As of May 29th, Illinois real estate agents were given the go-ahead to begin hosting in-person open homes once again. We are excited to be able to resume offering this option for marketing our clients’ homes, but please know that our agents are committed to doing so with the utmost care for the health and safety of our clients and the community.

Here are just a few of the precautions we’ll be taking:

• No physical contact between agents and visitors and no shared items like pens; we’ll have to save the handshakes for another time!
• Asking visitors to refrain from touching surfaces in the home including light switches, handles, drawers, doorknobs, and flat surfaces – we’ll make sure the lights are on and the doors already open where possible
• Limiting the number of visitors in the home at any one time and asking other visitors to wait outside in accordance with established social distancing standards or in their vehicles
• Wiping down and disinfecting any high-traffic surfaces
• Requiring the use of face masks

We will work with each of our clients to determine what makes them most comfortable, while also working to provide a helpful home-viewing experience for visitors!

We will also continue to offer live, virtual walkthroughs as an option – some agents and sellers may even opt to do both! Our agents adopted these live tours on Facebook and Instagram during the shelter-in-place order and have found that they are a great tool in providing potential buyers with a peek of the home, and we have had multiple instances of private showings being scheduled as a result of seeing the live walkthrough! We love these because it’s the next best thing to an in-person open home and allows people to ask the agent questions and learn about the home in real time.

As always, be sure to check out our open home albums on Facebook each Friday to learn more about which homes will be hosting in-person or virtual open homes.