Despite other major iBuyers halting business for now due to coronavirus, Keller Williams‘ iBuyer product, Keller Offers, is pushing through and said it won’t be stopping anytime soon.
In an email sent out to Keller Offers agents on Monday, the company said it would be prioritizing the safety and well-being of its clients, partners and employees.
“We have no immediate intention of suspending home offers,” the email said. “Keller Offers will continue to make offers on homes through various offering sources. We are making modifications to processes in order to prioritize safety while remaining committed to doing our best to provide much-needed certainty to our Certified KW Agents and their clients.”
On a phone call with HousingWire, Chief Operating Officer of Keller Offers Gayln Zeigler said that Keller Williams agents are staying in contact with clients in a creative way, with safety in mind.
As COVID-19 is evolving and changes by the minute, Zeigler said communication is key.
“We are letting sellers know that if they wish to pause, or to terminate [the contract] and come back later we are completely fine with that,” Zeigler said. “Safety is the biggest component for us. We will never force something to close, we will never force an inspection. We are just trying to remain as consistent as possible because we feel that our agents need for us to do that. Their sellers need for us to do that, and we rely upon our agents to give us information about how their sellers are feeling, and we respond in a positive way to whatever that guidance may be.”
The company, which is offering only 3D virtual tours and scheduling live virtual houses, for the time being, has already initiated working remotely and doubling down on training and technology.
Despite the spread of COVID-19, Zeigler said there has been a rise in offer requests, and it’s business as usual.
“We’ve also seen people who want to hold, and maybe not have an inspection right now so we’ve allowed them to push that out,” Zeigler said. “We’ve seen people who don’t want to close yet because they aren’t able to view the home.”
“We’ve allowed [clients] to push closing dates out, we’re trying to be as flexible as possible, knowing that these are very uncertain times,” Zeigler continued. “Tomorrow we can have a completely different mandate that we all need to be able to shift our businesses on, and still provide some sort of certainty or understanding to the consumer who is also experiencing a great deal of stress right now.”
