Ask the Loan Man by Hans Bruhner — May 2020
We could all use a little bit of good news right about now, so I am going to focus on all of the positive things about real estate today. There have been considerable challenges, but we keep putting families into homes.
We have not stopped lending.
Real Estate was not listed as “essential” in the beginning of this shelter-in-place mandate but mortgage was considered essential so we closed the loans on the escrows in process and of course the Realtors were working right alongside us (virtually) to make sure their clients were taken care of. We were all working from home and that was a big adjustment because ours is a very personal business. It is hard not to meet a client face-to-face or attend a closing and see the joy on their faces as they get the keys.
The good news is that we can safely help clients get into their homes and we continue to do so today.
Real Estate is now listed as essential, but it is a little trickier to sell or buy a home right now. There will be no Open Houses, Realtor meetings are virtual, and we are discussing what we can do and how we should be doing things to maintain the safety or our clients and the general public.
We continue to help people refinance with historically low rates and my company rolled out Hybrid eClosings in early April. This will streamline the closing process and shorten the face-to-face meeting with a notary from 60 minutes to 15 minutes. Signing documents electronically is easy and we have been doing that for a decade. We are mostly paperless as an industry but the final closing documents have always been hand-signed to meet the demands of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and local government. We simply pushed until we got the OK to have 80% of the documents eSigned.
We can utilize drive-by appraisals again and we also have ways to eliminate appraisals altogether today. This has cut down on appraiser visits to homes. When appraisers do visit homes in person, many safeguards have been put in place and this is still evolving as well.
Every business in America has been affected and we have all had to get extremely creative in order to serve our clients and survive.
I believe that we need to think outside the box and that new business models will emerge, and we can thrive. We must acknowledge that this will be an endurance race and not a sprint. The sooner we realize this, the easier it will be to adapt.
I tend to focus on the stories of hope and support and that gives me strength to continue to serve my community in the best way I can. Right now, I am extremely proud that we have been serving our local medical heroes alongside police, firefighters, military and educational heroes as well at www.SonomaHero.com
Sonoma County is full of everyday heroes too.
There are people making masks for free to anyone who asks. Others delivering meals to the heroes mentioned above. Now is the time to come together and take care of one another and just be super nice to each other.
