What is it like to buy and sell during a pandemic? Part 3
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 Jenvey 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?)
Two fears: 1) Economic fears…is the market going to tank the day after we close? I don’t think this is realistic, and once you acknowledge that the virus is the driver of economic uncertainty, rather than something wrong with the real estate market (as it was in 2008-2009), then you can move forward. 2) General fears of the unknown with respect to COVID…are my neighbors going to come say hi when we move in? Are we going to isolate ourselves further?
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?) I was surprised how generally normal things were. Other than wearing a mask during walkthroughs, it was almost the same as the first time we went through buying a house. In our situation particularly, having the buyer of our old house and the seller of our new house end up being really pleasant people helped. Maybe everyone is acknowledging all of this is really hard on everyone so it’s best to just be amicable, or maybe we were lucky, but this worked out great for us.
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? We were planning to move, stopped looking when the pandemic hit, then picked back up after a month or two. I think we certainly prioritized a yard + home office more than we were before, but we probably still would have ended up in the house we bought.
4. How did the current competitive market in RVA impact your transactions both on the buy and sell side? Made the sell side very easy, as we had competitive offers to choose from. On the buy side, it was a little hectic knowing you needed to move on a house pretty quickly, but nothing was particularly different during the pandemic than it was in the last 5 years, at least for us.
5. In what ways did the Kelly Blanchard Real Estate Group exceed your expectations? The preparation of our old house, figuring out what needed to be done to get it sold and staging was fantastic. Completely blew me away and was absolutely the main component in us getting an above-asking offer.
