Buyers, sellers and Realtors® all want to know the same things: how long the COVID-19 virus will last in this region, how long distancing guidelines will be in place, and what the prognosis is for the real estate market.
While no one could have predicted the pandemic or its emotional and financial toll, resilient real estate agents immediately adjusted their practices and continued to work with buyers and sellers throughout the spring to reassure them that the housing market could continue to thrive.
"We're all learning through the experience. It's important to maintain a balance between keeping people aware of the hurdles and not creating panic." - Molly Craig
“There’s always a significant emotional part of our job as a Realtor®,” says Molly Craig, a Realtor® with Century 21 New Millennium in Chantilly. “That’s been heightened during this difficult stretch of time because we’re dealing directly and personally with families.”
The role of counselor and trusted advisor became even more important as buyers and sellers adjusted to new routines and coped with personal and financial issues created by COVID-19 and the economic shutdown. Agents quickly learned new protocols and became a source of crucial information and resources for their clients.
“Overall, it’s not business as usual, but we’re still open for business,” says Jennifer Harper Thornett, a Realtor® with Washington Fine Properties in McLean.
WHAT BUYERS NEED IN A CHANGING MARKET
The two most common concerns of buyers during the spring market were safety and home values. While the housing crisis and great recession are now more than a decade in the past, many buyers and sellers carry the fear of a repeat experience and want to protect their assets as much as possible.
“Within a few weeks we had changed our protocols and created videos to show buyers how we could show them homes in person with masks and not touching surfaces as well as through virtual tours,” says Damon Nicholas, a Realtor® with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Fairfax.
Buyers have even more questions before seeing properties now because they want to limit the homes they see in person, says Nicholas.
“Buyers are more disciplined and need their agents to do more research to help them narrow their choices,” Nicholas says. “They’ll look in person at just four or five houses instead of 10 or 20.”
Many young buyers were not particularly worried about the virus when it started and were hopeful that the shutdown gave them an opportunity for a less competitive market, says Jennifer Hernandez, a Realtor® with Century 21 New Millennium in McLean. Even so, many found themselves facing multiple offers for the property they wanted.
“A lot of first-time, but very savvy buyers, were ready for the spring market with savings and a good understanding of what it takes to buy,” says Hernandez. “They wanted to feel like I care about them and was devoted to helping them find a house now.”
Buyers are concerned as always about home values, perhaps more than ever because of the economic uncertainty created by COVID-19. “Most buyers weren’t worried about their decision to become homeowners, but they were worried about the economy and the stock market,” says Blake Davenport, a Realtor® with Long & Foster Real Estate in Arlington. “They asked a lot of questions about what was happening in the housing market.”
Davenport was surprised that the pace of the market picked up even more quickly than in January and February, with sellers often accepting offers before his buyers even had a chance to look at properties.
“I go over all the data for the previous six months to a year so that my buyers have a sense of the market before the pandemic and so they’re ready to make a big decision quickly,” says Davenport.
Buyers and sellers want market forecasting from agents more than anything, says Thornett.
“Buyers want to know if prices will go lower, stay the same or become inflated because there are even fewer homes on the market,” Thornett says.
Educating buyers about market conditions is more important than ever, says Katie Covey, a Realtor® with Long & Foster Real Estate in Reston.
“Mostly buyers want guidance on how to make an offer that wins,” says Covey. “They’re open to escalation if we can explain how it works and show them other houses similar to what they want that had multiple offers and escalation clauses.”
Local buyers, says Covey, know that Northern Virginia is competitive and are ready to make an offer with a pass/ fail inspection or no inspection at all. Buyers from out of state tend to want to make a lower offer and look for a deal, she says.
The buyers who are active in the market now tend to be serious purchasers, says Trevor Moore, a vice president and co-managing partner with Compass real estate brokerage in Arlington.
“The buyers who were out there just kicking the tires have dropped out,” says Moore. “The buyers I’m working with want to know whether home values are impacted, and they want to avoid overpaying, especially if they’re buying at a higher price point above $1.2 million.”
Moore also says buyers are relying on him to preview homes and do Facetime tours, especially because homes are selling so quickly when they come on the market.
“They don’t want to waste time, and they are very selective about what they will see in person,” says Moore. “They’re also changing their criteria a little now that they’ve been home for a while. More buyers want a den or extra bedroom and a bigger yard than they did when they first started looking.”
SELLER SUPPORT IN WORRISOME TIMES
While many sellers opted to pull out of the market when COVID-19 first began to spread in the region, others turned to their agents to weigh their choices.
“One couple had prepped their house to sell, retired and were ready to move to Florida when the pandemic hit,” says Craig. “They wanted answers from me about what might happen to the housing market and I was honest and said this was new to all of us. We’re all learning through the experience.
It’s important to maintain a balance between keeping people aware of the hurdles and not creating panic.”
After Craig discussed the pros and cons of selling in the context of the evolving crisis, the sellers opted to list their home because they were concerned future values might drop.
“My analysis with sellers starts with a health conversation about whether anyone is at risk and then we do a market analysis,” says Craig. “Some sellers pulled back because they could easily wait, and others moved forward because they had plans in place.”
Timing a sale can often be tricky, says Davenport, so he went over the risks and rewards with all his clients to help them determine what might be the best option for them.
“I relied on data from NVAR’s site as well as my market knowledge to give them the best idea I could about their neighborhood market,” says Davenport.
One area of concern for sellers is whether their home may sit on the market longer because of the health crisis.
“I tell sellers that before they bring their house to the market, they must be sensitive to pricing, especially if there’s another house in their neighborhood that hasn’t sold immediately,” says Moore. “Every house needs to be priced aggressively because buyers are worried about overpaying.”
Moore provides an abundance of data for potential sellers as well as feedback from other agents.
“We need to look at the absorption rate for that neighborhood for the past 30 days and not farther back than that,” says Moore. “We also need to understand the supply, especially as homes that have been temporarily off the market come back on.”
Sellers Covey worked with during the pandemic were careful to be logical with their pricing and not push too high even when they knew there would be less competition from other sellers.
Moore says his sellers also ask him to check out every potential buyer to make sure they are serious buyers.
“Sellers want forecasting, too, but they mostly want to know if they should sell now or wait – or if they should move first so their house is vacant,” says Thornett.
Keeping their families safe was the top priority for Thornett’s sellers.
“They’re more likely to accept the first offer they get because they don’t want to be on the market long at all,” says Thornett.
"I'm thankful for NVAR's networking groups that help connect agents and also worked to show government officials that real estate is an essential business. We were able to keep our market moving the entire time." - Katie Covey
Some sellers were concerned about having contractors in their home to prep for the sale.
“It helped that I have a good list of contractors to recommend who were ready to work and take safety precautions,” says Covey.
Marketing homes during the pandemic required some immediate tech updates and extra prep from agents.
“We’ve been doing videos and professional photos for a long time, but we realized that Matterport 3D tours were important, too, to make it easier for buyers to look at what they want,” says Nicholas. “We also prepared even more information about the house, the neighborhood, public transportation and community amenities with links to third party sources such as school systems and made it all available to buyers even earlier in the process.”
RELIABLE RESOURCES FOR REASSURING CLIENTS
In order for Realtors® to be the trusted advisors their clients need them to be, agents need resources of their own. Realtors® turned to their brokers, regional and national associations and Bright MLS for consistent updates on policies, procedures and market data.
“Century 21 provided lots of resources and Zoom calls to keep us up-to-date on protocols, and I also found the Virginia Realtors® weekly survey about the market really helpful,” says Hernandez. “It’s too hard for us to keep up with all the available information, but NVAR’s site consolidates the information we really need including market data.”
Moore says he relies on updates from his broker, NVAR, NAR and Bright to stay informed about the market, as well as networking with colleagues about what they’re doing and seeing with their clients and in the neighborhoods where they live and work.
For Covey, data resources such as Remine from Bright MLS and Homesnap offer user-friendly ways to look at the data as it came in about the market.
“I’m thankful for NVAR’s networking groups that help connect agents and also worked to show government officials that real estate is an essential business,” says Covey. “We were able to keep our market moving the entire time.”
Nicholas found NVAR’s guidelines for how to show houses helpful.
“The protocols such as not having kids on the tour, having the sellers open all the doors and leave on every light, using your elbows to open doors and only having the agent touch the front and back doors helped us figure out how to keep showing houses,” says Nicholas.
The COVID-19 contract addendum, which most agents reported using, helped put buyers and sellers at ease.
Nicholas says NVAR’s online tutorial helped explain the addendum when it was introduced.
The variety of resources available to agents helps them provide the services and guidance their clients need.
“Seasoned, experienced Realtors® are the calm in the storm during this time for both buyers and sellers,” says Nicholas. “Agents can be clear thinkers and map out a path for their clients in every type of market.”
Michele Lerner, a freelance writer based in the Washington, D.C. area, has been writing about real estate and personal finance for more than 20 years.