
Realtors in Kamloops and the Kootenays are hoping that live, virtual tours will help people looking to buy and sell homes during the COVID-19 pandemic without having to leave their own homes.
Speaking on NL Newsday, Kamloops and District Real Estate Association President Wendy Runge says these live tours could continue once things return to normal.
“Anything we develop, we’re not just thinking for the immediate, we’re thinking about how this can be used,” she said.
“And I think the more the public is getting comfortable working virtually from home, the appetite for this type of tool might be there to say, ‘I am out of town for the next two weeks, this house has come on the market, can we set up a live tour?'”
Runge says this live, virtual tour will help ease concerns about people physically going into someone else’s home during the pandemic.
“You would use some platform and you all get online and the seller is really showing you around the house,” she said. “Everyone – from the buyer and seller to their agents – is together in one area virtually looking at the house.”
“The buyer could ask the seller to open the closet or [to show a particular] bedroom or the view out that window, but just not be physically present in the house.”
Runge adds realtors are adapting to a new normal because of COVID-19, which she says is to meet the needs of people across the province. She says it doesn’t mean that people will buy houses solely based on these live, virtual tours once the pandemic subsides.
“It’s just another tool that could be very helpful in even reducing the amount of homes you are going to go through,” she added. “So instead of saying, ‘we’re going to see three or four houses, really at the end of the day, there’s only one that we physically need to enter, because we’ve had these live tours of other ones.”
While March home sales numbers were largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic, realtors in Kamloops are bracing for the worst in April.