As the California Stay-at-Home order is in effect, many people are curious about how you could sell your house in the coronavirus pandemic. First of all, our Virtual Home Selling program only available in cities and areas in which real estate is classified as an essential service and the city is permitting the sale of residential real estate. Our Virtual Home Selling program is designed for homeowners who need to sell quickly and with minimal person-to-person interaction.
Traditionally, the sale of a home includes an in-person seller consultation, open houses, buyer showings, and other activities before and during the escrow that are all in-person activities. Your listing agent might schedule back-to-back Saturday and Sunday open houses the first weekend it is listed to get as many feet inside the door as possible. With open houses prohibited, how will buyers see your home?
Listing your home virtually through KALEO Real Estate Company means that you are able to sell your home during this COVID-19 pandemic while minimizing any face-to-face exposure through in-person meetings and open houses.
Our Virtual Home Selling program leverages high-tech marketing techniques, video, photo, online and social media advertisements, and virtual technology so that your home is in front of as many qualified buyers as possible.
Key Aspects of the Virtual Home Selling Process
Here are a few aspects of the Virtual Home Selling program that help our clients move and earn top dollar for their properties. We often help our sellers buy with our virtual home buying program. Call our office at 626-609-2130 to set up an appointment with one of our agents or email us directly here.
Virtual Seller Consultation
We would meet over Zoom, Google Meet, or FaceTime and go over why you are selling. Are you moving out-of-state, to be closer to your job or school, or merging families? Normally one of our agents 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.
Virtual Tours, Videos, and Photos
When we list your property, we want to put the “best front door” forward. What does that mean? It means we use 3-D Virtual Tour technology websites so that a potential buyer can see the floor plan, tour the home, and interact with the layout online. Drone videos give a birds-eye perspective of the home and high definition photography ensures that your home catches people’s eyes. These videos, photos, and virtual tours will be visible on the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS) and on the syndicated websites.
Screening Buyer Financial Strength
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. It is best practice so that only qualified buyers are touring your home in-person. This would be if you opted into in-person showings. If you preferred to hold off on in-person showings, we can also accommodate that.
Limited Access to Property
As a seller, you get to choose how and when buyers can view your property in-person. You can require that a buyer first views all online and virtual marketing materials and provides proof of financial readiness before being able to access the property.
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) we can send you the listing agreement, disclosures, and other important documents to sign electronically
Electronic Transfer of Funds
We can coordinate electronic transfer and payments of funds for different charges through the escrow process.
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.
Closing
Before moving out, we can do as much virtually as possible even contactless drop off of keys to the new buyer.
The biggest takeaway with our Virtual Home Selling program is that although some of your meetings will be virtual, the real estate agents are not virtual. We are not automating the process so extremely 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.
