It’s no secret that the coronavirus pandemic has affected most areas of our lives. From the way we work, live, travel and make decisions… COVID-19 has hit just about every life circumstance and situation. For those making home buying and selling decisions, doing so amid a pandemic is no small undertaking. We chatted with a few of our clients who made these tough decisions and trusted our team to guide them through the process. Here’s what the McAvoy family had to say:

1. What was it like for you to make the decision to move forward with moving during a pandemic? (what fears/concerns did you face? in what areas did you feel sure/unsure?)

Due to pandemic, we had to do a lot more of the research on finding homes online and not so much in actually seeing houses.  We had to be more careful than we have in the past about which houses we chose to see so we were limiting exposure as much as possible.  Essentially, we did a lot of homework.

2. What (if anything) were you surprised by in the midst of your process? (was there anything easier or more complicated about the process than you were expecting, specific to the pandemic?)

Delays in mortgage payoff that no one knew about until the evening before our closing date.  And problems with trying to get a bank appointment to wire funds to the lawyers office.  Unforeseen COVID delays.

3. Was there anything about the pandemic specifically that caused you to make this decision earlier than you were expecting? (need of home office, yard, etc). Or, were you planning to move anyway and if so, did you think about reconsidering due to the timing of the pandemic?

The pandemic put our plans on hold for about 6 months due to the uncertainty in being able to get our house ready in just 1 week to put up for sale to try to beat any upcoming second lockdown at that time.  It was very stressful to have to decide when to list our house because we were not sure if people were still out house shopping, if we could get more money from the sale if we waited until after the pandemic, and if we wanted people through our house while we were still living in it.  My husband works in a hospital and my daughter goes to daycare so we were worried about exposures.

4. How did the current competitive market in RVA impact your transactions both on the buy and sell side?

We saw houses that sat on the market for a long time that were listed right before or right at the start of covid.  That worried us on whether our current house would sell and if we could have a better profit if we waited.

5. In what ways did the Kelly Blanchard Real Estate Group exceed your expectations? 

Successfully bought and sold houses during a global pandemic, pretty impressive.