Live-streamed house tours.
Three hundred and sixty-degree photos of rooms.
Video chats with clients.
Welcome to the world of buying and selling real estate in Connecticut put under quasi-quarantine to fight the coronavirus.
Despite public health concerns and orders from Gov. Ned Lamont that have brought much of the state’s economy to a screeching halt, the real estate business continues throughout much of the state, and local Realtors are adapting as best they can, said CT Realtors 2020 President Joanne Breen.
“We’ve been hearing form a lot of buyers and sellers that they have to transact, that they can’t wait for whatever reason,” said Breen, an agent with ERA Sargis-Breen Real Estate Co. in Newington.
While many Realtors had been creating “virtual tours” of their listings before the coronavirus crisis, Breen said, more and more are being forced by seller and buyer concerns to shift most or all of their open houses to a virtual model. Key components include 360-degree photos of rooms and live-streamed video tours of properties.
“It’s become more of a necessity to consider those options,” she said. “We’re trying to keep our buyers informed about what’s on the market. We’re trying to limit the number of people who visit houses to protect the sellers. It’s a different way of doing business.”
While the state is still allowing traditional open houses to go forward, Breen said few brokerages are sanctioning them, if any are at all. CT Realtors has asked its members to stop hosting them.
Breen said the state’s SMART MLS service, which CT Realtors also owns, has taken steps to help agents both promote these new marketing methods. It’s also helping agents of all technical skill levels get up to speed on the latest techniques using a variety of free tools and tutorials.
Breen said it’s still too early to see clearly how this sudden shift to all-digital marketing of home listings will change the real estate business, but that it may be a durable trend, as the up-front cost is low for nearly any Realtor with a smartphone to create a basic “virtual open house” and market it on SMART MLS.
“A lot of Realtors are saying to their buyers ‘Let’s take a good look at these virtual tours and narrow down what we’re going to go out and look at,'” she said.
Virus concerns will likely cool the market, Breen said, but won’t stop it completely.
“There’s probably a segment of buyers and sellers who’ve been in the market who will step away because of COVID-19, but there will always be a segment of people who need to buy or sell a home quickly,” she said. “There are things buyers need to do to get ready, so this is the time to get pre-approved by the lender, for example.”
