Early last week, one of the managers in my company suggested that we proactively announce that our firm would be suspending open houses due to the coronavirus pandemic. To give you an idea of how fast things are changing in this new normal of COVID-19, I went from a “wait and see” attitude, anticipating recommendations from our association and perhaps news from other larger brokerages, to pulling the plug on them within a span of about 72 hours. 

We do have a fiduciary responsibility to clients to get their listings sold and to exhaust all options to that end, but the root value of being a fiduciary is to do no harm. We have a duty to not expose our clients to contagion. Until we know more, every brokerage should pause the open-house practice at this time. 

Here’s what we do know: This virus is considerably more contagious than SARS and other headline-grabbing afflictions of the past. 

We cannot effectively vet visitors

Pragmatically, we’ve always allowed for nosy neighbors and unknown strangers to walk through our opens, and the silver lining was that we could pick up new clients from the pool of unqualified and uninterested people in the subject listing. This is no longer a worthwhile payoff.

In a world where title companies are now throwing out pens from closings, we simply have no means of ensuring that open house visitors are healthy enough to enter a home that’s inhabited or frequented by children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. 

We can’t manage the logistics

Without a team of agents running an open house (how will you compensate them?), it’s impossible to make sure that the unknown, unvetted attendees don’t touch anything, leave their kids and older relatives out, and don’t sneeze or cough. Herding cats is easier.

I don’t know when we’ll lift our moratorium. But it’s incumbent on us as members of society who deal with the public to make sure that we’re part of the solution. When the dust inevitably settles on this crisis, we want to ensure that the resolution happened with our participation, rather than in spite of us.

J. Philip Faranda is broker and owner of J Philip Real Estate in Westchester County, New York. He is a member of Inman’s Real Estate Influencers of 2017, Zillow’s Agent Advisory Board and the 2014 HGMLS president. Follow him on Twitter @JPhilipFaranda.

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