Working from home can create new anxieties

Clayton Jarvis
Mortgage Broker News

Working from home isn’t for everybody. But with the country only gradually reopening and COVID-19 still a threat to both public health and the economy, mortgage companies will be forced to consider keeping their work-from-home structures in place for the foreseeable future.

For brokers used to working from a home office, the last two months have likely meant little change to their day-to-day routines – or those routines’ impact on their families’ lives. But for admin staff, managers, analysts and other employees used to working in an office environment, working from home can create new anxieties that take away from the purported increase in productivity some workers experience after relocating their laptops from the office to the ottoman.

“People have been asked to do more than they’re used to,” says Pivotal Consulting’s Heide Garrigan, referring to the increased burdens of child care, home schooling and even parental care COVID-19 has thrust on millions of Canadian families, “plus they’re working from home. And they’re trying to do it all.”

One of Garrigan’s neighbors in the Denver area provides a telling example. A mother of three, she has a job that allows her to work remotely regularly. But when COVID-19 meant her, her kids and her husband would need to work, study and live together 24 hours a day, it didn’t take long for the pressure to get to her.

“By Friday of that first week, I saw her outside and said, ‘How you doing?’ And she burst into tears,” Garrigan says.

MBN asked Garrigan what mortgage professionals who find working from home more stressful than the office can do to ensure they’re doing their best work for their clients. She identified four areas where small tweaks can reduce the tension.

The myth of being ‘always on’
With no meetings to take someone out of the office, there can be an impression among remote workers that working from home, since everyone at the company knows where you are, means always being available, 9-to-5 be damned.

“This whole expectation that you’re always available to answer calls or texts or IMs or anything like that, I think that’s a challenge for people,” Garrigan says.

She suggests setting office hours – including regular breaks – and actually sticking to them. A productive day in a space designated for work should allow people to be productive enough that they can avoid having to be available all the time.

But Garrigan says mortgage companies have a role to play in creating an environment where employees are trusted enough that they don’t feel as if there’s a potential to disappoint the boss every moment of the day. Such situations allow employees to step away from their instant messages/email/Skype/Slack for a few minutes without worrying that their work ethic may be called into question.

“In an environment where’s there’s trust, people are more likely to not have to be ‘on’ all the time,” Garrigan says. “If you’re always on because you’re trying to prove yourself, that’s stressful.”

Productivity up, positivity down
Humans, social animals that we are, often thrive in communal environments. Working from home may benefit a company by increasing productivity, but the forced seclusion causes many remote workers to feel isolated and disengaged.

“We’re producing, we’re doing great, we’re working, working, working, but the fun has been taken out of it. People aren’t seeing each other,” says Garrigan.

She says remote workers who no longer have commutes to slog through should take advantage of the time they’re saving. Rather than dedicating those minutes to doing more work – how many MBN readers have only worked 8-hour days since COVID-19 sent them home? – employees should be filling that time by doing something for themselves, like exercising or taking a class; activities that have the added benefit of a community component (when social distancing allows for it), which can alleviate those feelings of isolation.

Quieting the chatter
Part of the challenge of providing an engaging remote working environment is when a potential solution to one problem becomes a problem in itself.

HR directors and office managers are doing their best to keep their workers connected. But ongoing Slack, Skype and other instant message chats can be highly distracting, particularly if an employee feels pressure to always be available.

“I have had a few people who said that at least when they’re in the office they can put their headphones on and people know not to bother that person,” Garrison says. “Or they can go to an empty conference room.” That’s less of an option when workers have to hear a “ding” every time one of their colleagues types “OMG! So cuuuuute!” into a Skype thread about dogs.

“Turn it off,” Garrigan says. “Does your boss know your cell phone number? Does your boss know your email? Believe me, your boss can reach you.”

She also urges companies to set up separate chats – one for relevant, work-related messages and one for random, non-work topics – which will allow employees the choice of following along with their co-workers’ chitchat at their leisure or ignoring it completely.

Lack of one-on-one feedback
“When you’re sitting in a meeting, you know if an idea came across well, or if your boss is happy or if you’re being heard,” Garrigan explains. “All of that is lost when it’s just phone or text or instant message or email.”

People thrive when they’re acknowledged, and they learn better when they can be guided through their mistakes with someone whose body language and tone they can read. Providing feedback through text, even when it’s positive, doesn’t carry the same weight. If you did a good job walking a client through a recent change to the loan application process, what would you rather receive: a smiley-face emoji or an actual smile?

Using video to provide feedback, even if it’s a brief “Way to go!” can work wonders. It’s more natural and allows workers to see the impact their efforts have had on their employers’ emotions, a nuance that is often lost when feedback is given in text.

Garrigan says companies need to consciously set aside time for providing feedback to their remote workers, whether it be a one-on-one conversation or a team chat. “It isn’t a status meeting,” she stresses, “it’s a feedback meeting.” For companies whose employees are stretched for time, feedback can also take up the first few or last few minutes of a regular status meeting.

Working from home may be the new normal, but it will take continued effort on the part of brokers, administrators and the companies they work for to ensure it feels that way.

Copyright © 2020 Key Media

According to Snappt fraud has become common in rentals

Ryan Smith
other

Rental fraud has spiked since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

According to real estate tech firm Snappt’s 2020 Fraud in the Rental Industry Survey, fraud has become common in the residential rental industry, with two-thirds of property managers saying they had been victimized by fraudulent rental applications. Applicant fraud has seen a 9% month-over-month spike since the COVID-19 crisis – likely a response to both the current economic conditions and recent changes to state and local eviction moratoriums, Snappt said.

According to the report, the typical property manager reports that 15% of their online rental applications exhibit obvious fraud, and an additional 10% of fraudulent applications slip by unnoticed.

“There are a number of factors that are fueling the increase in fraudulent rental applications,” said Daniel Berlind, co-founder and CEO of Snappt. “The increasing number of self-employed applicants, a move to online rental application and the increasing availability of tools to fraudulently alter financial documentation all make the problem more common.”

Forty-one percent of property managers said that fraudulent rental applications were “somewhat to extremely common” and reported an annual eviction rate of 125. Thirty-four percent reported annual eviction rates of 20% or higher. With the average cost per eviction reaching $7,685, eviction rates that high can quickly become expensive for multifamily property owners.

“If someone understands the law, they can stop paying and live rent-free for six months while we work to evict them,” said Chad Vasquez, general manager of luxury apartment complex Circa LA. “That’s $150,000 for one of our penthouses.”

Copyright © 2020 Key Media Pty Ltd

21% of Canadian commercial tenants requesting rent relief in April, according to Colliers Canada

Ephraim Vecina
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the commercial sector especially hard, with around 21% of Canadian commercial tenants requesting rent relief in April, according to Colliers Canada.

Covering 7,100 respondents in the retail, industrial, and office sectors, the Colliers survey also found that nearly half of these tenants would not be able to afford their rent payments.

“Now more than ever, tenants and property owners need to openly communicate and maintain strong working relationships to keep businesses on both sides operating,” said John Duda, president of real estate management services with Colliers Canada. “Property owners should do all they can to enable tenants to remain open or reopen safely, and they should actively participate in government and industry back-to-work committees to ensure that this transition occurs safely and efficiently.”

However, while ventures of all sizes have flocked to the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program, some observers said that this would not be sufficient to address the problem.

The Colliers poll found that small -business tenants were 2.7 times more likely to request rent relief than regional, national, or international tenants.

Also, tenants whose businesses were completely shut down were 3.4 times more likely to request rent relief than tenants who remained open, whether fully, partially, or remotely.

“Landlords and tenants are facing pending rent deadlines with some uncertainty, as there are landlords who have indicated that they are still waiting for more program details before deciding to apply for CECRA,” Duda said. “More information is needed in a number of important areas, including how the program will treat landlords who have agreed to revised rental payment terms for April or May with their tenants, when the loan funds will be available, and how this program will be rolled out for each province.”

Copyright © 2020 Key Media Pty Ltd

All major metropolitan economies are forecast to contract in 2020

Ephraim Vecina
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Should COVID-19’s impact be moderated and the Albertan economy restarts in the next few quarters, the Calgary and Edmonton housing markets might see recovery sooner than expected.

“All major metropolitan economies are forecast to contract in 2020,” The Conference Board of Canada said in its latest economic forecast.

Calgary’s real GDP will likely shrink by 5.5%, while Edmonton will likely see a 5.6% decline, CTV News reported.

“However, assuming the virus’ spread is contained, and firms can return to normal operations over the summer months, a recovery should begin in the second half of the year, leading to sharp rebounds coast-to-coast in 2021,” the board said.

The organization is predicting GDP increases of 6% (Calgary) and 6.2% (Edmonton) by next year, which should bode well for the province’s long-burdened housing market.

According to figures from the Alberta Real Estate Association (AREA), the region’s average home price stood at $371,022 as of March, falling by 2.64% year over year. Sales activity weakened by 8.5% during the same time frame.

The number of new listings shrank by 14.54%, while the stock of homes available in the province declined by 5.76%.

“This is an unprecedented time with a significant amount of uncertainty. It is not a surprise to see these concerns also weigh on the housing market,” said Ann-Marie Lurie, AREA chief economist.

Copyright © 2020 Key Media Pty Ltd

Post pandemic Toronto real estate might be more welcoming

Ephraim Vecina
Canadian Real Estate Wealth

First-time homebuyers might actually find post-pandemic Toronto considerably more welcoming, according to market observers.

Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper said that any such bargains – with plenty of listings running for 2% to 5% lower than their March prices – would almost certainly be short-lived, however.

“The longer you wait, the less an opportunity there will be for a cheaper purchase,” Soper told The Toronto Star. “In any market correction, buyers are the earliest to react to a potential downturn and adjust their expectations lower as far as price goes. Sellers are the last in and the first out.”

Soper said that would-be buyers should remain wary of market volatility, which will likely prevail until at least next year.

“There is a risk premium for trading in any financial crisis, and frankly it’s justified because there are so many unknowns,” Soper said.

Some sectors might still find it difficult to take advantage of these lower prices, nevertheless. Chief among these high-risk cohorts are young adults 25 to 35 years old, according to David Macdonald of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“If you were in that age category and a third of your friends lost their jobs, you might be pretty reticent to take on a big mortgage because you might be next,” Macdonald said. “You’ve got to be lucky enough to keep your job, and we need to see big declines in house prices, which itself would be devastating to the economy because people would feel a lot poorer as a result of their houses being worth much less.”

Copyright © 2020 Key Media Pty Ltd

The employers have more buying power

Aiman Attar
REM

Many of us have laid off some stellar and talented employees due to the economic halt the COVID-19 lockdown has caused.

The good news is that the downturn in the economy will create an influx of incredibly qualified candidates in the job market searching for their next career move. Not everyone will be waiting for their existing employer to re-hire them. This also means that the employers have more buying power than the candidates. In a thriving economy, it would be quite the opposite, where there would be multiple employers making an offer to one superb candidate.

With massive layoffs across the real estate industry, candidates have started to doubt whether they even want to return to their previous jobs. Some are considering changing industries. A lot of administrative staff and sales reps have had a moment to rethink whether they want to stay in this field simply because there is no longer a healthy source of income. In a downturned economy, many sales reps will either join teams to survive or begin searching for salaried employment to weather through the storm.

COVID-19 has made a lot of us go through a soul-searching exercise. Some of us will learn from this while others will just sink into the abyss.

There will be employers that will be reactionary and hire in a rush, making costly decisions, while a select few will take this time to have a proactive recruitment process in place along with an onboarding manual to ensure business continuity.

Here is what you need to do in order to be set up for success:

1. Salary CMA

Moments before the economy ground to a halt, candidates were earning more money in 2020 than in previous years. Although when the market rebounds we may hover in a quasi-recession, this does not mean that we pay salaries based on a recession (which often means lower wages due to influx of candidates). If the quasi-recession ends in a few months, all candidates you hired at a lower rate will quickly find other employment opportunities offering top dollar.

This is a delicate discussion because many business owners, brokerages and salespeople have experienced profit and revenue loss during the lockdown, so finances are genuinely tight. However, it can come across as vulture-like to feast on hiring great candidates for $40,000 who were previously making $50,000-$60,000 to do the same work they did prior to COVID-19. We highly recommend that you seek advice from a business coach or a recruitment coach prior to making any decisions on salaries to ensure you are aware of current market intelligence.

2. Job description

Create a job description that is realistic and reasonable for who you want to bring on and how much you want to pay based on a CMA of their skill set and salary. Hint: Do not pay a 10-year veteran $20 an hour and expect them to answer calls after hours! Be sure to post your job on all social media channels and free job boards.

3. Choose the right fit

There are seven steps when choosing the right candidate. Do not assume that if someone has five years of experience for one brokerage or team that they would automatically be a great hire for your business. Having the right recruitment process, thorough interview questions and one-day paid assessment, ensure that you make the right hire.

4. Offer and onboarding

Once you find the perfect candidate, you want to be sure that you have all your ducks in a row. A proper legal employment offer is the first thing a great candidate looks for and if you do not have one ready, it can make candidates very wary of the employer.

The second most important step is the onboarding process. Do not wait until your new hire starts to order a desk, laptop and phone. Nothing is worse than starting a new job and having nothing ready for you to begin working. And part of onboarding is training your new employee – even if they have years and years of experience. How you do business is always slightly different from how someone else does theirs.

Congratulations – You have just made your hire. Now it’s time to live under one roof with your work wife/husband for the probationary 90 days to see proof in the pudding. If it is not working out in the first three months, then know when to pull the plug.

So, question is: Are you ready? Have you planned? Are you going to take what comes your way or will you have a process in place when the market rebounds?

© 1989-2020 REM Real Estate Magazine

Developer donated bulk of the land to the community, paid for all the infrastructure and faced 14 years of delays

Frank O’Brien
Western Investor

Building construction has started on the controversial 530-acre Southlands community in Tsawassen, 30 years after the land was purchased and 14 years since a development proposal was first pitched to Delta council.

Approved in 2016 after years of often raucous debate, the resulting Southlands project is unique in that 80 per cent of the land has been given back to Delta as publicly owned farmland, community gardens and 100 acres of parks and natural areas, said Sean Hodgins, now president of Century Group.

Southlands was removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve by the province in the early 1980s. 

Considered the biggest “agri-hood” in North America, Hodgins said the concept was always for retention of some agricultural space since his father, George Hodgins, bought the site in 1990, but he conceded Century Group had originally planned on holding about 70 per cent of the site for private development.

Of the 430 acres at Southlands transferred to Delta, his company is leasing back 50 acres to curate the Southlands farm, which is then subleased to local farmers.

Hodgins said Century Group is currently working with producers Snow Farms and Salt & Harrow to grow produce that will be sold at the Southlands farm market.

The farm market square, including a heritage house, barn and an agricultural support building, was built by Century Group but will be owned by Delta.

The journey is far from over, however.

“We haven’t really started yet,” Hodgins said on May 15, explaining that the first homes, being built on spec, will not be complete until this September with the construction of four cottages and the first of 72 townhouses in the initial phase. Currently, Century Group is installing all the infrastructure needed, on its own dime. The complete residential component of Southlands will take eight to 10 years to build.

Reflecting on what has become a “lifetime of work” Hodgins said the delays and the associated costs in getting development approval is common in municipalities across Metro Vancouver. 

“I can understand why housing prices are so high,” he said. 

Copyright © Western Investor

Virtual staging has blossomed during the pandemic

Diane Slawych
REM

Every industry has been affected by COVID-19 in one way or another. And while the fallout has mostly been negative, one niche business that has experienced a positive impact is that of virtual staging.

For Young Kim, founder of Vancouver-based Bella Staging, business had been ramping up before COVID-19, but then it got even busier, prompting him to add four new designers to his team of 11.

Unlike conventional staging, in which the contents of a home are removed and replaced with attractive rented furniture and décor to help improve a home’s sale price, virtual staging is done on a computer. It uses a combination of photography, 3D modeling software, Photoshop and renderings, to produce images of spruced-up rooms and achieve a similar result.

The advantages of virtual staging are that it costs considerably less, and, in this time of social distancing, property owners can still show their home in the best light without having movers carrying furniture in and out of their homes in the midst of a pandemic.

Kim believes social distancing could be one reason why business is growing. “I think people know about virtual staging but haven’t been inclined to use it,” he says. “A lot of Realtors are traditional and not adopting new technology but this has forced them to try it out and say this is pretty good, instead of conventional staging.”

A self-described techie nerd with a background in web development and a “keen” interest in real estate, Kim came across virtual staging a few years back and believed his designers could do a better job and make the photos look more realistic.

He was pleased with the results and asked local Realtors in Vancouver to send them photos of empty units in order to test the market. “People liked what we did and looking at the competition, their pricing was high. It was a good time to get in the market. We could streamline the operation to keep prices low and provide good quality photos.”

The process is fairly simple. A client – they include Realtors, developers and builders – submits one or more photos (the average is about three to five) of a room or rooms they would like to have staged. For optimal results, Kim says the submitted photos should be professionally shot and have a minimum resolution of 3,000 x 2,000 pixels. The company charges about $22 US (or roughly $29 CDN) per photo.

The staged images are sent back to the client, who may request further edits or revisions at no extra charge. Normally clients can get the final images in one to two days, though with the increased demand lately Kim says it now takes about two to three days.

The company offers three main types of services. With virtual staging, the client sends photos of empty rooms and their designers fill it with beautiful furniture to make them more attractive on MLS and social media and any other marketing materials they have.

A second type is virtual furniture removal and staging, which is often sought in cases of tenanted apartments/homes or properties with furniture in them that can’t be removed. The company will remove the existing furniture using Photoshop and replace it with more modern pieces. A third service is virtual renovation, which Kim says works best for properties that will likely be reno jobs. They can show what the home would look like with new flooring and appliances, or by adding a hot tub on the patio, for example.

It’s been three years since the company began offering virtual staging services, initially starting in the much larger U.S. market (hence its U.S. dollar pricing) where it still gets fully 70 per cent of its business.

Domestically, the company receives about 50 to 70 photos a day from clients across Canada. “COVID has exponentially increased the number of orders we’re taking on a daily basis,” says Kim, who adds that a lot of people have learned about virtual staging through word of mouth or by attending the company’s presentations to brokerages.

“We started our marketing efforts in Canada last year and so far it’s been great,” he says.

“People realize instead of spending $20,000 to stage a home, they can spend $100 and get good results.”

© 1989-2020 REM Real Estate Magazine

Realtor.com has seen listing visits, saves, and shares in its website skyrocket

Candyd Mendoza
other

After staying at home for almost two months, homebuyers have been itching to get out and get on with this year’s homebuying season.

Since the first wave of shelter-in-place orders took place on March 16, realtor.com has seen listing visits, saves, and shares in its website skyrocket. In a recent survey, over 70% of realtor.com users said they registered on the site so that they could save homes as a way to track price cuts and shortlist the homes they plan to tour post-coronavirus.

Since the lockdown in March, realtor.com has seen a 30% increase in listing views for single-family homes and condos, a 76% increase in saved homes, a 95% increase in shared homes, and a 14% increase in time spent per each user.

“Data suggests that home shoppers who had paused their search are now picking it back up, and the spring homebuying season won’t be lost, but merely pushed into the summer months,” realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said.

Hale noted that tools such as virtual home tours and Livestream open houses have been popular among prospective buyers amidst the COVID-19 shutdown.

The rate of visits to listings featuring virtual tours jumped 29% in March – twice as high as those without. Around 64% of the respondents had taken a virtual tour, and of those, 45% said they prefer listings with virtual tours.

Sixty-five percent of realtor.com users said they found virtual tours a useful resource in their homebuying process and believed it would continue to be so post-pandemic. However, only 8% thought virtual tours could be a substitute for in-person tours.

When asked what they liked about a virtual tour, responses included:

• 52% saying that virtual tours help them eliminate homes that aren’t for them
• 43% said it give them a look of the details of a home without having to step inside
• 38% said it helps them create a shortlist of homes they want to see in person
• 30% said it allows them to see more homes more quickly, without having to drive around to open houses.

“While many consumers don’t see virtual tours as a replacement for in-person viewings, they have emerged as a valuable tool to learn more about a home, see details up close and help narrow down the search,” Hale said. “We believe virtual tours will remain an integral part of the home search, even when shoppers feel more comfortable visiting homes in-person again.”

Copyright © 2020 Key Media Pty Ltd

Victoria realtor reports from the frontline

Whitney Garside
Western Investor

It’s like it happened overnight. One day, in the middle of March, I was representing a buyer on a single-family home in Saanich. Offers from the weekend were to be reviewed Monday morning.

We put in an offer early in hopes it would discourage other potential buyers, but we knew this home was a hot commodity and competition was inevitable. The weekend open house had more than 200 attendees, and by the end of the weekend, there had been more than 50 private showings.

It felt like the crazy market of 2017 and 2018 was back. Spring had sprung and the market was hot.

By Monday morning, the listing agent had 16 offers in hand, and many prospective buyers were on pins and needles. Going in well over the asking price with an appealing offer, my buyer was the successful bidder. She was thrilled.

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Three days later, the market hit pause.

I was really excited about a new listing in Gordon Head. The home was in a great location near the University of Victoria, with a huge lot and a mortgage-helper suite in the basement. This one, I thought, was sure to sell quickly with the spring flowers blooming and the market abuzz.

Then COVID-19 hit. Just like that. There was a new vocabulary for everyone to adopt. Phrases such as social distancing, self-quarantine, self-isolation and pandemic versus epidemic were being heard everywhere I turned. And what was this curve that everyone wanted to flatten?

Overnight, the world changed, and in turn, the real estate market — and my career — was turned on its head.

Soon after the outbreak began, real estate agents were classified as an “essential service” because of the many reasons that clients must sell or buy.

There are buyers who have sold their homes and must buy within a certain timeline, and there are moves triggered by divorce, separation, death, job transfer or change in income.

Thus, life as a real estate agent must go on — we need to continue supporting buyers and sellers.

We have had to put many safety measures in place. Physical distancing is the norm, with only two people allowed in a home at a time. We use gloves, masks, hand sanitizer and a signed declaration for buyers and sellers to acknowledge the risk due to COVID. We pre-qualify buyers before showings.

We have adopted new practices, with virtual showings, virtual open houses and more FaceTime walk-throughs.

For a commission-based employee, the unknown can be worrisome. Real estate agents are faced with many monthly fees that don’t stop because of an unexpected pandemic.

The costs are similar to those for a small business, and although we don’t necessarily have the expense of a bricks-and-mortar location, we still have to pay for licensing, dues, insurance, education, office fees and all the hidden costs required to run a successful business.

As a Victoria native who has worked for more than 10 years as a real estate agent, I feel confident that with people working together and following safety measures, the real estate market will survive and thrive again.

In the meantime, let’s throw on some gloves and keep on moving.

 

Copyright © Western Investor