Read the blog below:
Anthony: Hey everybody, I’m going to be talking to you about the MLS change that came out yesterday. The Mass Association Realtors sent out some clarification on a change that the governor made where parts of what we do is considered essential here in Massachusetts.
I’m also going to be talking to you guys about how I feel a lot better than I did yesterday at this time because of the changes that they made to the Stimulus Bill or call it the aid package or whatever you want. That $2 trillion bill was looking really good over the weekend, then yesterday morning, there was some disappointing news and then last night, they got it right again. I’m going to be talking about all three of those things as well as some resources that realtors can take advantage of. I’m going to do that starting in about two minutes.
I’m going to give people the chance to log on, say hello to some people and then I will be jumping into all of these topics. Look at this. We have a nonrealtor friend, the famous Andy Umina, husband of the wonderful realtor Ms. Darlene Umina. Kim McKean is back, hello Kim. Lauren, Deanna, Debra, Liz, John, Mike, good to have you. Mike, Lisa, Paul, Susan, lots of people logging on. Happy to have you all.
Like I said, I’m going to be jumping in shortly. We’re going to be talking about the MLS change, the notice that MAR sent out at nine o’clock last night in reference to some adjustments that the governor made. I’m going to try to clarify those. I know that we had associations in the MLS almost contradicting each other yesterday. A lot of people are saying, “What is going on here? What am I supposed to be doing with my buyers, my sellers? Can I do an open house, can’t I? Can I show a house, can’t I?”. I’m going to be talking about that.
I’m also going to talk about why I feel a lot better about our recovery since they seem to have gotten this Stimulus Bill right. I’m going to start up in about 60 seconds. Happy to have you all here with me.
What camera do I use? A lodge tech something. By the way, someone was nice enough yesterday, I think it was Cheryl, to send me feedback about the sound and I went back and listened to my video and I was like, “Jesus, I sound like I’m screaming”. Our wonderful IT guy today logged into my computer, adjusted the mic and everybody’s saying it’s a lot better. I plan on having a good half an hour here with you guys starting in about a minute or less than a minute.
Hey Katherine, thanks for joining, Yana Dakota, love Dakota. Scott Jones. Good man. Mr Mark Belestracci, famous realtor from the Worcester Market. Jen Mason, you’re on, Kelly, Shannon Johnson, happy to have you with us Shannon. We’ll start real soon. Going to talk about some important things.
It’s amazing all the confusion that realtors are feeling right now and my hope is just to help you guys get some clarification. We had a company meeting this morning right here. I sat in the same place and did a company update and tried to break it down for people, and that was like my practice run for this and everybody said there were a lot more clear. My goal after this call is to make things a lot more clear for you guys. No problem Dakota. I’m happy to do it. For great realtors like you, you make it easy.
Mr Ralph Bibeau, good man. Let’s see, Leslie Storrs has joined, Jean Catherine, I’m here. I’ll be here. You guys got to be sick of me. I don’t think anybody’s going to watch a Crush It video ever again after this whole mess is over because everybody’s sick and looking at me and honestly, I’m getting a little sick of looking at me, but I’m here to help you guys and I enjoy doing it.
Let’s get started. Number one, MLS. There was an email that came out yesterday afternoon. I did know it was coming. If you watch me yesterday, you saw when I said, “MLS is going to be making an adjustment with respect to temporarily withdrawn”. I think we ought to applaud our MLS for that. They jumped on that very quickly. I had spoken to them about it the night before and they got their board together, their board agreed.
Basically that’s easy, to break that one down very simply. If you’ve got a seller who wants to be on the market, I call it leaving the product on the shelf. I think that’s smart. Leave the product on the shelf. Buyers are looking online. I’ll tell you something in our company, give you some insider information to our company.
Yesterday we started doing more coming soon ads. One of our top agents mentioned it the other day that she’s doing it on her properties and I said, “Gee, that’s a good idea. We should be pushing coming soon ads”, even though we remember what I talked about yesterday, I’m going to talk about this again today. This isn’t a time for sales. As realtors, you shouldn’t be trying to push your buyer to buy something or sell it or sell something. Guys, people are cooped up at home, they’ve got their devices, they want to look at properties.
When Jocelyn said that, I said, “Geez, that’s a good idea”, and we pushed it out companywide, handful of agents got listings in on coming soons we have this thing we do, our marketing team and bang, today the phone is ringing with buyers calling about coming soons and I thought that was terrific. Remember that’s them calling our realtors, which is great.
Anyway, MLS made it so that if your listing is on and your seller doesn’t want to show it or you don’t want to show it or whatever the reason may be, there is nothing wrong with basically pausing showings until after the state of emergency, which we all know is going to be in place at least until the 7th of April.
If your seller wants to keep their product on the shelf so that buyers can see it, there’s nothing wrong with you telling people, “Hey, showings don’t start till April 7th or April 8th” or if you want to cheat and say a day early, I don’t know, that’s up to you. That is what the MLS put out. That’s a rule change that they had.
They also went into, in light of the pandemic and state of emergency declared by the governor, MLS customers should strongly consider holding off on any in person, open houses and showings. All right, love my friends at MLS, love the board there, love the leader there. I think they probably should have stayed out of that fray, but no big deal there.
All they’re trying to do is update their customers and give advice because they know everyone’s crying out for information. Many realtors got that and were like, “Oh my God, I can’t show homes”. A good realtor friend of mine out in Worcester, I was messaging with him last night. He says, “Geez, I had a showing on a new construction that’s vacant, and an agent emailed, “Oh, I can’t show it now because MLS said I can’t”. “.
That’s not what MLS said. Don’t take it out of context. They said strongly consider, so be careful there. It’s not MLS’s jurisdiction to tell us realtors that we can’t do something and they didn’t do that. I have the email right here on my screen, so keep that in mind. They were only trying to provide direction.
Now I’m going to move on to the Mass Association of Realtors email that was sent out last night. I thought they did a good job with it. Everybody’s doing the best they can to get information out and to update people on where things are at and what they think.
If you read the email from the association, today the Baker administration issued guidance for realtors during the COVID-19 state of emergency. Thank you for your patience as we work toward formal guidance from the state. I had heard about this yesterday afternoon knew this was coming out, and we discussed it over text, and tried to make recommendations to the state arm involved with government affairs.
MAR went on to say, “Showings and open houses are permitted and are subject to governor Baker’s order limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer. If open houses are held, they must be limited –“. It says that again. It says it twice. That was an accident. Although allowed, Emma Meagher strongly encourages members not to host open houses.
There was a lot of realtors that got that like,” What do I do? Do I do it? Do I not do it?”. Let me help walk you through this. It’s not as complicated as you think. Number one, the governor, he put out an order for businesses, there’s a difference between an order and an advisory.
The order said, Businesses that are nonessential cannot be open”, pay attention there. “Businesses that are not essential cannot be opened”. He gave an advisory to the public to basically say, “Stay home as much as you can”.To put it simply, that’s what he was trying to do.
Yesterday, they couldn’t come out and deem real estate essential even though MAR and some people were fighting that. I thought that was a little bit of a stretch. I think what the governor did and by the way the lieutenant governor was huge on this.
What they did, I think makes sense. They instead added it. If you scroll down on that MAR email and you click on the link after the FAQ, you’ll see if you’re going to the link, there’s an area that says, “Other Community-based Essential Functions in Government Operation”. They consider parts of what we do to be essential functions and that’s how we fell on this.
If you scroll down after that part, it says, “What Real Estate Brokered Services are Considered Essential”. Open houses. While open houses are not prohibited, they are subject to the governor’s order of limiting gatherings blah blah.
There were some people that saw that and some realtors said, “What the hell? Now they’re disrupting. Now they’re changing things again. What are they doing?”. Well guys, you got to understand. The governor put out guidance that it can’t be 10 people or more. He can’t come out and say no open houses. He could, he’s the governor, but he doesn’t want to contradict himself. If he does that, it’ll affect five other industries.
Instead what they did is they said, “Well, it’s not prohibited, but keep it to 10 or less”. They basically legally covered their bases in there. Then they went on to talk about real estate closings, can continue with social distancing. This social distancing thing it’s like, can you imagine people out of buyers in six months? Social distance It’s going to be hilarious.
Anyway, let me move on. Closings can happen then it talks about, “Realtor meetings with clients can continue with social distancing for any in person–“. Sorry, sorry. I missed a place. “Realtor meetings with clients cannot take place at a realtor’s brick and mortar place of business”, so it can’t take place at the office. That’s clear. They don’t want offices open. All nonessential businesses.
That’s why they didn’t agree to put us into essential because that would’ve said that our offices could be open and they wouldn’t agree to do that. Honestly, I agree with them. I think what they did here is fine, but could take place remotely with social distancing by phone or video.
Realtor meetings. Does this mean according to the governor that you can do a listing appointment? Yes, it does. Does it mean that you can do a buyer appointment? Yes, it does. That’s what they’re clarifying here. Property management, firms and landlords are considered essential. Yes. We already clarified that with our property management company. We’ve had two emergency calls that they’ve dealt with in the last couple of days.
Some people read this and they’re like, what does it mean? What can I do? All right. Let me give you my take on this and then I’m going to give you my take on why I think what they did is right.
Number one, does this mean that you should run out and schedule open houses? Personally, my opinion, my advice to the public, the advice that I gave to the realtor public, the advice that I gave to our realtors, I don’t recommend doing open houses.
Doing open houses in the traditional sense doesn’t make sense. Now I’ve said to you guys five times in the last two weeks, I love the idea of block showing times with controlled traffic. I think once we can get back to normal, that’s what we should be doing. There’s a group going through at 11:00 o’clock, a group at 11:15, a group at 11:30 and you take people through in groups of two to four, maybe five, don’t go over 10. I think that makes more sense.
Open houses as a whole, I don’t recommend doing unless you have to. Now there are people, I talked to other realtor friends, one right here in Watertown, great guy, he had a seller that was like, “I want an open house. I don’t care what you think, what the governor says. I want an open house”.
Yesterday after I finished a great realtor friend works all over the place, messaged me on Facebook and said, “Anthony, my seller in XYZ town is insistent that I list the home, insistent that I do the open house”. Now I know there’s some realtors hearing this going, “That’s crazy. I would tell that seller to find someone else”. Really a million and a half dollar listing that you’ve been planning on listing in four months. Really? You’d tell him to find someone else. You probably wouldn’t unless you’re someone that sells 50 of those a year. Let’s be realistic here.
Let’s also remember we have fiduciary duties. I talked to a great realtor friend Chris out in the Worcester Market yesterday and I had this discussion about fiduciary duties and it’s like a fine line to walk. If a seller insists that you do something, you’ve got to do it, so you’ve got to do it within reason and not breaking laws. It’s a fine line to walk and I think that by them doing this, this FAQ gives us appropriate guidance that tells us what we can do.
My recommendation is basically the same. You tell sellers the truth, “Hey, if you wait two weeks to list, you’re not going to be harmed”. There is going to be a ton of demand that comes back after that. Not as much as there would have been if it wasn’t for all these damn job losses but there’ll be a lot of demand. The seller is not harmed. Buyers if they wait a couple of weeks, not a big deal. I don’t think that anybody is harmed if they do that.
However, there are people who, for whatever reasons, be it financial, personal, maybe they bought something else, maybe they’re impatient people, I don’t know what it is that insist on listing sooner. Well if they do, you can list it. In the realtor community, and I’ll say this, because I know there’s several hundred realtors listening right now. The realtor community should not shame you. They should not.
I have some advice for you. Don’t be going on Facebook and screaming, doing selfie mode, “My open house. Check it out, cars everywhere”. Go easy on that. You’re just going to torch yourself and look like a salesperson and you don’t want to be doing that right now.
My recommendation is if you get in a situation where you’ve got to do one, fine, but if you could, instead of an open house, do a block showing time with controlled traffic, that makes the most sense. I hope that helps clarify.
I also want to talk to you guys about why. There’s a lot of people, a lot of really smart realtors in a group I’m in that yesterday said, “It’s annoying that the governor did this. Why did he do it? Why is MAR fighting for this?” Well, there’s something that you guys have to remember and I think that all of us, me too, we all lose sight of this sometimes. Us realtors, our business has a major effect on commerce and the flow of money.
Every time a home is sold, think about the amount of times that money has exchanged hands. Listing brokerage gets a fee, buyer brokerage gets a fee. Closing attorney collects the money. Buyer attorney, on and on, mortgage company, title company. I can keep going and going. Moving companies. People buy more, they go to Target, they spend more money on household goods. They go to Home Depot.
There are stats out there, there are reports out there over the years that say that every time there’s a home sold, a job is created. It could be an exaggeration but if you think about it across all industries, it’s probably true.
The lieutenant governor, who I don’t always agree with, the governor, I’ve had some head to heads with him particularly last year with that damn energy bill and all that. I was on channel five and I’m sure he loved me for that going against him. My point is, I understand his position here and I think he did the right thing. Parts of what we do is essential.
I mentioned this yesterday, if you have a final walkthrough or you’ve got something that’s affecting a closing, we’ve got to do our jobs as long as you feel safe. If you don’t, maybe have someone else in the office do it or maybe have the buyer do the home inspection without you there. Let’s face it. You don’t need to be there. When you go to the doctors because your arm hurts and you get sent down the hall to radiology, did the doctor go with you? Do they hold your hand?
Guys, I’ve been saying for years in our training to our realtors into national realtors, not everybody listens, our realtors do what they want and take what they’d like to, but I’ve been saying for years, realtors should not go to closings. It’s a total and complete waste of time. Closings are for attorneys.
Finally, everyone’s listening. It took corona for people to listen to Anthony. I’ve been saying for years, listing agents should never, ever, ever attend a home inspection for their listing. You put yourself in a terrible position, you find out about, you hear about all kinds of things you find out about all kinds of things that you should never ever, ever be learning about.
You’re getting asked all kinds of questions that you would never get asked if you weren’t there. Realtors have a way higher level of disclosure expectation under the law than home sellers do, and it puts you in this odd position. Don’t go well. Now people are doing that. It took corona.
Business can still be conducted and that’s why I want to point out that I’m with the governor on this. I really do think he’s right. I think that the Liutenant Governor, Karyn Polito, I think that they were right in doing this. There are essential functions and if you read that wording again, go to the MAR emails, scroll down, see the part that says, I’ll read it to your word for word, the part that says, “Click here to view the FAQ issued by the Baker administration”. We’ll you go in and it’s time clear.
You’ve got to find– It takes a minute to find it. You got to scroll down. It honestly took me 10 minutes to find it, but I found it. It’s very clear and you know what I’ll do, I’ll screenshot this or better yet, marketing folks, I know some of you are watching, can you screenshot this part about real estate brokerages and post the image in the comments here so people can see it and jump right to it. Then let’s also post this link so that they can get right to it. I want to make it easy on everyone.
That’s why the governor did what they did because they know you stop the exchange of real estate, the trickle-down effect is gargantuan and that’s why they’re doing that. That’s why they passed the bill about fire inspections to allow 90 days after for buyers to do them.
Remember what I said yesterday though, I recommend that you still have your sellers get the house in order. Buyers are going to squawk anyway, “What do you mean? It wasn’t my responsibility when the house went under agreement? Why should I have to do it? Have the seller do it”. I think the better messages, “Hey, my seller got it all ready. Now you can buy it and just do the inspection later.
Although I know I mentioned this yesterday, city of Boston has turned the switch back on. They’re doing inspections. I wanted to mention that.
Another thing that I want to plug again, that bill that is apparently on the governor’s desk a vote allowing virtual notarization. Well, I don’t know my words that good. I couldn’t spell it either, but I understand it. Allowing virtual notaries. Critically important that the governor signs that and that is temporary.
Now remember yesterday I had said to you guys, there were a couple of a sole practitioner type attorneys who were against it. Well, guess what? I heard from one of them yesterday afternoon that heard me explain it and read up on it and said, “I totally misunderstood. You’re right”.
We need to get this thing passed. Everybody on here. If everybody on here hung up and called their state senator or their rep from their neighborhood and said, “Can you get that through? Can you get the bill through that talks about allowing for not only e-filings but virtual notaries?”.
That’s critically important because guys, here’s what I’m worried about. It looks like we’re going to medically and from a health perspective, probably get to the other side of this and the next couple of weeks.
I will tell you though I have my doubts, when the governor yesterday ends up extending kids being out of school till May 3rd, you would’ve thought someone got murdered in the Lamacchia house. I was right here working, my wife starts screaming, I literally go running down the stairs thinking something’s wrong, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” “Dad, schools canceled till May 3rd”. I’m like, “Is that a reason to scream?”. “Yes”.
I’m like, “She’s kind of right. She’s right, those of you that have kids, Holy God, but I’ll tell you, that makes me wonder, do they think it’s going to take a month for us to get to the other side of this thing? With that said what if, just God forbid I hope it doesn’t happen, what if we end up like New York City or California and they shut us down and we can’t leave our houses and they do issue an order to shelter-in-place?
Just think about that, if there’s an order to shelter-in-place, nothing will close if they don’t get this virtual notaries signed. We need to get it signed. It’s temporary. It says that it is only during the state of emergency. We need to get it signed, I recommend we all push for that. Do what you can to get that passed.
Another thing that I want to mention is, where our company Lamacchia Realty, you guys know I don’t usually talk about the company at all on this page, but I want to tell you we’re putting out a resource page. It’s going to have all links to everything that you can think of. There’s a quick letter from me.
For those of you who are broker owners that are watching and other team leaders and stuff, if you guys are wondering what we’re doing with our company or what our message to the public is, go read it. We’re going to be putting that link out this afternoon.
It has all kinds of blogs. There’s a blog in there that talks about the delays that we expect. By the way, I’ll take questions in about five minutes, if you guys want to start posting your questions in the comments, go ahead and do that and I’ll finish this thought.
Where was I? We did a blog on what delays to expect, why they’re happening, what your buyer and seller can do for it. Those blogs will help you guys get your clients to do what you want them to do, because we all know clients sometimes can’t get out of their own way, that blog is in there.
There’s a blog in there about showings. There’s the news clip from me being on NBC the other night. Then the bottom, down the bottom, we have this whole– all my videos that I’ve done on LR, on Lamacchia Realty Facebook page every single week at three o’clock.
I’m doing updates and I’m doing Q&A until this thing is over, which God I hope it’s soon. On the question page, you guys know I’m doing a Q&A and discussing like this every Wednesday at 11:00. I was planning on waiting until next week to see you guys again, but all this stuff came up yesterday.
Back to what I was saying, there’s going to be a lot of resources. Down the bottom, we’re putting an entire mortgage section. There’s a lot of people that are concerned about paying their mortgages. We put in links to all the major servicers, something like the top 20 servicers of mortgages here in Massachusetts. We put links in with the exact contact information for homeowners to call if they’re worried about being behind in their mortgage.
I’ll tell you guys, as someone with massive experience in helping homeowners who have trouble affording their home, they need to be proactive. You need to tell your clients, your past buyers, your past sellers, you need to tell them if they’ve any trouble, if they even smell trouble of paying their mortgage because they lost their job, they need to get in touch with their mortgage company see if they can get a three-month forbearance, four-month forbearance or just some type of stall on their payments.
Some of the mortgage companies are doing it. They’re not hitting people’s credit, nothing. They literally don’t have to pay for three months, it’s fantastic. I can’t believe how fast these mortgage companies are adapting and I think it’s fantastic. That’s going to be in there too.
For you realtors, I know some of you don’t care about sending the Lamacchia link, but if you don’t want to at least go in and rip off the information for your client and send it to them, because you need to be the resource. Us realtors need to be the leaders. I’ve said it many times, do not be selling.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with talking to your sellers. They’ll want to listen a week or two and helping them get ready to list, getting the MLS sheet ready or listing the home and holding off showings that’s fine, but don’t take an attitude with buyers and sellers of, “Hey, it’s business as usual let’s–“.
I heard there was a company saying, “Business as–“, what the hell is usual right now? This is mental. Here I am every day locked in my third floor office talking to you guys every day. There’s nothing usual about this.
Make sure you’re being there for your clients and you’re helping them, and you need to help them in all areas, many of which, I got news for you, won’t involve you selling a home, they won’t. It won’t, but so what? Guys they’re our clients, you’ve got to do what’s right for them and we’ve got to help them. Anyway, sorry, I’m preaching.
Anyway, why don’t I take some questions, I think I hit all my thoughts. I’m sure I’ll think of more. What questions do we have? Kim McKean, you wish they’d clarify about home inspections as well. Be happy, we have the Massachusetts Association of Realtors my friend. The home inspectors don’t have an association nearly like ours, we have a force. The realtor associations are a force, okay. That’s good news.
Wait, I can’t take questions, I promised you that I was going to talk to you about why I feel much better today about our recovery than I did yesterday, because of the bill that passed. Let me stand up again, same thing yesterday, I just can’t stay sitting for some reason.
All right, let me explain this. No doubt in my mind that we are in better shape yet today than we were yesterday. Here’s why. Let me take you on the roller coaster ride and I’m not going to mention either party. I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to go down a political road.
Bottom line, one party proposed a Senate bill over the weekend. Part of that Senate bill had the typical things like unemployment and everything. That particular party also said, “We want to have something in there for small business. We want to give small businesses a couple of months”, it was 2.5 months, 250% of a one month payroll to not lay employees off. The caveat to giving that money is they can’t lay people off, they can’t furlough people and the government will give them money.
All kinds of business owners, I’m one of them, was looking into it for two days. Many business owners, other companies, I talk to many. All of a sudden yesterday morning we wake up, the deal blew up, the other party said, “Nope. Not giving any money to businesses, instead give it directly to people”.
All day I’m thinking, “This is insane”. They’re going to incentivize companies. This is basically incentivizing, motivating business owners to lay people off and let them go collect. When I heard that, I said, “We’re going to take what is already going to be a terrible unemployment rate”, imagine how sad this is. We have the lowest unemployment rate in history, three weeks ago, okay, three weeks.
Here we are three weeks later, 3.3 million unemployment claims were filed last week, this week’s going to be worse. Now the unemployment rate is going to go up. Something like, for every million and a half unemployment claims filed it raises the unemployment rate 1%. Well, we’re going up.
I was very concerned yesterday that they were going to not put the part in for small businesses. I was in touch with our friends at the national association of realtors. I’m extremely fortunate to have some great friends there, at a high level, and around noon time one of them said, “You and whoever you’re talking to, don’t furlough any people yet, we’re on top of this thing”. I’m thinking, “Yes?”.
All of a sudden last night the president comes out, Steven, all these guys and girls come on in and they’re doing their presentation with Dr. Fauci, who by the way that guy’s going to get like some kind of award. America’s falling in love with him, the guy is the best. Anyway, he comes out, they all come out and they start talking about how they got the small business pardon. I’m thinking, “What?”.
By seven o’clock, the Senate put out the final draft that they agreed to, that they were going to vote on. I heard from our bank, I connected with multiple other business owners. I’m reading the draft, it’s back in there. Now companies are going to have an incentive to keep people on the books, the banks’ like the intermediary. Many companies are going to take advantage of this.
I feel a lot better. Now, it’s in the house today and we all know the two parties in the house love to fight. Could it totally gets screwed up and maybe back tomorrow? I don’t think so though, I’m hearing that it’s looking better. I will tell you the National Association of Realtors, guys I don’t get paid to help them, I don’t get a thing to talk them up. I only do it for realtor education. They worked wonders yesterday.
I’m not trying to say it was just them. There’s a retail association, everybody’s beating the hell right now, Capital Hill, getting lawmakers to put the right things in, but the National Association was instrumental in helping small business.
They were also massively instrumental in making sure that 1099 independent contractors, like most of you watching, could collect unemployment. If it wasn’t for NAR, you wouldn’t be able to do that, but they made it happen.
We are the largest trade association in the United States of America, and they have the second largest loving team in the country. They attacked the Hill. They had people at the White House the last few days. They’re all over this thing. When you pay those dudes at the end of the year, think about that.
That’s why I feel a lot better. Do I still think we’re going to have high unemployment? Yes. Do I still think we’re going to hit a recession? Yes. Do I still think there’s going to be less buyer demand? Yes.
I will tell you when the switch turns back on though, in a couple of weeks, I think we’ll initially see a rush of demand because people are going to be let out of their homes. Hopefully that demand will last a couple of months, but I do think we’re going to feel it. We’re going to feel it.
I do think La La Land is basically over, I said that yesterday. It’s at least temporarily over, so we got to deal with it. You got to make sure that you understand what’s happening in the market, you need to make sure that you know how to counsel a seller on pricing, on price adjustments. There’s several things that you have to be ready for in the software market.
Guys, I will be doing endless trainings, endless videos, I’ll tell you guys a secret, a real big secret on here. We do an annual winter event. This year, we did it at the Sheraton in Framingham and we had 700 realtors from across the state show up.
We weren’t planning on doing anything until next January but if this market goes real bad in the next three months, I’m going to do one in the summer. The whole thing is going to be based on how to survive as a realtor and it changed the market but I want to see what happens, I have a feeling I might be doing that. Either way, we’ll deal. Let’s take some questions.
Let’s see what you guys put for comments. Bill said, “Should we create a disclaimer to absolve ourselves of responsibility for visitors?”. All right. In our company, we created a couple of emails for our agents to use, to email sellers, to mention if someone in your home is sick, if someone in your home has traveled outside the country, if they feel any symptoms, please tell us. If we delay listing your home a couple of weeks, you will not be harmed. It’s important to tell people that.
We’re doing it by email. I know the Mass Association came up with a good form. I’m not going to get into giving legal advice to realtors but I think as long as you’re being clear with people–
Also follow your own broker-owner’s direction. Most of the people watching here are not in my company so I don’t want people to go do something. “Anthony Lamacchia in the Crush It video from the third floor in his house said blah, blah blah”, like no, no, no. I’m just giving you guys my opinions, my thoughts and trying to help you guys but you have your own broker-owners many of you, that you need to talk to and you can get your own legal advice.
Lauren, thank you for posting that. Carol, good job sending the emails. I know. I’m dying to stand up and pace around. Buddy, you know me, you’ve had dinner with me. I can only sit so long, this is not easy for me.
Hey, Levi, I hope you’re good my friend. I hope you’re doing well. Levi’s a tremendous vet guy, he was a Green Beret. He has a fantastic company down in San Antonio, Texas. We’ve been friends for five years. The guy’s awesome.
“Can’t post an image in the comments”. What do you mean, Lindsay? I’ll show you how to do it. It’s got to take a screenshot, size it, post it. Let’s see here. What other questions do we have? “What about appraisals?”. All right. Sandra Saccone, good question.
I’ve heard some appraisal companies point-blank saying “We’re closed till April 7. We don’t want an appraisers going into homes”. If that’s what they do, that’s what they do. I think that you need to do it on a case by case basis. Some appraisers are working, some aren’t.
I also think like I said that we don’t need to attend everything every anymore, it’s nuts. I’ve been saying this for years, people are finally listening. Us realtors don’t need to go to every goddamn thing. It’s like realtors wake up and say, “How many things can I attend today?”. It’s mental.
We’ll see with appraisals case by case basis. Remember what I said in the last three Crush It videos, use extensions, use extensions. Right now, you just need to get your buyers and your sellers, two weeks out. Two weeks out, that’s all you got to get. You’re right, Sarah, our packs a force. Glad I was in Miami a couple of weeks ago meeting with some of those people I communicated with yesterday.
Angela’s asking, “Do we have any info yet on how unemployment for agents would work practically?”. A couple of things. I don’t know how far I want to go into this, but part of the bill talked about some companies being able to do the same thing with agents as employees, we’re clarifying that. We have lawyers and accountants looking at it, in addition to my reading it all morning.
Also, I read that realtors, positive that realtors-independent contractors can call and apply for unemployment. Exactly how to do it, I’m not sure.You could just call the unemployment line here in Massachusetts or whatever state you’re in. I’m not sure Angela but I’m happy to have you here.
I will tell you guys, my marketing team, I know they’re listening and this is newsletter week so they’re loving me this week but we are going to– I told you guys that we’re creating a resource page for buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, basically for consumers and that’s going to be housed on the Lamacchia Realty website. We’re going to post that link and let you guys know about it so you can find the information.
We’re also, this is probably going to take till Monday because the marketing team is bummed. We’re also going to create a realtor resource page. Yes Lindsay, love you. Realtor resource page for dealing with coronavirus and real estate. We’re going to put all kinds of information in there to help realtors navigate through this and that will be housed on our crushitinre.com website.
Realistically, we’re probably talking Monday afternoon, maybe Tuesday before that thing is out because we’ve got a lot going on.
Frank says, “You talked about possible pent up energy and demand when we get on the other side of this, what is that actually look like?”. Masses of people looking at properties, open houses that are completely overrun which I think is going to initially make realtors be like, “Wow, it’s over, everything’s perfect”.
That’ll be within the first few weeks after things start to get back to normal. I have a hard time believing that we’re not going to see some reduction in demand by summer. I think it’ll become very noticeable. I think you’re going to see some craziness for a few weeks.
Now, AJ Bruce says, “My appraiser friend said she got the call she is essential”. Wow, that’s interesting. Good job. AJ, you just helped us update. AJ is one of our top realtors in the company, president’s club member. Sorry, AJ, we couldn’t go to Aruba this week. We were supposed to be in Aruba this week and we couldn’t. We’re going in the end of October. We’re not going to let miss that.
Anyway, I’m not surprised to hear that appraisers are deemed essential and I think that that’s necessary because guys, without appraisers, remember real estate transactions can’t happen in that flow of commerce, that flow of money gets completely interrupted.
All right. What is this, Jimmy Con, “I’m hearing desk appraisal for a loan under 700 this AM from guaranteed rate”. Yes. They’re going to be allowing more drive-by appraisals, more desktop underwriting reviews. It’s
great. Yes, Lindsay, you’re plenty of job security, you don’t need to worry my friend.
Let’s see what other questions do you guys have? I don’t want to stay on forever. I think I’ve done enough and I think you guys are probably getting tired of me. I can take one more if someone has one. Thank you, Eileen, happy to.
All right, my friends, I’ll say the same thing I’ve said at the end of every video, no matter what happens, we’ll get through this. Real Estate always survives. I’ve talked to a couple other business owner friends and I think I told you guys this yesterday, and I felt bad talking to a couple who were like, “But I’m worried my business, the business of blah, blah, blah. People don’t spend money when they’re not feeling good”. I felt a little guilty because guys, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always people buying, there’s always people selling, always.
We as a country, we’ll get through this. I will bet on America every day of every week. I noticed the video yesterday when I said that and there’s my flag right there that actually flew over the Capital and I bought it at a fundraiser about five years, eight years ago. In any event, we’ll get through this, real estate will get through this. Us realtors will get through this. I’ll see you soon. Thanks guys.