The real estate community handled the threat of Covid very well. I heard zero stories about people contracting Covid while showing homes. To my knowledge, no Realtor gave it to their client, and vice versa. Not to be overlooked, there were no big outbreaks associated with real estate offices which would have been particularly vulnerable because of our ancient work force. I’m practically a dinosaur myself at this stage in my career. I’m also a greybeard with tech skills, which makes me a rare breed indeed.
The average age of Realtors in Marin County appears to be something like 82. Actually a National Association of Realtors profile from 2017 (https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/2017-member-profile-demographics-of-real-estate-agents-examined-up-close) had the national average as 53, down from 57 in 2015. I’m willing to bet in Marin the average age is over 60, which equates to a lot of wisdom and experience in the market, and a lot of compromised immune systems. We can't afford to get Covid wrong.
In my Terra Linda Coldwell Banker office, we still can’t have clients visit. We are still taking our temperature at the door, signing in and sanitizing our hands upon entry. People take their masks off in their individual offices, but in the general areas everyone is masked up. Personally, I was quite frightened of the copy machines at the start of the pandemic. With all the talk of the virus being transmitted on surfaces I figured the office copy machines could easily become vectors for the disease. For months I wiped down the machine with sanitary wipes every time I used it.
We took some risks, especially in the beginning. The weekend before the Shelter in Place took effect I helped the seller of one of my listings do an estate sale. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were open to the public, wearing masks and gloves. We had enough gloves to give them out to people as they arrived. I tried to talk my seller out of doing the sale on the Sunday because the entire state was shutting down the following day. We went for it and fortunately nobody got sick. People were in all the rooms of the house going through stuff, and if somebody actually had the virus and decided to linger in a room for a while the outcome could have been very different.
We made mistakes and lots of people died. Amazingly, nobody I’ve read about died from real estate/Covid related activities. If a house on the market became a super spreader, I’m sure we would all have known about it. I’m mildly surprised we didn’t hear about office transmission, not just in the real estate sector but throughout the economy. Going to the office would seem to be a risky activity, but people fled their offices and quickly transitioned to remote work wherever possible.
No longer chained to the office, with lots of time on their hands and a desire to flee the City, the suburban residential real estate market boomed like never before. There was so much demand, while inventory was lacking, due in part to sellers' understandable reluctance to invite the public into their homes. I sold a couple of occupied homes during the pandemic, which felt a little sketchy. I even took my buyers into a home where the sellers had both recently recovered from Covid, and I did not feel 100% comfortable walking through. On the way over to the house I mentally debated staying outside and letting my buyers walk through on their own.
When the moment of truth came, I walked through the door with my buyers. It’s what we all had to do. We had to keep moving and not let the virus keep us from making a living. Real estate was an essential business, and we were essential to the economy. How good of a job did we do?
The market absolutely exploded and homeowners enjoyed unmatched appreciation. If you owned property prior to 2020 you likely did very well. The real estate market is still heavily in favor of sellers, interest rates are low and we are lifting many restrictions. Covid is currently very much in our rear view mirror now. Just know that if you are going into an open house, you still may be asked to wear a mask.