How the virus is impacted the last half of March in Jacksonville

[Jack Bobeck]

Online home tours growing as a safe alternative in times of social distancing while real estate industry deals with sudden uncertainty.

The sign outside the house says For Rent, but Eleanor Baker hasn’t been in a hurry to find tenants since the coronavirus pandemic took over Jacksonville’s life.

“I just don’t want to go out,” said Baker, who owns seven rental homes she manages herself, mostly in Arlington and the Westside.

The senior citizen canceled minor repairs at the vacant house near Cesery Boulevard and hasn’t bothered to put up a sign at another available property, saying she’d rather not bring herself or others to the homes now if it’s not really, really necessary.

“I’m just going to wait until this is over,” she said.

People selling and renting homes around Northeast Florida have struggled with the same choice this month, sometimes deciding they’re not ready to do business face to face.

“A lot of people don’t want others coming through [their homes],” said Sally Suslak, who owns Traditions Realty in Riverside. “They don’t know who these people are. They don’t know where they’re from. They just don’t want any other germs.”

Open houses that were a fixture in home-selling ended fast as the virus spread through the state early this month.

Last week, the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors introduced a “virtual open house” system for members to show live video feeds of properties online and answer questions from viewers as cellphone video is displayed. The virtual tours will be scheduled walk-throughs of properties for prospective buyers or real estate agents, not repeating video loops.

A lot of Realtors already used video tours they promoted through Facebook, and simply turned to them more as people worried more about showing up in person.

But the spread of coronavirus has pushed people to rethink other parts of the real estate landscape, too.

OpenDoor, a San Francisco-based company that had bought and resold hundreds of Duval County houses in the past year, said online this month it was suspending making cash offers, but added it was working with third-party buyers who might still make offers.

As concern grew about the coronavirus’s impact on communities and the economy, Realtors circulated an addendum to sales contracts allowing extra time to go to closing if either side has been in some type of quarantine.

Either side could also drop the sales agreement if the buyer couldn’t get financing because of income last from the pandemic, another part of the addendum said.

The changes, which both sides would have to agree to, were meant to give leeway people need to keep making deals in uncertain times, said Melanie Green, communications director for the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors.

Despite the uncertainty, people have been buying. Suslak said a house her company recently listed on a Friday was sold by Sunday. (It was vacant, so home tours weren’t a problem.)

Jacksonville has been in a strong seller’s market, last month recording one of its lowest inventories of available homes in the past 15 years, according to Realtors’ data.

And even in scary times, people moving to town because of their jobs or other ironclad reasons are simply doing their best to find homes, she said.

“People have to have a place to live,” said Suslak, whose real estate and property management company has closed its doors to walk-in visitors since the virus reached Jacksonville.

Like I posted - This is only the end of March data. As I post this 4/1/2020, Florida announced they have added another 1,000 cases and are now at around 7,000 statewide. April is going to be a very difficult month for people in Florida. 

[Mark Fries]

@Jack Bobeck

Thank goodness I dont have mortgages on my 51 units.....would be screwed....already seeing about 20% of my tenants not paying rent...May and June will probably be a bloodbath....