With limited in-person interactions, companies have shifted to connecting with clients using virtual technology, helping with the continuation of sales.
Due to COVID-19, STARS Air Ambulance was unable to host its in-person dream homes for people to view; however, that forced STARS to get creative with virtual showings. For the past few years, STARS has offered virtual tours, allowing people to walk through the homes at their own pace, while remaining in their own homes.
Megan Thomson, manager of lotteries and special projects at STARS Air Ambulance says with the constantly changing technology, their organization was able to offer virtual tours of all its Alberta dream homes.
“We’ve obviously done photos of the dream home and then a couple of years ago, with technology improving, we were able to offer virtual tours. That started sort of like a walkthrough and then expanded more to what it is right now. This wasn’t the first year that we had it, but it is definitely the first year that it played an integral role in the lottery and really provided access for people to view the show homes since we weren’t able to open them.”
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STARS worked closely with the home builders in all three cities to plan, film, market and promote this year’s dream homes. Thomson says with COVID-19 restrictions in place, keeping everyone safe while continuing to fundraise was a key aspect in this year’s lottery. The STARS Lottery is available to all Albertans and Thomson says virtual tours have allowed people to view a home in a city they couldn’t before.
“People might be geographically restricted and so we don’t want anybody to not have the opportunity to see the show home. So, we will definitely continue to have the virtual tours as an option to let supporters and buyers in say Grand Prairie have the option to see the Lethbridge show home or walk through the Calgary show home and things like that. We never want people to feel pigeonholed by their geographic location, so we want to make sure that, that opportunity exists for as many people.”
Real estate companies have also continued to use virtual tours and meetings during the pandemic. Technology has allowed for virtual meetings, tours and walk throughs of homes while in-person restrictions were in place.
Courtney Atkinson, owner of the Atkinson Team at EXP Reality says they have offered virtual tours for the past seven years, but over the last year have seen a dramatic increase in the utilization of technology to meet with clients.
“I would also say that as a measure of mitigating risk for exposure to COVID-19 we’ve been using, I would call it a virtual tour whether it be a FaceTime or Zoom or any kind of virtual meeting room that has a video attached to it as a way of touring the property with people.”
Atkinson says using one-on-one meetings has allowed them to connect with their clients and to make sure they are fully aware of what they are purchasing whereas that wouldn’t necessarily be possible with a standard virtual tour posted on their website.
“What we’re doing is kind of giving a personal tour of the property by video in a way that the existing virtual tour might not be so personal. It might not allow a person to kind of look behind the closet door. It kind of gets them the ground level [view] so they can see any imperfections in the carpet, the flooring, the casing of the trim or the cabinets. The type of business that we’re doing is virtual, but it feels like it’s being done with a greater level of attention to detail and a greater level of care because it’s unconventional in a lot of ways.”
Over the past year, Atkinson says even with the pandemic, they have continued to see a slight increase in sales, with people wanting to create some certainty in their lives through the pandemic.
“[Last] February was a good month, kind of average. April we were down 50 per cent, we were then down about 25 per cent in June. But we made up all of those transactions from the previous months through July to December. People have been in lockdown and have had some uncertainty in their lives and they want to create that certainty with real estate, with different spaces and naturally they’re doing that with the liquidity that the government has given them through programs, through savings on travel and other expenditures that they haven’t been able to spend.”
The same message has been felt by STARS, with both the Alberta lottery and 50/50 selling out as of March 11, the earliest it has ever been.
“Albertans were phenomenal in their support of STARS and the lottery and we’re just so grateful for the support with people purchasing tickets and supporting STARS and the lottery,” said Thomson.
