There is a lot of talk about Virtual Home Buying and Virtual Home Selling. With the coronavirus pandemic and California’s Safe at Home order, we wanted to clear up any confusion about virtual home buying. Buying a home virtually through KALEO Real Estate Company doesn’t mean you sacrifice the human element, personal connection, and conversations: virtual home buying is facilitating the purchase of a home with technology so that in-person meetings and activities are reduced. 

 

First of all, for the past several years, we have been helping home buyers do as much virtually as they feel comfortable with and want! Why? Because you are busy! You have a full-time job, family, priorities, and sometimes doing things virtually works best for your schedule. Our goal is to streamline the process so that you aren’t lost in frustrating details, logistics, or busy work. 

 

Key Aspects of the Virtual Home Buying Process

Here are a few aspects of the virtual home buying process that help our clients become home owners. Call our office at 626-609-2130 to set up an appointment with one of our agents or email us directly here.

 

Virtual Buyer Consultation

We would meet over Zoom, Google Meet, or FaceTime and go over why you are buying, what type of styles and features are your favorite, and where you are looking. Normally an agent would like to meet at least an hour with first time clients to get to know you better and learn how to best to communicate with (text, email, phone) and serve you. 

 

Lender and Pre-Qualification

In today’s real estate environment, to see a home in-person (after already reviewing the virtual tours and marketing materials), sellers are requiring that buyers provide updated pre-qualification letters and Proof of Funds. This is a high priority to make sure you are connected with a lender and you have your financials dialed in. We will have those electronic copies to forward to listing agents when we are submitting an offer

 

Search Criteria and Alerts

After our virtual consultation and your budget has been determined, then I will set up search alerts so that you get listing alerts every time a property goes live on the MLS. You will get these notifications to your phone, mobile device, and computer and we can make sure you and your partner or co-buyer gets the same alerts too

 

Virtual Tours, Videos, and Photos

Not only can we schedule virtual showings for property, but we can also block time to go through all the Virtual Tours, videos, and photos together in a virtual showing day. We can share screens and I can ask you questions in real-time about a property as we are exploring the virtual tours. 

To adhere to the highest level of precautions, we are using the Property Entry Advisory Disclosure for situations where clients or we are physically accessing a property. This form provided by the California Association of Realtors outlines the guidelines for how in-person showings can be done (following local & state laws, social distancing, cleaning, mask etc) and also requires that anyone accessing the property declares that they are not currently sick or believe to be sick with COVID-19. 

 

Electronic signature

Through DocuSign and DigitalInk (two electronic signature platforms we use) I can send you the purchase agreement, disclosures, and other important documents to sign electronically 

 

Electronic Transfer of Funds for Initial Deposit

In the purchase agreement, instead of delivering a check, you can elect to do an electronic transfer of funds or wire for your initial deposit (also known as EMD or earnest money deposit)

 

Escrow

Mobile notaries and escrow will coordinate so that as much of the escrow documents can be completed from the comfort of your home as possible. You can review the Inspection Report as a digital PDF after the inspector conducts his walk-through of the property

 

Closing

Before moving in, we can do as much virtually as possible even contactless drop off of keys. 

 

The biggest takeaway with our Virtual Home Buying program is that although some of your meetings will be virtual, the real estate agents helping you are not virtual. We are not automating it so that you are talking to a robot. We have real people, licensed California real estate agents, ready to help you purchase a home in a difficult and uncertain time. This might be the ideal time for you to buy, and we work on your timeline, so even if during COVID-19 pandemic you need to buy a home, we are here to help. 

 

Next week we will share more information about how we are mobilizing and providing the highest level of service to our home sellers right including 3-D Virtual Tours with Matterport technology, drone videos, hyper targeted social media ads and more. 

This content is not the product of the National Association of REALTORS®, and may not reflect NAR's viewpoint or position on these topics and NAR does not verify the accuracy of the content.