By Liam Verster

Housing Market

Housing market remains stable as local realtors take steps to reduce COVID-19 outbreaks

Mar 30, 2020 | 6:00 AM

Much like other industries around the world, the local real estate industry has put measures in place to prevent the outbreak of COVID-19.

Lesley Craig, President of the Grande Prairie and Area Association of Realtors, says the coronavirus pandemic is being taken very seriously by the industry, and the provincial body, the Alberta Association of Realtors, has put a ban on all conventional open houses.

“So realtors are kind of coming up with creative solutions, including virtual open houses, more photos, videos and virtual tours on all of their listings. As well as even opportunities to have face time or video calls with a realtor, while they walk through the house, to limit some of the exposure that people will be at risk with.”

Craig says they have also implemented new screening protocols to follow before even meeting with the buying and selling public.

“So we have standard questionnaires that have been developed to pre-screen clients before we meet with them, asking questions like ‘Have you traveled out of the country?’ or ‘Have you been through airports in the last 14 days?’ ‘Do you have any symptoms of the sickness?’ and ‘Have you had any close contact with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19?'”

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The outbreak prevention measures extend past this phase, and into the showing of the property. Clients are required to sanitize their hands and wear gloves, the realtors are limiting the amount of things that are touched, and then the realtors ask the clients to follow up in the coming days if they develop any symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Following the showing, realtors are also contacting the owners of the houses, to tell them where they were in the house and what to disinfect, and asking them to follow up in the coming days if they fall ill.

Despite all these new safety measures and the fear of the novel coronavirus, compounded by the plummeting price of oil in the past weeks, the housing market in Grande Prairie has remained fairly stable. Craig says they average about 26 sales per week, and as of Friday morning, they had just secured their 26th conditional offer for that week.

However, Craig says she will be keeping an eye on future developments, though is hopeful the economic aid from the provincial and federal governments for both businesses and the general public will help minimize any future impacts on the housing market.

“We’ve got the government lowering interest rates, income assistance for people, freeing up capital for the banks to continue to lend money. That should help for sure. And then as we consider the low price of oil, we’ve already seen major oil companies reduce their capital spending plans. But in our Grande Prairie area, there’s been talk by the government around stimulus to the reclamation of abandoned wells, and that should be a positive move for our local service companies.”

She adds that Grande Prairie is also a very diverse area, with lots of agriculture, forestry, and retail industries that can help prop up the economy if the price of oil stays low.

Craig does admit that in the long term, it’s unclear exactly what will happen in the housing market, but does expect there to be a slight drop. A recent study has shown the average rent in Grande Prairie has dropped about 2 per cent over the last month, and Craig says she can expect a similar drop in the housing market.

“That one to two per cent that rent has dropped, maybe that’s what we’ll see in our house prices as well, because they are both kind of tied together. The people are renting from people that own these houses. So if the rents are going down, prices might have to go down to reflect that as well.”

Craig adds that there have been fewer people looking to get into the housing market in the past couple weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s still in the early stages. While she expects the industry to slow down more in the coming weeks, she could not speculate on what long term effects the pandemic and the oil price will have on the local real estate market.

She says she will be vigilantly watching announcements made by both the federal and provincial governments, and hopes to see more done to help the buying public maintain their income, along with some form of economic aid aimed to mitigate the negative effects this pandemic will have on people’s income.