Posts Tagged ‘COVID-19’

BUYING OUR FOREVER HOME DURING COVID-19 AND BETTING ON THE MARKET

I love my current home. My wife and I love our neighbourhood and the neighbours on our street. We always thought we would be here long term. How is it then, that in a global pandemic, we impulsively purchased a new home. To be quite honest I am still not sure. It happened so fast 🙂  We were not even looking. My wife literally looked at 2 houses and we put offers on both of them. What really got us was the idea of having a pool, privacy, and main floor office. Not sure we would be moving if it wasn’t for Covid-19. Also, nice to have something positive to look forward amongst so much anxiety and uncertainty.  Are other people having similar feelings? I have got calls from clients that said Covid-19 has them revisiting what they really want in their home. Pools have all of a sudden become more important!

This is what sold us: 

Now we just have to wait till 2021 to move in!

Buying in Hot 2020 and Selling in Uncertain 2021

The catch with our purchase is that we cannot move till next year because of the seller’s plans. They are building a house and it was delayed.   It will be the longest resale closing of my real estate career! The waiting game is going to be painful. The challenging part financially is that we have purchased in a really hot market and will be selling in an uncertain 2021. I am a pragmatic person. I know next year our market will not be as good as our current market. How could it be, we are in the hottest market in a generation. I do believe next year will still be a good market. Our current supply shortage and strong demand are enough to sustain a seller’s position for at least the next 6-8 months. I am betting on it with my own house. If I am wrong I have plugged in all my numbers very conservatively. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. If we end up somewhere in the middle I will be happy.

The Emotions of a Buyer

It has been a great exercise going through the buying process again. It has really reminded me of how exciting the process is for buyers and all the emotions they are going through. Anyone else have buyers remorse the day after their purchase?? I did!  Thankfully it was a very fleeting emotion.  Buying a home is stressful, exciting, and consumes much of a person’s thoughts in the moments leading up to purchase and throughout the process. I totally get that and will make sure our team’s services are always making the process as seamless as possible for our clients.

SELLING IN OUR NEW NORMAL

Marketing:

	Virtual Staging: We have been working on a new process to stage your home virtually. Our stager is phenomenal and will help you prepare each and every room in the house. It will involve a few calls, some pictures back and forth, and will end with a full detailed report for you to follow. It will essentially be a game plan for getting your house market-ready.  This work will help you maximize the sale price of your home. Statistically speaking staged homes sell for at least 2% more than non staged homes. We also offer an in-person staging if you prefer.
	Virtual Tour: We will have a full 3d tour done of your home. Here is an example: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Yq6sBohJZoi This will give buyers the opportunity to experience a showing from the comfort of their home. Having this tour is paramount in today’s market. Some buyers are purchasing the home just based on this tour!
	Floor Plans:   We will have a professional floorplan drawn up so buyers can see the dimensions of each room and the layout of the space. An integral part in the new virtual world.
	Professional Pictures: In the weeks ahead we will be taking extra pictures for buyers to look at. Our photographer is amazing and you can see her work by clicking on the link. She will also take precautions when photographing.
	Video Walkthrough:  This will be done to take people through every aspect of the home. We are trying to give every buyer the opportunity to purchase your home without actually seeing it in person. We just started doing this. My partner launched a listing with this feature yesterday. Here is an example: https://quickpageapp.com/p/aku2ny6FBWfECMgfu?cid=dAWQJfWDgdiS4GrS7
	Social Media Ads:  Embracing the virtual aspect of the market we will have ads running on Facebook and Instagram focusing on buyers in your area. https://www.facebook.com/ChrisScottTeam/videos/157686085597878/ We entice them with a short video of the 3d tour playing and they can click to take a walkthrough.
	Electronic Signatures:  We are completing all our agreements via an e-signing program that is easy to use. Stephanie, our listing manager is still working full-time Mon-Fri 830-430. We have lots of support for all our clients. She will be getting all buyers to sign Covid-19 forms prior to any viewing. We are trying to do everything we can to mitigate risk for our clients while making it easy for buyers to get all the information they need on our listings.

THE FUTURE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON THE OTTAWA HOUSING MARKET

Local Economy

We are fortunate to live in Ottawa with so many solid and secure public service jobs. This will help us recover faster than other market centres across the country. We are not however going to be immune to this unprecedented situation. It seems as if what first looked like a matter of weeks is now looking like months of social distancing. This will of course impact local business, tourism, restaurants, and just about everyone. Our local economy is going to be affected and some businesses just won’t survive. The government will help others stay afloat until this situation is resolved. The bigger question I have is once we are released from our quarantine will we be going to restaurants, bars, flying on planes, and getting back to normal life? That is the hope of course but that may require a vaccine or cure.

The Real Estate Market

Ottawa real estate prices have been on an upward trajectory for years. We are in an extreme seller’s market.  This past year was a straight line up, with over 20% in gains. That momentum was stopped in its tracks. Our market was at absolute historical low levels of inventory and peak prices. To use an analogy, if your home was a stock it would have been at an all-time peak. Unlike the stock market, home prices do not crash overnight. That is why we should own more real estate than stocks. Luckily for Ottawa when the needle moves I see it moving towards a more balanced real estate market, maybe still slightly in sellers territory. Since we were so deep into seller’s territory we have room to move and still be in a good market.

ACTIVITY IN THE MARKET

Where does the housing market go from here?

It is naive to think that our current hot streak will continue. The market is going to start levelling off. I see the first impact coming in the entry-level market. I think some investors will get out of this market (this is not a bad thing). This will open the door to first-time buyers to pick up a property without bidding against 10 other buyers. This will put some downward pressure on some of the ridiculous prices we were seeing in this segment early this year.  Sellers are going to have to start adjusting their prices to match the current demand. I am already seeing that when I look at the hot sheet of daily sold properties. I am actually seeing some homes sell for less than their asking price in some cases.

There will be pent up demand when all this is all resolved. In China, sales were booming as soon as the ban was lifted as people were waiting on things to resume. It will be interesting to see what kind of supply of listings we have compared with the demand of buyers. I suspect it will be a more balanced equation than where we have been in the past few years.

Stay safe everyone.

An interesting read from a credible economist on what is to come.

Here is more information on COVID-19 and the impacts on our real estate market. https://chrisscott.ca/2020/04/07/ottawa_market_update_march_2020/