At 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time Thursday, March 19, Redfin is broadcasting a live presentation followed by a question-and-answer session on what we’ve learned about running a brokerage during the coronavirus pandemic. The intended audience is the real estate industry, including agents, brokers and folks working at Multiple Listing Services (MLSs), but anyone is welcome to attend.
Participate Live Tomorrow on YouTube; Post Questions Now
Visitors can participate in the meeting Thursday by visiting this web page, which will change once the broadcast has started to show the video. You can submit questions before or during the class via this form. Scott Nagel, Redfin president of real estate operations, will host the meeting, together with our general counsel, Anthony Kappus.
Redfin Faced the Coronavirus Weeks Before Brokers Outside Seattle
Because Redfin is based in a city affected by the coronavirus weeks before most of the U.S., we’ve already faced many issues likely to affect other brokerages:
- policies on in-person tours, listing consultations and open houses;
- guidance on how to set up virtual broker’s open houses and video-chat tours;
- communications with freaked-out customers;
- contract addendums so you can close electronically if courthouses shut down;
- recommended MLS policy changes to support social distancing; and
- real-time data from our website and customer database about demand.
Why We’re Doing This
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been scrambling to take care of our customers, agents and support staff, but we’ve also spent plenty of time talking to brokerage and MLS execs about what we’re seeing. Our general counsel was on a call this morning with his peers at dozens of other brokerages, and realized we had a lot to learn from one another.
We even had the CEO of a major brokerage sign up for a Redfin video tour, only to have the homeowner tell him she didn’t want any unnecessary visitors in her house. This is why we decided to run this event. Since almost every deal depends on two agents at two brokerages being able to work together, we hope this helps to keep the housing market open for business even under the most difficult circumstances.
This post first appeared on Redfin.com. To see the original, click here.