July 7th, 2020 11:39 AM by Gregg Mower
The first thing everyone needs to know is that we at MAE Capital Real Estate and Loan want all of our clients to be safe and healthy. Whatever your view is on the COVID outbreak is you will have to follow some rules when looking at homes during this time. People are still listing homes for sale, although things have changed dramatically in how your Agent can show a home to potential home buyers. The Listing Agents must also follow strict rules in order to list your home for sale and showing it to potential home buyers.
When a potential home buyer wants to see a particular home, he or she must sign a “Coronavirus Property Entry Advisory and Declaration Form” or PEAD-S for short. Everyone who is going to look at the house must sign this form prior to entry. This form must be presented to the listing Agent of every home you want to see. So, my advice would be to do some reconnaissance before asking to see a particular property. What that would be is to get in your car and go look at the outside of the homes and the neighborhoods before asking to go inside. What this will do is eliminate those houses that are not in a good location or have bad or dirty neighbors. Once you have done your recon trips on houses that interested you online then you can narrow down the ones you want to see inside. This is very important as not to waste your time and your Agent’s time at looking at homes that you would never want to buy anyway.
Once you have your list of homes you want to see the inside on present it to your agent so he or she can send you the PEAD-S for you to sign on each house you want to see. Note this form is sent to you from Docusign which is an electronic signature application. To help your Agent narrow down the amenities you wish to have in a house you should complete a Home Shopping Checklist and you can find this on our site by clicking here or on the link, there are many helpful tools to help you organize your finances as well as your wants and needs in a home. When it is time to go look at the homes on your list you will have to have signed each PEAD-S form for each property and your Agent has to have sent it to the listing Agents on each house you want to see and they have to have received it. Sometimes it can take a while for a Listing Agent to see the actual form as they may be busy when it is sent over. Patience will be your mandate for this process and all other process during this COVID crazy times.
Once your Agent has set the times and the Listing Agents have been given the PEAD-S forms then you can enter a house. Entering a house comes with another set of rules we must all follow. Every person entering a property MUST wear a mask and gloves we also provide booties to cover your shoes when entering a home. Although it should be a given but when looking at homes you should not touch anything other than door handles to open doors to inspect the house. Be sure to bring your checklists with you so you can see if the house offers all the items you want to have in a house.
For the Agent that listed the houses you are seeing you should be aware that the rules also state that the homes that are being actively shown must be cleaned between each showing. This is important for you to know as we in the Real Estate Industry need our client to be safe in the process of looking for homes. Also, we want to make sure that the seller’s of homes are also protected, so although it is a little extra work it is our responsibility to our Home Buyers and Sellers out there to be safe. We are all inconvenienced right now with the all that is going on but at least we can still show and sell homes during this crisis, but if we don’t follow the rules we may lose this privilege.
Patience is going to be your theme during the process of buying and selling a home in these trying times. Viewing homes is not the only area where you will need patience, also know that with interest rates at historic lows and lenders are backed up with refinances during this time and some lenders are still working from home in different parts the country so the loan process has also been painfully slow. So weather you agree with what is going on in the world or not, in order to buy a home or sell a home you will be burdened with additional requirements all due to the Novel Coronavirus narrative. We are here to help you with both your Real Estate needs and your home loan needs, remember bundle and save. www.maecapital.com.