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March 13: Real Estate Dialogue Regarding Coronavirus

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Facebook Live with Buss-Todd-DeBacco Real Estate:
A Dialogue About Real Estate and the Coronavirus

In the wake of COVID-19, each of us are staying glued to all of our news updates and questioning how this effects each of us personally and professionally.  Buss-Todd-DeBacco Real Estate has maintained constant communication throughout the last few days regarding how this virus is affecting our operations with transactions in process, and our buyers and sellers, and we continue sharing with each other and with our clients how we see this outbreak affecting the local and national real estate market.  Today, a couple of our team members hosted a Facebook Live stream in which they simply opened up the dialogue for others if there were any concerns for real estate.  To watch the full stream, please click here: Facebook Live with Buss-Todd-DeBacco: Real Estate and the Coronavirus

As of today, BTD Real Estate is continuing to operate in full capacity for each of our clients, and we’d like to highlight a few key points for our buyers and sellers.

Precautions Buss-Todd-DeBacco Real Estate is Taking for Our Buyers:

  • We are each taking additional sanitizing precautions for every home we enter, including wearing shoe coverings, using gloves if necessary, sanitizing hands upon entry and exit of home, refraining from touching all surfaces as much as possible
  • For those who do not want to enter a home, we offer virtual tours
  • For any client who wants to stay in his/her own home during their buying process, this is not a problem at all as we are each set up to offer all of our real estate services virtually

 

Precautions Buss-Todd-DeBacco Real Estate is Taking for Our Sellers:

 

  • Rather than hosting public open houses, we encourage our sellers to take appointments only or solely offer virtual experiences to prospective buyers
  • We are able to offer virtual options to close on your transaction with our preferred title company, Guardian Title

 

 

Above all, safety for each and every one of our clients, including ourselves, is our top priority.

We were lucky to have one of our esteemed lending partners join during the Facebook Live stream, Benjamin Martin of AMG Lending.  Here is what Benjamin had to say about the mortgage implications today:

What’s going on and why does it matter?
Mortgage bonds opened higher this morning as they attempt to make a rebound from the carnage of the past few days. Stocks are also pointed to a higher open. Global central banks are injecting liquidity into the market in an attempt to calm things down. The Fed has committed to injecting $1.5 trillion into the financial system by buying bonds and making short-term loans known as “repos.” Meanwhile, much of country is beginning to shut down to slow the spread of coronavirus. The impact on the economy could be quite significant. Investors will be closely watching the Fed’s monetary policy statement and summary of economic projections which are scheduled to be released next Wednesday.
What should you do about it?
Watch and see if mortgage bonds can break back above their 30-day moving average, but be prepared to lock your rate quickly if mortgage bonds resume their downward slide
To all of our Loan Originators and REALTOR® partners: Prepare for disruption in our industry because of coronavirus. Here are a couple examples of issues that will start happening across the country in the coming weeks:
  • Partial and Full Closure of Lenders, Appraisers, Title Companies, Home Owners Insurance companies etc. Even if everyone “works from home” the industry is already over capacity, if there was only a 10% drop in productivity it will substantial impact turnaround times on everything.
  • Completing a Verification Of Employment will become a big issue.
  • New Title Searches will not be completed once the local government offices close.
  • FHA/VA/USDA closure could completely take government lending offline,
This is only the tip of the iceberg, it’s time to start preparing for what is about to happen. What does this mean?
  • Set proper expectations with all parties, assume nothing, crystal clear communication.
  • Inquire with the borrower about whether their employer is and will be open for business in the foreseeable future considering the circumstances.
  • Lock Interest Rates for longer periods of time on the basis there could be substantial delays.
  • Talk to your partners about what’s going on related to Coronavirus at their companies, have open communication on the topic to ensure all parties are in the loop and can make any necessary adjustments if circumstances change.
Clearly, news continues to come out every hour so we will continue to update our response regarding this topic. This article is written based on our own opinions as of Friday, March 13, 2020.  We cannot reiterate enough, that above all, safety is our number one concern so we will never recommend to any of our clients to be in situations where they feel unsafe.  A typical business practice for Buss-Todd-DeBacco as expert real estate professionals includes 100% preparedness; and we each plan to continue every effort towards maintaining our standard of being prepared and ready for what our market brings.  We hope our Live Stream and this blog article will open up some thoughts on this topic. Should you have any questions or comments, we welcome all dialogue.  And as always, if you know of anyone who is looking to sell or buy, we are happy to help!
Stay safe out there and continue washing your hands!