SRES Consumer Newsletter - August 2020

 

Consumer Newsletter – August 2020 US Edition; By Elyse Umlauf-Garneau	www.sres.org

Protocols for Nursing Home Visits

For anyone with parents or loved ones living in a long-term care facility, the months of separation because of Covid-19 lockdowns has made the stay-at-home orders doubly painful.

You not only miss your loved ones but also worry about their physical and mental well-being and the toll so many months of isolation has taken.

And though you want to visit – some states are now allowing in-person get-togethers –it’s natural to be concerned about your health and that of long-term care residents.

As such facilities begin to open for in-person visits again, it’s important  to understand the facility’s  protocols and how you and your loved one will be kept safe.

AARP offers some key questions everyone should ask before planning a visit, including:

·        What is the nursing home doing to help make it safe for visitors to come back?

·        What protection and social-distancing measures are in place

·        Are you doing everything possible to minimize risks to residents?

·        Will visits be restricted by time and place?

·        What kind of health checks will be required for visitors?

To check whether your state has resumed in-person visits to nursing homes, see https://bit.ly/30JAlkL. In some, including Arizona, Florida, and Texas, visits are forbidden, unless there are unique circumstances like end-of-life situations.

Ohio nursing homes are opening up for outdoor visits, and facilities in other states are reopening with specific restrictions in place. Those include things like outdoor visits, scheduled visits during specific hours, and limits on how many people can see a given resident at a time.

Markets Recovering, Says NAR Survey

Especially if you were poised to sell your home before the pandemic, one gnawing question likely has been what impact Covid-19 would have on the real estate market.

The National Association of REALTORS^® took a look at this issue by polling members in late June.

Its 2020 Market Recovery Survey shows that markets are recovering, with 45% of respondents saying that their market is slowly entering recovery and 28% saying their marketing is hotter than normal.

And if you’re selling a home, the good news is that buyers are returning. In fact, 9% of respondents to the NAR survey said that all of their buyers have returned and 18% said that their buyers never left.

In rural areas and small towns, 33% said their market is hotter than normal, though 40% said the market is slowly entering recovery.

In urban areas, 49% said the market is slowly entering recovery, 17%  reported that it’s back to normal and 23% reported that their market is hotter than normal.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening.

	Small town/Rural	Urban area	Suburban area
No buyers paused, continued to work with buyers	23%	17%	17%
No buyers have returned	5%	11%	9%
Less than 25%	19%	21%	20%
25%-50%	22%	25%	21%
51%-99%	21%	17%	24%
100% of buyers returned	9%	9%	10%

 

The survey also includes information about buyers’ timelines, home features important in a new home, and the importance of technology.

For example, if you’re buying or selling in the next year, expect to see real estate practitioners rely on technology more. Sixty-seven percent of respondents expect the demand for Zoom and other video technologies for client communications to increase. Increased demand for other technologies also is expected to rise, and those include virtual tours (66%), live virtual tours (63% conducted by an aging using video), and virtual open houses (60%).

See more results from the survey on the SRES blog, and read the complete survey at (https://bit.ly/32ICQGB).

 

	Real Estate Matters: News & Issues for the Mature Market Coldwell Banker Premier Group 2203 S Big Bend Blvd St. Louis, MO 63117 Matt Wroughton - PSA, SRES