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This is the St. Louis Realtor Podcast Album Cover with Adam Kruse and Shannon St. Pierre

27 Mar Ep. 65 Staying Optimistic During Coronavirus

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In this episode, REALTOR® Adam Kruse and REALTOR® Shannon St. Pierre talk about Coronavirus and its effects on the real estate market. Find out what practices Hermann London has implemented to make sure its agents stay successful during these uncertain times.

Email questions to PODCAST@HermannLondon.com

Adam Kruse-https://hermannlondon.com/realtor/adam-kruse/

Shannon St. Pierre-https://hermannlondon.com/realtor/shannon-st-pierre/

ITUNES-http://goo.gl/rs1q9X

Blog-https://hermannlondon.com/resources/

Website http://hermannlondon.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HermannLondon/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/HermannLondon

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hermannlondonrealtors/

Address – 7350 Manchester Rd, St. Louis, MO 63143

Phone Number – 314-802-0797

Search For Homes on http://www.wizah.com/

Producer – Joey Vosevich

Theme Song by Trastornobeats

WHAT’S INSIDE

1:30 This podcast was broadcast live on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Twitch, and Mixer via Zoom from Adam’s home basement and Shannon’s home office

2:18 Hermann London is using Zoom Video Conferencing to do daily chats to build community among the agents, lenders, and employees

3:02 Hermann London has been paperless for a long time and it has really come in handy during Coronavirus

3:16 Direct deposit has become very popular among the agents

3:39 Joey the podcast producer has been helping the agents with their walkthrough videos and marketing

4:12 Hermann London has been using Docusign and esignataures for a long time but it is even more useful now

4:27 Hermann London has always had a high tech and high touch approach

5:05 Agents are reaching out to clients and neighborhood communities like MapleGood to see how they can help. Hermann London volunteered to print flyers for MapleGood.

5:51 The housing market is still very active

6:16 According to St. Louis County and St. Louis REALTORS®, REALTORS® have been deemed an essential business and are allowed to continue operating 

6:52 Should a seller list their house now or wait until Coronavirus quarantine is over?

8:06 Will days on market (CDOM) become less of a stigma during Coronavirus?

8:46 What precautions are Hermann London Real Estate Group agents taking during home showings? Are sellers allowing open houses during Coronavirus?

9:12 ShowingTime is an app used to schedule home showings and it is limiting the amount of people who can look at a home at one time

11:24 Hermann London is doing video walkthroughs for every listing

12:00 Shannon’s son interrupts the interview

12:08 The screening process has become more thorough to make sure buyers are serious before showing them a home

12:50 Missouri Association of REALTORS® came out with a form to let the seller’s decide if they want to let people come through their house

13:30 Are buyer’s still looking at houses? Are there still multiple offers?

14:52 Buyer’s that are out looking are super serious about buying houses

15:26 Photos and video are more important than ever. Agents should provide more photos of every corner of the house.

16:25 The virtual tour video links on home search websites like Realtor.com and Zillow have always been hidden for some reason. Hermann London agents have been putting the virtual tour video link in the open house comments section.

17:31 Wizah.com is Hermann London’s property search website and it now has a “request virtual tour” button.

18:08 Hermann London agents will do a live virtual tour at the property with a buyer over Facebook Messenger, Facetime, or whatever the client is comfortable with.

18:35 A lot of companies are changing the way they operate during Coronavirus

19:22 Wizah.com now allows buyers to submit an offer without having to wait on or meet with anyone

20:50 How has Coronavirus affected occupancy inspections and are they being handled differently based on municipality? How has the Association of REALTORS® dealt with delayed inspections?

21:53 How has Coronavirus affected loan contingency dates? Will a seller extend a contract if a buyer loses their job during Coronavirus?

23:00 Are inspectors and handymen working during Coronavirus? Are home inspectors allowing people to be present during Coronavirus?

26:22 When the Fed lowered interest rates to 0% did it affect mortgage rates? How is Coronavirus affecting mortgage rates?

29:45 How are REALTORS® handling Coronavirus?

30:29 How is Coronavirus similar to the 2008 housing market crash and what can REALTORS® do to grow their business?

31:44 Some newer real estate agents who have never been through a recession may be treating Coronavirus like a vacation and some may even think it’s the end of the world.

33:20 Verne Harnish has 5 C’s for dealing with Coronavirus

34:05 Communicate daily.

34:16 Customer and community support

34:50 Clean up and catch up

35:25 Cash

35:56 Communities are providing entertainment by decorating the outside of their homes for families to see on their walks. Hermann London started a website called http://neighborhoodbearhunt.com/

38:16 Calm and considerate

39:40 How has Coronavirus affected home prices?

40:35 Has Coronavirus affected how long it takes for a home sale to close? Are closing being extended to 60 days instead of the normal 30? What are home loan lenders doing differently during Coronavirus?

42:55 People are putting up all their holiday decorations to spread cheer in the neighborhood and having drive-by birthday parties

TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome everybody to the St. Louis REALTOR® podcast live from the basements and offices of Adam Kruse and Shannon St. Pierre hello yeah we’re super excited to be here today we’re gonna kind of talk about you know a lot of real estate related coronavirus related mill estate topics so today we’re gonna get into the two biggest questions that we’re getting from people we’re gonna get into the details about those topics we’re gonna talk about what we think REALTORS® should be doing during this time and I’d like to share a little bit about what Herman London the company what our company is doing at in response to this issue so we’ve been doing a ton of zoom calls first of all with a with our agents to keep them informed and motivated we’re really working using zoom to kind of build that sense of community but I think people are missing now that they’re stuck at home and zoom we become zoom experts all of a sudden because we’re doing a daily call with the agents and we’re just talking literally about all the different issues that are coming up for people crazy situations that we never expected or planned for and we’re working together really well as a group to find solutions and and make bands and how to handle things some of the things that we were really glad that we have already that’s been working for us is our in terms of file review we’ve we’ve been paperless for a long time but it’s really working great for people to build a turn in their contracts turning to deals we review them and the agents are able to access them that kind of thing we are finding our direct deposit to the agents account to be more popular so if if a commission check comes into the office we can pay the agent and they can get their money that day without having to come office and get their check and go to the bank and all that kind of stuff we’ve had that functionality for a long time but people are actually starting to take us up on it we’re excited that we have Joey you know everyone’s knows podcast producer Joey Vosevich and he now works with us full time and so he’s been a big part of our agents you know helping our agents to make sure that they know how to do a virtual tour or a video and then helping them to edit them and make them a little bit better to watch and helping us come up with different social media campaigns and different methods you’re using to reach out to everybody for our clients you know we all have the e-signature capability most of us use DocuSign but this whole social distancing thing is is not affected by our ability to sign contracts and do documentation through east signatures we’re really encouraging our agents to take what we call a high-tech and high-touch approach we’ve been talking about that for years you know we’re using tech like the East signatures and like these halls and all that stuff but or we’re asking our agents to really reach out to their people their friends their family of course their clients their past clients people in our community were you know of course staying in touch with all of the vendors that we work with how do companies lenders inspectors appraisals all that kind of thing and so we’re taking what we call a high-tech high-touch approach and then a lot of our agents the the response I shouldn’t have surprised me but they were really reaching out saying what can we do how can we help and I think that we’re seeing a lot in communities in general but so our agents are wanting to help other people and so they’re joining groups like maple good if you’ve heard of that and others to see what we can do whether we can give money whether we can give supplies whether we can give our time some people are driving around donating supplies to people our hospitals we printed a bunch of flyers that people are delivering around Maplewood to get the word out about this maple good group and things like that it’s been interesting hasn’t Shannon it’s been very interesting and I think the bottom line though going forward with this podcast is that that we’re still in business and we’re still all working so the agents are working the title companies are working the banks are still there so everything’s still you know open for business yeah so we’re taking these like extreme approaches to what would generally have been normal activities before like showing property and that kind of stuff but well I’m gonna get into some of those details too we were super excited when the you know this essential businesses information came out from St. Louis County and then the stainless Association of REALTORS® had their attorneys write us all a letter saying that they do consider real estate and REALTORS® to be considered an essential business so we were excited about that because we were worried for ourselves we were worried for our clients and we were just kind of wondering how things were gonna work and so when that when that came out that helped calm a lot of us I think so Shannon what one of the biggest questions that were getting now I said that we’re gonna talk about the two biggest issues that are coming out you’ve got the first one there what’s the biggest question we’re getting should I list or should I wait so we’re hearing from our sellers and they’re saying that and I’m going what kind of a loaded question is that right but they all are asking there isn’t one that hasn’t contemplated with the new situation so it is a conversation and it is a loaded question because it’s not a yes or no right yeah and just like everything it’s a little bit complicated and there’s variables that come into play for example are they living there or is there a tenant living there is the property vacant if they are living there are they willing to let people come through their house are they willing to you know clean their house spray down and wipe down the house after people leave and so we I guess we have to talk to each seller on a case-by-case basis but in general my answer has pretty much been list because why is that there’s still a lot of activity going on and there’s still a lot of people out looking at properties and I don’t think we’re so worried about days on market a lot of people are worried about days on market I don’t think that days on market is gonna be that big of a deal you know people are gonna say oh it’s been on the market for 30 days there must be a problem I think that it’s obvious that the problem is the Coronavirus not necessarily the property at this point right right yeah I think that’s actually really true I hadn’t really thought about that too much but I don’t think days on markets going to be something that people really ask necessarily or consider when looking at a home as much as they have in the past yeah so when we do you know we kind of want to take a responsible approach to this if we’re going to list somebody’s property and let people come through it so some of the things that we’re doing is we’re sending notice to any REALTOR® that is coming through the property about asking them to minimize the amount of people who come asking them of course to minimize what they touch people are bringing wipes or we’re providing wipes and gloves and all that kind of stuff I did a showing this morning and the people had masks on we’re working with showing time not just us but the REALTORS® in general are working with this app solution called showing time which is how we schedule the appointments and it’s really limiting the amount of showings that happen at a time to one group so before where we could schedule an appointment if there was someone else there or whatever we would just kind of storm on in and say REALTORS® how you doing you know we’re here to see the house – but now right so they would allow in the past overlapping appointments so me and you as two separate REALTOR® could make appointments at the same time or overlapping that time frame is somehow and it it was allowed and so a lot of REALTORS® are backing out and they’re not only back the end of that one showing at a time frame but they’re limiting the showing especially if it’s if it’s vacant it’s not so much of an issue if it’s occupied they’re limiting it to maybe a 30-minute window where normally we’re asking for anywhere from 45 to an hour minimum window time I mean yeah and what my experience has been that people are being respectful like I said I was showing a house this morning and you know when I was going to leave I noticed there was people outside waiting so they must have realized that I was in there and they waited outside they didn’t come in and get in my personal space it’s so another REALTOR® that was another REALTOR® in his clients huh very nice very good yeah but you know does a seller have to allow for showings no of course they don’t have to do anything it’s their house I’ve got a seller we’re gonna go live here in a few days and they’re saying we are cool with showings you know with kind of the restrictions that you and I just talked about Shannon but they’re staying we don’t want any open houses I’m going that’s fine because we’re not gonna do an open house anyway at least not live or you know in personal but else will go virtual yeah I feel like that that an open house is too hard to control because they don’t want groups of more than 10 which it could be easy but it’s also there’s times and open houses that you get an influx of people and it’s not it’s it’s hard to control not to mention just the chaos of it of everything so yeah but to back to the point of the video the video walkthrough that a lot of agents are doing I think is just a really great approach to and alternative to the open house at this point for sure yeah it’s interesting because you know you mentioned the groups to ten I said that’s the current rule I don’t know but everyone’s still connection for me you know well it’s groups of ten according to the document that sent out by the city and the county but you still have to maintain distancing of six feet and then the other thing that’s interesting is yeah we are doing all these like kind of stuff which you know our goals in the past was always let’s get as many people as we can property we want him to see the house and we want him to fall in love and so now saying we want you to see everything we can show you about the house before you come and we and only if you’re still in love then we want you to come so it’s kind of an interesting example of somebody working from home yes so we’re all trying to compromise with the this stay at home order right exactly all the kids are out of school and so we’re here trying to juggle a few different things it happens perfect and then lastly kind of about the should I list or should I wait thing I just wanted to mention that we do have as REALTORS® we were excited that the Missouri Association of REALTORS® came out with the form where we can notify our sellers of the virus as if they haven’t heard about it but they get to choose if their choice if they want to have people come through or not so I’ve been super impressed with the local REALTOR® association and then earlier the national and the state association but the local and the state association have kind of although these perfect forms for us and that’s been awesome so and then we already sort of half answered this one but I’ve got a lot to say about it so tell me what is the next big question that everyone’s asking I in regards the buyers our buyers still looking or buyers still looking at houses the answer is yes yes yes yes and so you’re seeing I think examples of this in terms of multiple sellers getting multiple offers and we’ve had a couple agents kind of state the same thing that it it doesn’t seem to have slowed down right yeah and you know we’re still I think that the data the statistics probably haven’t caught up enough for us to be able to say well we’re seeing multiple offers and you know this price range but anything over 300 or is slowing down or whatever we haven’t had enough time in my opinion to really be able to study that kind of data but I can say that in general we’re still seeing people showing properties and you know I said for one of my clients we submitted an offer on a property two days ago and there’s multiple offers and so that’s that’s just kind of the way the market is going I guess am i put in my opinion there’s there’s buyers out there who are not able to buy now because they’ve been furloughed or laid off or whatever so they’re kind of on the sidelines until they can get their jobs back there’s some buyers who are waiting because they’re just like gross I don’t want to be out amongst the people staying at home right and some of those are waiting right I wants to are still out looking those people in my perspective are so serious you have to be really really serious about buying a house right now if you’re actually gonna go out and look right and you’re gonna write and say you’ve made up that you made a great great point like when we were talking about paying earlier to this I mean there are still buyers but the ones going out and looking at your house or and the houses on the market are very serious yeah exactly so we’re not you know sometimes we we have people that are like I just like looking at houses or you know I’m considering but let’s just go ahead and go look at this one and it’s probably not an option but just you know we’ll just look at it – right exactly they’re if they really are truly honing in which is why I think it’s more important than ever to really do some really great photography so that you can showcase the house in the best possible way if you have a seller as an agent you want to make sure you’re doing really great photos to showcase every corner of the house and maybe just a few more than what we normally do so that buyers can kind of eliminate it and not interrupt the seller if they’re still there or and they can or they can add it to the list and if it’s a true possibility because I think it’s if they’re it’s the maybe they’re not really looking at them they’re really honing in on the ones they’re super serious about sure and so we’re seeing a lot of agents that are doing video tours and live tours in these matter port tours and all this kind of stuff but one of the things is that the you know the video technology has been there for years and years well never really caught up is sites like REALTOR.com and Zillow and them really showing the videos that were making in a good way the kind of the link to the video has always been sort of hidden sure yeah and so people are doing a lot of agents are doing them now and so what kind of the approach that I’ve been taking is my favorite approach which is to communicate with the agents you know and so call them and ask if they’ve done any sort of video – or whatever and a lot of them have and so Realtors are having to find creative ways to sort of get those videos out there other than just posting it on their Facebook you know and so we’re we’re putting it for example in the MLS agent remarks link to the video we’re putting it in the end of the field where you can where you generally we used to notate when there was an open house and you can make little comments we’re putting the video link and those open out in that open house comment section we’re doing whatever we can you know and all of these little details are all things that we’ve had to figure out in the last few days and that’s where like our daily company zoom calls have been so helpful you know our company’s property search site wizah.com wizah.com yeah and awesome because the company that like makes the functionality of that they jumped on this and they added a button now where anybody can ask for a virtual tour so some yes yes they go to calm now they can request a virtual tour that request will come to us and if you know if you’re someone who’s qualified or someone that we’ve talked you know that we’re comfortable spinning the time to do this on our our agents are willing to go to the house go to the house take a video and they’ll do a Facebook live video with them and send it to them so the buyers can kind of get those videos that they want you know again without having to leave their house I think it’s awesome by the way I think the creative I’ve been super impressed just all the way around not with just our industry and some of the things which we’ll talk about in a second even like the forms the St. Louis really the Association yeah whipped up forms and no time at all but the way the business is being done in general like and how companies are accommodating and adjusting to this new way of life for us right now I have just been it’s been really interesting I think it’s been awesome people are really thinking outside the box I’m stepping up a lot of companies do some really cool things yeah I’d be I believe that people are a lot of people are seeing this as kind of a fight or flight situation sink or swim whatever and part of this fear of what’s gonna happen to our businesses is what’s driving on all of this sort of like reconnection reengagement and innovation that that we’re kind of doing right now it’s wild yeah mention about on on wizah.com to we’ve added another button on our property search site where you can click to make an offer so we’ve had this is functionality for a while on HermanLondon.com where you can go to the site you can art you can come to our website you can enter in your information and then it asks you a bunch of questions about kind of the details of the offer that you want to make and you can sign and submit an offer electronically without having to talk to meet with wait for any anybody at all so we’ve had that functionality built out for a while but we’re kind of like who’s gonna use that without seeing the house you know you thought maybe people have been using it on the website using it yeah but it’s been mainly geared towards investment properties yeah but now that people are getting used to virtual tours and stuff like that it might become a much more popular part of our site we’ll see I think it’s a great option hey okay so look at some ways and help you that’s on where’s ah – on every property yeah there’s it’s a it’s not the prettiest button but it says like hey it’s there’s a button it’s there it functions and it feeds there you know the person on wizah.com signed in generally so it feeds their name and all that kind of stuff through alright let’s see the other the other big so there’s first two questions were the questions that the sellers and the public has been asking us but a lot of the agents were asking these questions about these about our timelines and so we the big one was about occupancy inspections and what are we gonna do about those and so what because the municipalities are handling occupancy is different we and they weren’t necessarily able to get there to do the occupancy inspections on time and so we were kind of trying to figure out how to do that and the association of REALTORS® came out with a form that’s perfect for that situation right again which is where as sane I kind of impressed they came out with these last week yeah I mean before them everything kinda shut down they actually came out with these last suite right even and then the other one was an amendment and kind of we called the Covid amendment for theirs it’s basically saying we don’t know what’s gonna happen if the title company isn’t all that kind of stuff we’re going to close down so we’re adding this to any contracts that we have in place that’s saying there’s gonna be uncertainty and essentially kind of we’ll work together on the timelines for things if we have to and then the second part of that form that’s applicable is it’s essentially in some ways like removing the loan contingency date because it’s saying if we’ve hit a contingency date then that between loan contingency and closing if the buyer you know loses their job or has a loss of income or whatever that will either be the seller in general will be willing to kind of extend things or and and return the earnest money to the buyer because it’s kind of like a fire it’s kind of like one of ours is fall to simply yeah and which I think it’s really good because that’s the one of the concerns what a major concern rightfully so for a lot of buyers is everything seems really good right now it seems like it’s still gonna be stable but every you know every day seems to bring a new situation yeah so it does protect the buyer in a way that if they are affected that they can get out of the contract get their earnest money back and you know if they’re affected by the fallout from kovat 19 and the thing that I’m liking for about this is that there’s challenges and everyone’s kind of like up for the challenge you know so a lot of we’re asking buyers are asking or the you know can I still get an inspection can I still get an team in you know as a title company they’re going to be open and so what we’ve seen so far is absolutely yeah I did a condo in their contractor guess on Sunday and one of his biggest concerns is like do you think we’re gonna be able to find an inspector and it’s like oh I’m pretty sure you know they work you know if they don’t work they don’t get paid so they are and they’re still functioning and working and essential to this process so I think it was I don’t know that he believed me until as like here you know call them up yourself and there their schedules are opening up quite a bit so they’re more than happy the inspector gonna set any sort of rules like she doesn’t want the buyer to come yes so now this inspection this he actually had the inspection today and the inspector sends out an email last night with kind of new which is new for me new for everybody right but he did kind of outline what some expectations and address the new situation in regards to Covid-19 so he was asking that minimal people attend the inspection you know sometimes we like the buyers like to invite their entire family to come look at the property like getting ready to buy this one asks specifically that only the most essential people be there more specifically just the buyers and he was going to wear gloves and they asked to maintain that social distancing that the CDC is recommending about the teeth and he will be wearing a mask he was gonna bring a mask and glove for the clients as well okay oh yeah so we kind of leaned it out and said up front look you know so I guess probably take away a lot of the awkwardness of just showing up and going hey I’m gonna wear this stuff can you please wear it to sorry and it was a little awkward but he did actually link to the CDC guidelines and said in in response to their their guidelines this is what I’m doing oh they’re so working and I know that that again was the concern of the buyer and I said so the he did address it and you know and it was just the inspector and just the one of the buyers actually he made it very I think very simple yeah we’ve always kind of had a company policy or at least a company best practice of the agent not going to the inspection because I feel like that’s the buyers time with the inspector who they’re paying and the agent doesn’t really play a role in a inspection process but hopefully other people will start kind of following that best practice – and not having the agent at the inspection breathing all over you right well so at this point it really is minimizing the number of people in a property and that are gathering in a place so it’s addressing at all love it I’m so uh I know you were traveling recently Shannon but where remember the night when the president came out and said that there’s like they’re lowering the federal fund rate to zero percent you know I don’t know where you were when that was happening but I was I think it was called the federal fund rate whatever was the some rate they lowered it to zero percent wasn’t that last week that was last weekend think and I was sitting there watching the news but I also was watching you know my facebook at the same time and it’s like everyone just started going crazy with going what does this mean I’ll buy a house at zero percent you know and everyone was going wild yeah the question that we’re getting now is what’s the deal with rates right and oh yeah but I think it was even interesting the lender that’s out of our office I know Ryan um who is really great in response to answering our questions a few but he popped on right away I think when you made a comment I don’t know who made the comments on the Facebook page he said hold on let’s see what this really does and then the next day popped on city it’s really not gonna do anything in return in regards to mortgage rate doesn’t it doesn’t play into the mortgage rate I would say that was interesting I kind of I’m was really much in the same plane as everybody else me too heard that like where do we go sign me up for something I don’t know what just signed me up doing that yeah you know for people watching and kind of wondering what’s going on with rates the deal from my understanding is that there was like basically one day I don’t know if it was last week or 10 days ago or whatever but where the rates were crazy low you know I think the interest rate on a 15-year mortgage was like 2.5% see it wouldn’t it like a month ago they were at one of their it was or three weeks ago so is that their all-time low or one of their all-time historic lows of 3.28 mm-hmm and the 15-year was under three and it has been for a while even when I checked last week yeah I got quota at 2.5% on a 15 year senior yeah but that went away basically that day you know and so what they’ve told me is what happened is that the rates went down so low that banks got so swamped with people refinance okay couldn’t handle it and so they like artificially have raised their rates up a little bit but they’re still really low you know in the threes right now that’s my understanding you know talk to your lender no I think they’re in the fourth during the fours now they’re in the forest right now but again as we were saying that yeah now I still think that’s really low um absolutely said before four is really really low let’s not forget like when I first bought my house my rate was six and a half for son yeah it’s no three it’s definitely not a 2.5 but it’s still pretty good that’s a 15-year so that’s not so let’s not get that confused with the typical 30-year mortgage that most people are doing when they buy a house let’s not get it confused you’re right okay you know the last kind of topic that I was hoping to talk about today is to any Realtors that are listening and I think REALTOR® is just like everybody else has kind of in different states of mind right now and so what I’m seeing is some Realtors even at our company I’m seeing different kind of like categories of Realtors some of them are super connected they’re staying crazy super informed they’re all about it they’re making their calls or doing their stuff and they’re you know they’re they’re gonna be doing really well they’re reaching out to all the clients and all their clients and just having that personal conversation and you know of what’s happening how what did they feel like talking through the process right now yeah what we saw in the last recession was that some REALTORS® lost you know most of their business and some Realtors gained market share and yeah to me this is a great time for a REALTOR® to do what I’m calling build that and somewhere they can build a bump in business but so I think theirs are getting super engaged with their business some I think and this is maybe I shouldn’t say this but here’s how I’ll say it some Realtors are occupied with their families right so to that point the REALTOR® czar yeah it’s easy to pretty much check out at the same time I think that there’s and there’s a lot of new processes in place a lot of changes that have come about right we’re all staying home kids schools are closed so we’re having to find a new normal and a new schedule but and I’m one of those where I’m trying to figure out what that new balance is in keeping things going because I love real estate and I want to keep going and I love working with my clients but then trying to figure out how where and how to fit in the home swing for two kids yeah okay there’s another group of REALTORS® so I think maybe have become license or something is causing their mentality to be this way but maybe they haven’t been an agent or they’ve been an agent long enough that they’ve seen success in the last year or two with this great market but not long enough that they remember even the last recession and so I think that there’s some REALTORS® who are kind of just Netflix and chilling right now or you know making beer or whatever and they’re kind of just saying ah well just just call me in a month it’ll be easy this is gonna be easy and then there’s a I guess that would that be a fourth category of agent who’s kind of all doom and gloom and they’ve talked to a couple of their clients and they’re gonna wait and stuff and they’re feeling really doom and gloom and and I I’m hoping that those agents can you know shift their mindset and get into this kind of the first agent that I was talking about we can call it a growth mindset we can call it a bond dance we can call whatever you want to but get productive you know so we’re really encouraging REALTOR®s to stay productive yeah and I don’t know that I’ve seen a lot of doom and gloom from the REALTORS® I know but you I think I’ve talked to yeah a lot more it’s the REALTORS® who you aren’t hearing from and from my perspective it’s the REALTORS® who we’re not hearing from right the ones who aren’t on our daily calls ones who aren’t checking in with me that once you are you know responding to my invite for a conversation or whatever that I think some of those ones are the ones who are kind of head in the sand at this point no let me go through what I’m calling well I got this thing from a guy named Vern harness he’s got his five C’s for dealing with the crisis and then barn guy so Vern harness is an author I forget the name of his books don’t don’t let them up I don’t think I’ve read it yeah yeah he’s he’s awesome and he’s written a lot of really great books I’ve used a lot of his stuff and our company’s business planning events and that kind of thing yeah so well I’m gonna go through his five seas and then answer some questions it looks like we’re getting some questions through the Facebook live okay uh so Vern harnesses five C’s number one communicate daily so that’s I think our goal has been communicating daily through the zoom calls and asking our agents to communicate daily with their clients number two C number two is customer and community support he’s saying that one way that you can come back combat depression if you have it is by helping people write depression from the isolation yeah the doom and gloom that you can’t see on the news yeah if you get out there and help people you know like that’s that abundance thing right if you like do good things for good people and kind of good things will come back to you kind of thing well yeah and you feel a sense of community and part of the community is what he calls clean up and catch up so the idea is you know we’ve we’ve all been really busy for the last couple years with real estate and so now is the time to clean up your office get that big stack of papers cleaned up clean up your database you know we all have this like ask clients and friends and family and this like database whether it’s a spreadsheet or a CRM or something like that that it’s like yeah I’ll get to that I’ll get to that and so now is a good time to get to that essentially yeah sure nothing catch up number four is the cache so we are encouraging REALTORS® and other business owners to find a way that they can reduce their unnecessary expenses you know it’s a great time to look through your credit card bill and see what you can get rid of this is a good time for any business owner including REALTORS® to keep up with the government options and private grants that are available and a big thing I’ve been hearing on a lot of the entrepreneurial zoom calls that I’ve been on is to cash out any line of credit that you have so if you have a line of credit that’s just been sitting there they’re suggesting you pull that money put it in another bank so that you have the money available should you need it in the upcoming months okay to cover expenses bills mortgage because none of us know when or if the next paycheck is coming right a lot of people you know this is a lot of entrepreneurs that have been on these calls I’ve been on a lot of their businesses have been hit hard and they lost their income and they still have a lot of expenses and so they need to find make it through yeah I and I think the it’s a yes so going back to that customer community support is if there’s a wave sports a small business that you like I know that we’re all you know wondering about the paycheck but I think also I’m just helping each other out is something is another way to just easily help buy something from that small business a lot of them have online stores you know and the post office is up and running so that along those lines you know we’ve been doing my wife really kind of is doing her own twist and it’s kind of sponsored by Herman London but on this bear hunt thing yeah the word bear hat what’s that neighborhood bear hon the neighborhood bear hunt right so we’re kind of doing our own twist on it but one of the things that we’re thinking about offering is like you know for people to submit their photos of them of the Bears they see or that the Bears at their house or just of their family out having a good time and then we’re gonna do some sort of contest which you know like whoever has the most whichever photo is the most likes then we’re gonna give a prize and normally that that my line of thinking for that type of thing would just be like money right the best photo get some money but what because of this whole community thing and all that the idea that we’ve come up with so far was instead of just giving money is that we would have clementines ice cream delivered to the winner’s house so we can you know they can open their door and on their front porch would be like four pints of amazing award-winning clementines ice cream that’s I think that’s super fun it’s a fun twist right and then now you can tell your kids if your kids like I don’t want to go for a walk you’re like you can get ice cream we might win I screamed mine when ice cream yeah so the last see of the five C’s is what he calls calm and considerate so I think the message there is just take a deep breath keep going we’ll get through this you know this too shall pass kind of thing so and it is interesting I mean how much you have many comments on Facebook Instagram whatever is in a long social media it’s like even when you’re talking to people like it’s like yeah it is crazy but you know this was passed is this too shall pass it’s just like we’re all all in this together yeah but I’ll get through it I mean it’s interesting how positive everybody is considering how you know terrible this all this really while the situation is unprecedented in the form of you guys a stay-at-home hit schools close so it’s it’s interesting that there I think there is there is some people that are scared and Stephen come out of their homes but I think the majority of what I see and what I feel is that people are like okay all right well we just got to figure out how to get through this but we will get through this and this will pass yeah I need to of all the five C’s I think that’s probably the one I may be failing at the most because I’ve taken a really like you know ice talked about fight or flight I’ve taken a really like fight approach and so here I am in my basement doing a podcast at five o’clock you know I can hear my family upstairs it’s a gorgeous day but I’ve been down here for most of the day you know and I’m sure you’ve heard my kids a few times yeah I need to like go out and take a walk or something like that no well and I told them after the podcast we’re going out we’ll go ride our scooters and bikes and stuff like that so I don’t know you hear it might have heard wines like are you done yet like okay hopefully you’ll go see some bears and some windows yeah pictures it’s yeah in every neighborhood it has something kind of a lot of people are putting a lot of things in their windows all right so let’s go through some of these questions we’re getting go let’s see are you guys seeing prices slide with the pandemic or are they holding steady my experience at this point has been prices are holding steady and like I’m I’m seeing still multiple offers in a lot of cases the property that I’m listing I was you know there’s a house down the street that was pretty similar and I was like well they’re still sitting on the market and so I don’t know what we’re gonna do about that but then the next day it went under contract you know so I haven’t seen prices slide yet I’m I wouldn’t be surprised if we do but I don’t think that I can really say the statistics we don’t have like it maybe enough data to say that yet well we certainly don’t have enough day that to answer that question but I don’t know that I’ve seen in the last couple weeks with the offers that we have them um a lot of what people would consider flashing of prices there anything right okay what delays can we expect in the process of selling a home typically it takes 30 days or so to close well right now I am for that the property under contracts this weekend as we’ve tried to get rolling with the loan I did put a 30-day close basically and the lender is like I don’t know if we can meet that we’re so backed up with all these reef eyes they are hesitant that in the third being able to close within 30 days and I think a lot of lenders are feeling that way so I’m not sure timeframes I think are slightly extended right now I would say that unless you’re my perspective is that unless your buyer needs or seller I guess if they really need to like sell quick sell now I need to move now I would encourage you to kind of give the deal a little bit of room to breathe and maybe do more like a 60-day closing you know 45-day loan commitment and just kind of give everything a little bit of room to breathe so that I would go out as far as 60 days yeah I mean there’s a lot of stress going on right like you say the lenders are backed up we’re having a hard time getting occupancy permits and stuff like that and it just gives it just gives everything a little bit of room to breathe and mix makes things easier and I’m saying that’s in a situation where we don’t have to close right now you know but like we were just talking about the fifth see calm and considerate it’s like why not why not give the deal I keep I feel like I’m relating it to wine but like why not give the a little bit of room to breathe in you know yeah well yes and that’s probably true the lenders are backed up because the appraisers are backed up so it’s kind of a if you can give it a good 45 days I guess to 60 days if the seller will allow it I think that’s probably not a bad idea to just kind of not feel so stressed because there’s so much other stress happening right now all right let’s compromise on a 45 day closing and like a 38 to 40 ish day loan contingency period we compromise on that I I would agree to that it’s a deal all right let’s see I guess that’s the only question we had a comment that people they’ve seen people putting up lawn decorations for families to see on their walks Christmas Halloween St. Patrick’s Day yeah my neighbor put up Christmas lights there is a thing in the city that people are going back to yeah let’s hang let’s have a little cheer see this and put up Christmas lights and like man not a bad idea I think it’s again it just goes back to I think it’s so interesting how creative people are getting and how much communities are coming together to try and like like the bear hunts putting up Christmas lights you know yard decorations drive-by birthday parties you know where everybody’s just driving by and honking because they can’t enjoy a party any longer yes so because you can’t get together it’s unsafe and you can’t be in crowds anymore you know so I think it’s me I I think this is a wild time I know there’s a lot of stress I also think it’s super interesting to see what people and their imaginations are doing alright let’s wrap this bad boy up I appreciate you just watching Thank You Shannon for taking the time to do this well thank you Adam thank you of course to our producer Joey Vosevich for figuring out how to do all this technology stuff for us and yes because we are to doing the social distancing also this thanks everybody hope to hear from you give us a call for all your real estate needs for some business

 



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