How COVID-19 and Social Distancing is Affecting The Real Estate Industry

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The traditional real estate transaction is a process that consists of multiple in-person meetings and an abundance of paperwork. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S, real estate businesses are transitioning from traditional methods to a wide variety of digital technologies to support social distancing.

As real estate businesses continue to integrate these technologies into their everyday practices, we can expect the industry as a whole to become more technologically dependent moving forward. Here are a few examples of how real estate companies are changing their operations during the COVID-19 pandemic to accommodate both buyers and sellers.

Virtual 3D Home Tours

American homebuyers have been reliant on virtual 3D home tours since the outbreak of COVID-19 in our country. By using a panoramic photo over a smart device, a seller, property manager, or real estate agent can upload these tours online as an alternative to in-person showings. Also, we are seeing more agents use video chat services like Zoom or FaceTime to show homes at this time.

Digital tools

A home buyer who wishes to buy a custom home in 2020 can use an interactive digital tool to help them with that entire process. With the help of one of these tools, a buyer can design a home and with mapping applications, can see how it would look once constructed in the neighborhood. Many of these digital tools even allow the customer to follow along with the construction of the home as it is being built.

Alternative appraisal methods

Many appraisers today are using online data and public information to formulate values on homes as a means to support social distancing.

Remote online notarization

How does a buyer close on a home when many documents require in-person notarization? Because COVID-19 is causing people to remain at home, some states, like Maryland, have adopted remote online notarization (RON) in response to the virus. While it is not currently legal in every state, other states may also adopt RON over time.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA Foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market, as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

The two largest also being government owned and operated means that they have less time to wait to make money back on the home. The FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent a fraction of HUD but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered.

VA (Veterans Administration) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven for the local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county by county basis). Be sure to ask the local title company or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed due to their are not used to dealing with the 2 to 3 percent of the market that VA and HUD foreclosures represent.

Free Foreclosure Listings

USHUD.com is a website that simplifies the process of finding foreclosures and HUD properties. Everyone thinks they are a real estate web surfing pro until they search for foreclosure homes and stumble upon a numerous sites that want to charge a fee to see their listings. With USHUD.com that’s not the case. When searching for HUD properties or a home finding website for foreclosure it is important to know what you are looking for. It is important to use a niche company that specializes in foreclosures like USHUD.com. We have put together 2 tools that have made the real estate search process of our website much easier to navigate. The Homesearch online tool is filled with foreclosure lists and free listings of hud homes for sale. Most of our users start with a broad search with the homesearch online tool to see the most HUD properties and foreclosure lists in your area and narrow their search down with the Homefinder online tool. The homefinder online tool is a custom filter system that we breakdown the area based upon filters such as convention and foreclosure listings. This give you the option to filter out conventional listings and focus on just the foreclosures in the market. We thank you for making us Americas top home finding website for foreclosure and Hud properties. Free listings of hud homes for sale are hard to come by but should always be free and that’s the way things are going to stay on our website.

Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown foreclosure listings also settled and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading “Bank Foreclosure” in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down and it makes it harder for home owners, who would like to move, to get the appropriate price for their home as a similar home down the same street was sold for substantially less and the appraiser is using the foreclosure as a comparable sale.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone’s living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures and this constant barrage of negative information makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to either implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile while they wait, others are buying foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The more foreclosures, the lower the market gets and this is a lesson the banks that were foreclosing and selling off realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions.