Until COVID-19 is no longer a threat, certain aspects of the real estate process are going to have to change. The sooner we can accept this and make the necessary adaptations, the sooner we can get back to doing business once our local economy opens up. Moving forward, it will be imperative that we strike the right balance between these serious public health concerns and resuming important economic activities that keep our communities running. This is what our COVID-19 Compliant™ pledge is all about.
A Matter of Safety
When you are buying or selling a home, you will want protect yourself, your family and anyone you come in contact with during the transaction. Sellers aren’t going to want a bunch of strangers parading through their homes and touching everything. Buyers and home inspectors are going to want to make sure the homes are safe and clean before entering them, and the amount of physical contact between any parties will need to be kept to an absolute minimum.
No matter what your political beliefs, economic concerns or feelings about these new social distancing measures impeding our daily lives, it’s a reality we all have to deal with for the foreseeable future. With this in mind, you are going to want to seek out a real estate agent in your market who is taking the necessary steps to work with their clients and service partners in the safest possible manner.
Making the Effort to Minimize Risk
As this new normal continues to take shape, there will undoubtedly be increased temporary regulations set forth by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). State and local health authorities will also guide specific real estate procedures, depending on where you live. Some agents will be able to adapt and others won’t. Some will even go well beyond what’s required to mitigate as much risk as possible for everyone involved. It’s important to do your research and find a real estate professional that you trust with literally your life in their hands.
COVID-19 Compliant™
This is why The Cyr Team has instituted our COVID-19 Compliant™ pledge. This is a program we developed in an effort to continue providing our clients with the highest standards of service while implementing strict “best practice” safety measures to protect anyone we come in contact with through each real estate transaction we conduct.
We have developed a series of COVID-19 Compliant™ standards and processes to which we will hold ourselves. We will also be asking our clients and any service partners we work with (mortgage lenders, home inspectors, home stagers, etc.) to respect these standards.
You can download The Cyr Team’s COVID-19 Compliant™ information here:
How it Works
The key components of our COVID-19 compliance are fairly simple in nature. First, we will be conducting more consultations and home tours virtually through Zoom conferences, live social media platforms and phone calls to help reduce the need for personal contact with buyers or sellers. Second, we will practice strong safety and sanitization measures when the need does come for us, a stager, an inspector or any prospective buyers to enter the home—and thus the very personal space—of a seller. There are more specific details you can read in the download links above.
The goal is to minimize foot traffic within a home while still effectively marketing it and generating interest from serious buyers. From a buyer perspective, we never recommend buying a house without seeing it with your own eyes. Online home searches and virtual tours will help you narrow down your choices, but eventually you need to see the property in person before making a final decision. This will happen. It’ll just take a little more effort on everyone’s part. Buyers will also need to take advantage of any time they do have in a home because they won’t be able to go back again and again. You may have one—maybe two—chances to see everything you want to see!
Check out the latest Cyr Team Minute:
Ready to Move Forward
Thankfully, The Cyr Team has always utilized technology to help streamline the real estate process and we’ve been very busy throughout March and April putting these new processes in place. We’ve been conducting numerous listing presentations, buyer consultations and home staging consultations virtually and it’s been amazingly effective. Still, we can’t wait to get back out there and selling real estate again. When we do, we are going to do it the COVID-19 Compliant™ way.
If you are planning to buy or sell a home, contact The Cyr Team today to schedule a virtual consultation. Take the steps now to be better prepared when the market opens up and you are ready to make your move.