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What is our learnings in this Covid-19 ECQ, and How do we move forward in the real estate practice?
Greetings, co-real estate practitioners, property buyers, sellers, lessors and lessees. It is now a month and two weeks of our Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) due to CoVid-19 pandemic. We seemed to have gotten used to the slackened personal and business pace in real estate as there are no viewings allowed and we all can’t travel at all beyond our own respective community confines to meet clients or business associates for an important transaction meeting over a cup of coffee.
Given the new normal of social distancing and the still-in- the horizon search for an efficacious CoVid-19 anti body or vaccine, we have to wake up from this quagmire and start to rethink strategies how to get us back on track so that we are ready to go once this lifting of ECQ Covid-19 (which may extend the 3rd time beyond May 15,2020, though we fervently hope and pray not anymore). One big reason to arise from this isolation is, because each passing day, we need to spend, for food, water, electricity, maintenance medicine, etc., and to maintain it, we need money/funds coming in from either employment or business to balance it. Kudos to those with rental income (though rental fees were allowed to be deferred by the government for two months) and those with salaries, but for small/medium business owners, and even those who rely heavily on transactions paid , that are made on a daily or weekly basis, like leasing and resale, such impetus to get back on our feet is a must.
In this CoVid-19 pandemic, we have several learnings from this ECQ that we can appreciate:
We have valued our family, loved ones, friends and others, more. It has created prolonged bonding time for us among our families. For those of us who are together in one house, the ECQ paved the way for parents, siblings, chidren, grandchildren to have more time to eat together and chat more often, to help each other in cooking, cleaning the house/condominium and doing the household chores together.
2) We have been more caring and concerned for others, remembering in daily prayers the family members, front liners, medical, police, LGU and those in the service industries that needed to expose themselves outside just to go to work, not knowing if the next person is a PUI (Person Under Investigation) or PUM (Person under Monitoring). We have been more generous despite our own need, some food vendors instead of selling their food, choose to serve them to front liners for free; Some sent financial aids to loved ones and even those who we know are much in need than we are (like the Mangyan tribe in Mindoro, were sent P15,000 from our volunteer missionary group of women who really have no salaries nor enough savings to get them by with the unknown number of months this ECQ may come to), thankful to God Almighty that we are somehow, in a position to help them.
3) We have been more attuned spiritually to God’s leading, with some doing weekly bible studies or bible reading, and some of us, having daily 1-2 hours commune with God with fervent prayers and intercessions declaring God’s peace, divine healing and miraculous provisions in this time of crisis, unlike the usual 3-10 minutes prayer we mustered just before going to bed or after waking up to rush to our work.
4) We have been stronger in our resolve to be more prudent in our finances so we have far something to get us by in times of crisis like this.
On moving forward on the other hand, we can do several important steps to equip us and prepare us for the new normal:
Since a lot of us are at home this ECQ period, we have more time to review our emails/ social media postings, group chats in Facebook or Viber, WhatsApp Groups to see replies/inquiries to follow thru, This i did three days ago, and I found 3 possible properties for three different buyers (one of which was an inquiry from a co-broker in 2018) for schedule of viewings once the ECQ is lifted up. Property details, google maps and other requirements then were forwarded online to be reconsidered by the buyer/s who are still in the look out for the required properties.
Write down and organize these potential property transactions as to sale / lease/ location, date of last contact, name of broker/ agent , nature of transaction and other must haves to be able to transact (i.e., viewing, type of due diligence needed, etc.)
Brush up on needed skills, like digital skills on posting properties thru free online You tube tutorials, language tutorial, accounting and or writing or presentation skills.
Keep updated on the new normal in the Real Estate Industry and other related industry using online webinars thru Zoom, Skype, Go webinar, Facebook event live streams, and other digital communications platforms. These are usually done by Property advertising platforms like Lamudi, fevelopers, real estate trade /professional associations, franchisers associations, and the like. You can check them thru Google or Facebook for schedule then you can calendar which of them suits you and which venues are open to you (as some are free, others are open to members only).
Finally, do not let fear get the better of you ( 2 Timothy 1:7: For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind”); instead let us have the faith in God and in ourselves, armed with the lessons we learned from the Covid-19 ECQ , to lead a victorious, well balanced life, while being productive in our field of endeavor real estate, in this new normal of things.
