May 15, 2020 6 min read

Confusing times? Ask Betsy West.

“This is not going to look anything like it did before,” she said.

West and her spouse, Bill, are a real estate team with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, based in Washington. And because they live and work in one of the 12 Southwestern Pennsylvania counties transitioning to yellow today, they and their industry peers in the region can resume their most basic, yet vital, operations: entering homes with potential buyers and working out of their realty offices.

That’s better than working from their own home.

Through Wednesday, she had scheduled six openings for today, a promising return that could become a trend for her, her husband and agents elsewhere in the final state to reopen real estate services. “I think there will be multiple offers (for homes) because people are waiting.”

That routine, though, will not be routine as Pennsylvania agents knew it pre-COVID-19. Agents now will have to wear masks, gloves and foot coverings. Only two people will be allowed inside at the same time, the agent and a would-be buyer, who are to stay at least six week apart. No couples, no children. When that potential buyer leaves the house, the other half of a couple may enter with the agent, who has to change gloves and foot coverings for that immediate second visit.

Agents, who had used sanitizer in the past, now have to sanitize doorknobs, light switches and the key before putting the key back in the lockbox for every opening – including that second half of a couple. Agents get a small break if the owner occupies the home, and turns on lights and opens closet doors before having to leave.

Sellers and would-be buyers also will have to sign COVID-related paperwork before the openings.

West is but one of three real estate officials interviewed for this story who are confused or overwhelmed – or both – by guidelines the Wolf administration has established for real estate. Gov. Tom Wolf determined in mid-March that real estate is not a life-sustaining industry, and would thus be closed during the initial red phase of his shutdown of the commonwealth. The decision left some people in limbo: they had sold their homes, but could no longer look at a potential new residence in the red phase. Some were burdened with two mortgages, unable to occupy a new house and having to live in a rental.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions we have to wade through,” Betsy West said.

“The real estate genre has so much misinformation and misdirection. It’s very difficult to decide what to do and not do,” said Jesse Storm, a Lancaster County Realtor with BrooksRealty.com The Brokers Realty Group Ltd. In a red zone, he added, “emergency shelter is the only thing open.”

Storm filed for a waiver and submitted a safety plan before Wolf shut down all non-life-sustaining businesses March 18. The governor approved the waiver, saying in a letter that the company “plays a critical role in the manufacture and supply of goods and services necessary to sustain life …” Storm submitted a copy of the letter, signed by Wolf and state Health Secretary Rachel Levine, to the Observer-Reporter.

Storm said he believes his company was the first real estate firm to get a waiver and that numerous others got waivers as well.

The governor’s press office said that for the most part, “in-person activities” – inspections, appraisals, final walk-throughs and in-person Title Insurance activities – are permitted only for transactions that were underway before the shutdown, or for ones the buyer can prove he or she had sold a residence or given notice to the landlord.

Yet despite the waiver, Storm is irked that real estate was not initially declared essential.

He is now flummoxed by some guidelines. Storm, for example, said his interpretation of the red/yellow/green phases is that real estate is listed under financial businesses, and questions whether “real estate is supposed to really be open under the yellow banner.”

“In my opinion, those who have a waiver can function because buyers and sellers are not being quarantined under yellow. Having a waiver before the state shutdown, our business was able to practice in areas where buyers were not being quarantined.”

Storm criticized Wolf for “going at this strictly from a science-based view. He is greatly relying on scientists and medical professionals. They say, ‘This is what we’d like to do,’ and that’s what Wolf is doing. I refuse to call Wolf by the G-word.”

Hank Lerner likewise has been dissatisfied by Wolf’s response to the industry. He is director of Law and Policy for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, which represents real estate statewide.

“We have been trying to stay on top of every word and document from the administration,” he said. “The problem is they seem to be issuing almost random statements out of random places and at random times.

“We’ve told the governor’s office that things are way too confusing. We say open (the industry) across the board.”

Communication – rather, the lack thereof – is a bigger problem, according to the attorney.

“When the administration tries to issue policy, they’re not talking to the industry first. One example: Construction was allowed to open statewide with restrictions (May 8). Construction rules allow four workers to be in a house, wearing masks. The guidance for real estate is to show a property to two people, period. Not a husband and wife and the agent. You can have four contractors and a family in a house, but you can’t show a house to three.

“It’s confusing what transactions you can and can’t have. I’ve been an attorney for 20 years and can’t understand this. Imagine what consumers and rank-and-file workers think.”

Two months later, agents like Betsy and Bill West are eager to return to work. She is hoping the couple can each get back to showing a home to two people at once – with proper precautions, of course. That would enhance and streamline their work.

Betsy watched a company webinar this week, projecting there will be a “frenzy” of openings today and their industry will gain momentum over the next year or so.

“We are life-sustaining,” she said. “We want to get back. We’ve lost a season.”