Property Point

I was forced to isolate myself at home lastweek after my wife and son contracted a well-known and highly contagious virus.

The virus was confirmed by our doctorduring a home visit and I immediately sent a telegram to my list of buyers totell them my open homes were cancelled for the coming Saturday.

I had four listings to get ready to beadvertised the following week so I typed up the write-ups and sent them intothe office by carrier pigeon. Not all of them arrived.

Since I was in isolation I was unable to doany real estate work so I filled the backyard incinerator with rubbish I’d beenmeaning to burn off, grabbed the wireless and a long-neck and listened to theTop 40 while I watched the smoke disappear over my neighbours’ properties.

All of the above is absolutely untrueexcept for the part about me having to isolate because my wife and son gotCOVID-19. But it is the way it could well have played out in the past.

The way the world has changed meant thatdespite me being in isolation my business was able to continue as close aspossible to normal, with listings being advertised, private inspections takingplace, open houses going ahead as planned and properties selling.

Some of the changes that allowed this weretechnological … I was able to work remotely with my laptop connected to theGardian server so I could do write-ups, select photos for properties to beadvertised, answer email inquiries from buyers, make and receive calls on mymobile.

But there are other equally importantchanges, relating to how the best real estate agencies now operate, thatallowed me to continue to provide the service that buyers and sellers need.

At Gardian we operate in teams, orfamilies, that work together and support each other. I’ve got a little workfamily of three with me and two sales associates; Skye who is a buyers agentand Sandy who largely looks after contracts, listing documents and generaladmin.

During my week of isolation, Skye did a lotof private inspections and was in constant phone contact with me with updates.Sandy looked after listing documents, advertising uploads and theadministration work that is required to keep things ticking over. Skye andSandy did the open homes together on the Saturday, and they did six of them,and made sure we didn’t miss a beat for our clients.

The family system works extremely well whenlife runs as planned, and I’ll discuss that in a future column, but a big partof it is that when something goes wrong it allows us to continue to provide thebest service. Change is good and has definitely improved things, although Imiss the incinerator and Casey Kasem. (Google it kids.)

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