Due to COVID-19, the global population faced a devastating effect, both socially and economically. Big and small business industries have shut down operations and sent their employees back home due to the social distancing issue and the lockdown.
This situation also affected the real estate companies. The National Association of REALTORS® issued a few guidelines to help real estate agents respond to the COVID-19’s effect on the real estate industry. To stop spreading the pandemic, the NAR administered and promoted social distancing and other measures to prevent the diseases. They have suggested how to conduct business operations, for example – they have started canceling large meetings, gatherings, and special events. They are more into limiting open houses and showings and focussing on remote working or work-from-home policies to help workers once the offices are closed.
Real estate agents are avoiding open houses, home walk-throughs, and in-person meetings with their clients, to promote social distancing and safety against coronavirus. During this time, because of the lockdown, most of the people are at home. Their only option to communicate with the outer world is social media platforms. Realtors and agents are trying to be connected with their existing clients, future homebuyers, and the real estate community on these platforms so that they can keep their businesses running just like before.
While states are open, you still have to ensure that you’re maintaining all the safety measures required for social distancing, for the safety of their employees, agents, and clients.
So, if you own a real estate business, and want to protect your business from the dangerous effect of the pandemic, then you must ensure social distancing is maintained properly in offices and at showings. You have to bear the immense pressure and help your clients, as well as ensure the success of your businesses. At the same time, you have to make sure that you are complying with all the rules and regulations that govern your real estate industry.
Here are some tips for you to protect your real estate business as well as maintain safety measures during your business operations.
Initiate virtual tours and open houses
Due to the COVID – 19 and the social distancing, most of the home tours and open houses are being canceled. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t provide the same experience to your potential customers now. Yes, you may take help of the modern technologies and conduct a virtual tour. Contact the sellers of your available listings and take permission to visit the properties. Then use your smartphone or a camera to record the entire view of the properties. If possible, contact your buyer via a video call and show them the property live.
But it is not always possible to call every buyer personally. So, you may post your videos alongside your listings and share them via your social media profiles. Today most buyers first search their homes through the internet. So, this way you may offer the best information regarding a listing, via visuals and an interactive way.
Always become a responsive resource towards clients
During this pandemic, it is essential to keep all the lines of communication open for your clients. As offices are closed most of the days so potential buyers may call you or post questions online. So, prepare yourself to answer promptly and to the point. Make sure to share your contact information on your social media profiles so that your clients may contact you easily. Let them know your business hours and additionally, within how much time they can get a response from you after office hours.
Be patient to carefully read all the emails, messages, comments, and posts on your profile and reply as soon as possible with informative posts on social media. Remember, a potential buyer may knock multiple doors when they are interested to buy a house. So, they may get into the door which will reply to them first. So, try to be that first door and contact them as quickly as possible.
You may easily go to a Facebook Live video to answer client questions in real-time. It will help your business to build a trust factor.
Share important information with people
As a real estate company, your business should share up to date information with your agents, so that they can also share such information with your clients. The clients should know if they are facing any interference between the home buying process, how it is connected to the pandemic. Keep your clients and followers up to date with the latest information on the effect of COVID – 19 outbreaks on the real estate industry.
You may share tips for your employees who are working from home on how to increase productivity and set up a productive home office. Suggest agents who are directly interacting with the buyers and sellers, ask them to follow the best practices, and stay healthy. They should follow social distancing rules and stock up on necessary items.
One more thing! Before sharing any news on the pandemic, make sure to double-check your resources. It is because rumors and fake news do more harm than the pandemic itself.
Get help from the automated solutions
You may need to focus on your business more than ever during such a crisis period. While you implement new and useful strategies to boost your real estate business, don’t let your daily work create issues to promote your business. Today social media platforms, online listings, affiliate marketing, adword, PPC, and few other strategies will help you to put your business on the top list. You should be focussing to make a place in the search engine results with every fair strategy possible. So, by automating your posts on social media, and taking help from online affiliate marketers or social marketers, you can save time and focus on fulfilling the requirements of your clients quickly.
Take necessary steps to maintain safety precautions
You should take the necessary steps to implement safety precautions that will protect not only the employees of your company but also the persons associated with your business, such as sellers, buyers, appraisers, home inspectors, etc. You should implement safety precautions in every real estate transaction, regardless of whether any party has or been exposed to COVID-19.
As per the safety guidance publish by the CDC, you should implement these measures to mitigate health risks and the spread of the virus while providing service to your clients, sellers, and your employees:
- Set up a sign-in sheet for all visitors (buyer, agent, seller, and related individuals) who will confirm that to the best of their knowledge, they are in good health.
- The visitors must confirm that they haven’t traveled outside of the USA in the last 14 days and have not been in contact with a COVID – 19 infected patient.
- Make sure to gather contact information from each visitor and keep their contact information confidential, as it is personal information and should not be disclosed publicly.
- Make sure all people engaged in a real estate transaction (in person) wear face masks or any sort of face coverings while visiting the properties.
- Do not show occupied apartments and houses during this time
- Ask clients to view properties one at a time
- Ask agents, clients, and sellers to maintain six feet from each other
- Promote virtual showing of properties
These are tough times. So, like any other business your real estate business can be affected by this pandemic. But you must keep calm and maintain your professional standards.
Patricia Sanders is a professional content developer and a regular contributor to debtconsolidationcare. She specializes in the financial niche and is well known for her unique financial tips that can be very effective. To reach her, email sanderspatricia29@gmail.com.