Selling Real Estate in the Shelter-in-Place World.

The Do's and Dont's

When the first shelter in place order hit San Mateo County on March 17, County officials scrambled to identify which businesses would be considered “essential” businesses, and furthermore, how they would be allowed to function during the pandemic.  During the first iteration of the lockdown, residential real estate was not considered to be an essential business, and therefore the market went into hibernation mode.

Several changes to the County ordinance have happened since March, with the most recent revision taking place just this past Monday.  There's a lot of confusion about exactly what you can or cannot do if you're looking to buy real estate in this market, since the ordinance keeps changing.  Hopefully this post will help clarify that confusion.

As it stands today, here is how the County ordinance reads as it pertains to residential real estate:

“Service providers that enable real estate transactions (including rentals,leases, and home sales), including, but not limited to, real estate agents, escrow agents, notaries, and title companies, provided that appointments and other residential real estate viewings must only occur virtually or, if a virtual viewing is not feasible, by appointment with no more than two visitors at a time residing within the same household or living unit and one individual showing the unit (except that in person visits are not allowed when the occupant is present in the residence).”

So what does this mean if you're trying to buy or sell a home right now?  Here are a few key takeaways from the ordinance:

1. Open houses and broker tours are still prohibited.   This is an obvious one, since it's almost impossible to enforce social distancing in these situations.
2. Owner-occupied homes can now be shown.  In the previous version of the ordinance, only vacant homes were allowed to be shown and only with the proper paperwork and PPE.  The May 4th update allows occupied homes to be shown, but the owners must not be present during the showing.
3. Showings of any kind are limited to two buyers (who live in the same residence) plus one agent at any single showing.
4. In-person showings can only occur if a virtual showing is not “feasible”.

The last point is the one that seems to trip everyone up.  It's almost unheard of today for a property to be marketed without some sort of virtual tour.  Whether it's using Matterport technology, or a video tour of the home, a virtual tour is now considered a “must” in any marketing campaign.  The problem that arises is that no matter how amazing and realistic the virtual tour may be, no buyer is going to write an offer, let alone complete the purchase, on a home that they have never set foot in.  So even though a virtual tour is feasible, it's not feasible to purchase a home virtually.

The way that most listing agents are handling this ambiguous wording is to require that any prospective buyer must view the virtual tour and possibly even read through the disclosures before being allowed to see the property.  This seems to adequately handle the feasibility requirement in everyone's eyes.

The bottom line is that in today's market, despite the shelter in place order, you can definitely sell your home — regardless of whether you are living in it or not.  There are certainly precautions and extra paperwork that is required to do this, but an experienced agent like myself can walk you through each step to ensure compliance.

Questions?  Contact me!