Archives for March 2020

5 Tips for House Showings During the Covid-19 Pandemic

As a Home Seller or Purchaser, this period of increased self-isolation and social distancing is certainly raising your anxiety over and above what the average individual feels during a  real estate transaction. Covid-19 or Coronavirus is on all our minds and the center of nearly every conversation and while we are all doing our best to follow WHO advice – the reality is that some of you may not be able to pause your house transaction. An impending work transfer, aging parents, financial pressure, loss of current housing are all examples of external timelines that won’t wait for this pandemic to end.

As an Agent working closely with Clients who are concerned about showings during this time, I hope that these 5 tips will help ease your mind:

  1. If you are showing any cold/flu symptoms – STAY HOME. Even though you may not have the Covid-19, prevent spreading the common cold or flu during this challenging time. The house you may wish to see could be occupied by children, seniors or an immunocompromised individual. Let’s all do our part and keep our germs to ourselves.
  2. Limit the showing to only the people who will be making the purchasing decision. Discuss ahead of time to arrange care for kids, record a video of the home, Skype or Face Time aging parents or members of the family that are high-risk. The more people that enter each home for sale only increases the risk for you and everyone else.
  3. As a Seller: Keep a bottle of hand sanitizer at the front door for potential purchasers with a friendly note (print me!) – this will help keep everyone’s peace of mind that there are less likely to come in contact with any virus.
  4. Turns all the lights on throughout the home  &  leave all the doors including the closet doors wide open. Home Buyers want to be able to see each room and closet space throughout the home. Limit unnecessary contact by ensuring the Buyer’s Agent or the Buyer does not have to touch the knobs at all.
  5. Disinfect all high touch surfaces in your home at the end of each showing. Sellers – after you return home each night, quickly spray disinfectant on all high-touch surfaces in your home: door knobs (dont forget the front door), light switches, closet door handles, counter tops, toilet handles… and the lockbox that’s outside too!

Remember that this too shall pass and we are all in this together.  So even if you need to sell or buy a home during this high stress time, hopefully the tips above will bring you some peace of mind.

February 2020 Market Statistics

Kamloops just had its last snow fall of the season (hopefully!) and Spring is officially around the corner. February flew by far too quickly, not that it helped I was away in the US for the R4 Remax Convention. What an incredible experience, the week was filled with meeting new people, learning new software and seeing all that the big tech giants are about to release into Canada this coming year.  

As I get to the grind here in the office and taking a look at the February stats it’s hard not too see not only in person but in real data that our market is still plugging away full speed – with 112 sales this month, while down from this time last year its not hard to see that Buyer’s are still very active. Those days on market keep dropping which just shows how quickly houses are being sought out by prospective house purchasers.

South Kamloops (Downtown & Lower Sahali) experienced the highest numbers of sales in February, followed by Brocklehurst and North Kamloops.  When you really pull out the stats for those three areas you can see a trend in those sales and why those three neighbourhoods are leading the way in housing.  The average sale price of a home in the Downtown / Lower Sahali area – $347,814, Brock – $343,830 and in North Kamloops – $351,030.  With the median household income in Kamloops of $73,336 (census 2016) it only makes sense that the areas seeing the most movement are areas that offer various types of housing; condo, townhouse and  half-duplexes.

While Brock and North Kamloops were in the top 5 for total overall sales in the month of February, homes North of the River only made up 59 sales of the total 185.

If you are ready to begin your home search, head on over to my listing notifications page and receive up to date listings, price changes and sale price information.  

Need to sell? Start your online market evaluation request now and get a no obligation report.

 

  February 2019 February 2020 Year to Date
NEW LISTINGS 207 270 516
TOTAL SALES 156 185 323
AVG. RESIDENTIAL PRICE $470,432 $439,613 $439,112
AVG. DAYS ON MARKET 61 55 55
ACTIVE LISTINGS 707 1124 –

 

 

 

 

 

*Information updated as of April 7/2020*