability that comes with locked-in monthly payments into future years.” 

As we reemerge from sheltering-in-place and adjust to life in a “new normal”, the basic process of selling and buying a home remains the same with finding solutions and adjustments to keep everyone involved as safe and protected as possible.

If you are in a position where you would like to buy or sell a home during this time, here are some important tips to help you successfully navigate selling your property and buying your dream home!

A Chicago Realtor’s Best Tips for Selling or Buying a Home During a Pandemic

 

Top 5 Tips for Home Sellers

1. Plan Ahead. Getting your home ready to sell takes planning and patience. From decluttering to cleaning, most sellers find there is much to do to get their house ready for potential buyers. Keep in mind, if you need to schedule work to be done by a handyman, home stager, or another professional, planning ahead is very important as their availability will impact the date your house is ready to be on the market. Be prepared for some delays when booking a designer, painter, or contractor as they may not be as readily available as they were prior to the pandemic.

2. Access to Your Home. Discuss with your realtor how comfortable you are with prospective buyers coming in and out of your home. Our utmost concern is to keep you healthy and protected. So, during showings, we will require that everyone wears gloves, booties, and masks. It is also reasonable to ask potential buyers to limit touching furniture, surfaces, and other items in your home as much as possible.  And of course, after a showing, you will want to ensure all commonly touched surfaces are cleaned and sanitized like light switches, door handles, faucets and surfaces.

3. Take Advantage of Technology.  From virtual tours and 3D walkthroughs to videoconferencing and Facetime, today’s technology makes it easy to view a property and minimize face-to-face meetings when discussing the sale of your home. Be sure you (or your realtor) upload a floor plan as well as high-quality pictures of your home to many different real estate websites such as MLS, Zillow, and Trulia and your social media channels online.

4. Create Virtual Tours and Showings. When your home is staged and camera ready, make sure you or your realtor film a virtual tour of your home. If a virtual tour is done well, a potential buyer can experience your home as they take a virtual walkthrough its rooms. Once filmed, these virtual tours can be uploaded on the many real estate sites and social media channels allowing potential buyers to easily view your home day or night. If a potential buyer shows serious interest, offer the opportunity to schedule a virtual showing via FaceTime or Zoom to allow viewing the home in real-time.

5. Get a COVID-19 Waiver. When potential buyers are serious about your property and want to schedule a showing, those potential buyers should sign an appropriate COVID-19 waiver confirming that they do not have COVID-19 and that they have not come into contact with anyone with COVID-19 in the past 14 days.

Top 5 Tips for Home Buyers

1.  Investigate Best Mortgage Options. Mortgage rates are attractive right now which is good news. However, it is important to evaluate different lenders and their requirements. With the financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic, some lenders have more stringent income guidelines. Excellent financing is available but be well-advised on requirements and gather all important documentation to make for a smooth process. An experienced realtor is a great source for quality mortgage providers so be sure to seek their guidance and recommendations.

2. Be Mindful of Seller’s Rules for Showings. Speak to your realtor about that particular seller’s rules regarding in-person viewings. We want to minimize the number of people who come in contact with the home. Some sellers will have certain, stricter limitations, while others do not.  You want to respect the sellers so that you can keep everyone as safe as possible and set the tone for positive negotiations when you’re ready to present an offer to a seller.

3. Narrow Down Your Top Contenders. Screen your options as much as possible so that you minimize the number of homes you have to see in person.  Many real estate websites provide easy search features for you to find, filter, and save homes for sale that interest you so that you can keep track of their status, request a showings, or get up-to-date market value of the property.

4. Take Advantage of Digital Technology in Your Home Search. Today more than ever, digital technology makes finding and falling in love with the perfect new home easy. With all of the online tools and internet options readily available like real estate websites and social medial channels, it’s possible for you to look at detailed floor plans and pictures of rooms, special features, interior details, and exterior views of homes offered for sale. Since the pandemic, digital technology plays a vital role in the house-hunting process. Whether by FaceTime, Zoom, or other video call technology, savvy realtors are holding virtual tours and taking advantage of video call options to show homes virtually.  Check listings daily, and subscribe to real estate sites to keep up-to-date with the most recent listing posts.

5. Start the Process Early.  The coronavirus has slowed down nearly every aspect of the home buying process – whether that be with obtaining financing and locating the right property to obtaining home inspections and getting necessary appraisals. There are extra hoops to jump through, additional regulations, and more time needed for the various professionals involved in closing a real estate transaction. Dealing with these additional requirements naturally slows down the process. Starting early and armed with an extra dose of patience will make the process of buying your dream home during a pandemic a smooth one.

Regardless of these extra precautions and changes, remember that everything else involved in the process to prepare your home as a seller or search for homes as a buyer remains the same. The changes in response to the pandemic are just to add these extra precautions to keep ourselves and those around us safe.

When you are ready to sell your property or begin your search for your new home, it is my honor to help you, we can navigate your journey together!  Contact me today to discuss your purchase or sale.  I am passionate about helping every client succeed in every aspect of the buying and selling process.

Work with the Best, Talk to Terri Buseman – Your Chicago Realtor: 1-312-208-5166.

THIS ARTICLE WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AT: https://www.terribuseman.com/good-news-its-the-right-time-for-selling-or-buying-a-home/