So, here we are about 5 days into an enforced order to stay at home.
The local Board of REALTORS® has removed all showing instructions from Active listings on the MLS in an effort to keep agents from showing homes.
So far, real estate has been labeled a non essential business so we are all shut down and unable to work. It may be different where you are, but that’s the reality in my neck of the woods!
Even though we are effectively shut down there are things that we can do to ensure that when the crisis is over that we can get back to work as quickly as possible.
I’m going to lay out a few ideas for you here.
To start with, if you are quarantined at home, don’t let this be an excuse to lay around binge watching TV.
Get up an hour earlier than usual and work out at home or go for a walk. Come back and have breakfast, get dressed and get ready to work from home.
EVERYONE is at home these days, so pick up the phone and start calling. Call EVERYONE in your database, even if you haven’t talked to them since they bought their home 20 years ago!
No one is enjoying being cut off from other people (except for the extreme introverts) so your call will be welcomed!
So what do you say to them? It might go like this:
Hi John it’s Jerry Kidd and I am calling to check up with you! How are you and Mary doing? Do you need anything that I can get you from the store? No? Ok then. By the way, many people that I have called have asked me how this crisis is affecting their home value. To answer that I have set up an email news letter that I’ll use to deliver important real estate info as it happens. Currently, the stay at home orders have kept us from showing homes, at the moment we don’t know what the future will hold, it could be tighter controls or looser controls. Would you be interested in getting that newsletter by email?
Or some such variation on that theme. Seek to be of service first. I can assure you that if they have been watching the stock market they are also wondering about their home’s value too.
So, you need to start researching real estate news and compiling your news letter. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it can just be an email with bullet points of each of the things that you have found.
Send it out weekly while this is going on. I don’t it’s appropriate to be seen as someone who is capitalizing on fear. Let the news media have that honor. Your role in this is to be the measured voice of reason offering the facts as we know them. Be their trusted advisor.
After you’ve made all the calls that you can handle every day, and spent a few hours doing research, get up, go outside and take a walk. Wave to people as you see them, and if you do get out to the store, be sure to thank the workers there for they are exposing themselves and busting their butts to take care of us all.
This too, shall pass. Keep the faith, do your part by staying home, but use the tools that we have to reach out and reassure people. And when this is over you will be remembered as someone who cared.
