Fully Transcribed Video:
Dana: Hey folks, Dana Hamilton here with the Hamilton Realty Group.
Jack: And Jack Hamilton. Happy May.
Dana: We wanted to, as we are kind of rounding the corner, hopefully on this whole COVID- 19 issue…
Jack: Let’s hope so.
Dana: That everyone has been dealing with, Jack and I wanted to take a few minutes today to think and talk about what we’ve learned, how we’ve changed, and some of the things that we’ve been able to do to help our clients and help our community of Southport and Oak Island and the surrounding Brunswick County area. As probably would make sense, some of our buyers and sellers have had to hold off on their plans for different reasons. Some because they needed to travel here and just couldn’t, some because of health reasons; some because they’ve used their property here at the coast as kind of their safe haven place to hunker down during this period of time because it is such a safe area.
We certainly have respect and help those people, and we will help them when they are ready to get back into the buying or selling mode. By the same token, we’ve also had buyers and sellers that have absolutely needed to get it done. We have thankfully been able to get several listings sold for our sellers and continuing to get closings done. We have not had anything fall through. So we are very blessed, and so are our clients of getting things done. We’ve actually been able to help several buyers to get homes under contract using virtual showings. I know you wanted to tell them about one of our clients.
Jack: Yeah, I wanted to share, a couple of weeks ago when we started this process, I have a client that is from California. They had been here one time before and they’ve actually toured the area, which was helpful, but they needed to purchase a home. And so we found a home in the neighborhood, Wescott Farms up the street here. They had seen that neighborhood before. They really liked it; brand new home came on the market. Scott and Robin reached out to me and said, “So how do we do this?” I said, “Well, throughout our career we’ve actually sold houses in the old days where people didn’t even see them until they moved in.” So with technology we were able to actually show this house and get it under contract.
The listing agent, Francesca Slaughter did a wonderful job. She had the house cleaned and sanitized before we showed up. Robin and Scott, I told them we would set up a time and we just did FaceTime. They literally sat on their couch in California on the other coast and the deal was that I was going to be at this house one time and I was going to stay there as long as I needed to stay there. I was going to show them everything I needed to show them and answer any and all questions before I was to leave.
We started and I did the outside and showed them the yard, went through everything on the inside. Long and short of it, about an hour after that we got on a zoom call, we talked about the market and pricing and we went under contract and we’ve done everything. I want to shout out to National Property Inspections, Jim and his group because they were willing to actually go and do the home inspection during this time period when another one of our home inspectors wouldn’t. It’s okay, everybody has to choose how they are doing it. Hopefully we’ve gone through all the steps with this during this period and hopefully that the property is going to close successfully, I think what, next week?
Dana: Just next week, yeah.
Jack: That’s one of the things that have been going on. We are learning to use technology to our advantage and I think people are just starting now to get very comfortable with us doing that. Also, Our Homes for Heroes program, which we got involved in before COVID- 19 started has just meant so much more to us, because now service really does deserve its rewards. Our EMS, police, firemen, particularly healthcare professionals and our teachers are having to work differently and in most cases actually even working harder. So for us to be able to give them a reward back financially if they buy a house, if they sell a house or if they are refinancing is just so important to us.
Dana: Guys, we’ve seen this lovely community that we are in a Southport really come together in times like this and we’ve been so proud of everybody that’s helping out and proud to be a part of that and helping where we can. There are so many restaurants that are doing their part, providing meals to some of the heroes that we’ve been trying to help. There is Matthew’s Ministry that’s really trying to help kids that depend on meals in schools and now they are not in schools and they need those meals.
**SIRENS** There they go.
Jack: There is one of our heroes.
Dana: So as things now continue, hopefully to start opening, beaches are opening, things are happening slowly, hopefully in every way, cautiously and respectful, so we can make sure that everyone is safe. We just want to let everybody know we are still here, still doing our part for our clients, for our community, and we are here to help in any way we can.
Jack: I think the thing you mentioned- safe, is the most important thing. I know last night we had a call for a showing on one of our listings and the seller had some concerns and they reached out and said, “How is this showing going to go?” We basically said safety comes first. If you are not comfortable with someone coming in your house, you need to let us know. But they didn’t. They were fine with it. They cleaned it. The agents will be wearing masks there. They will have hand sanitizer, and it just goes on, but as Dana was saying, we are coming back out of this and we are coming out of it in a safe mode. Please know that we take that serious and we are going to work with you however we can do that.
Dana: Thanks for your time. We appreciate you as always. Please reach out and let us know if we can help you.
Jack: Hopefully, we will see you again out on the streets, downtown Southport, Oak Island, somewhere in Brunswick County in May.