Virtual tours only allow a pre-selection of goods for sale -
A.GELEBART
Since the start of the second confinement, physical visits to real estate have been prohibited.
Emmanuelle Wargon, Minister Delegate for Housing, confirmed on Tuesday that it was still "too early" to consider them.
However, professionals want to resume these visits, in order to relieve the sector and to be able to provide accommodation to those who need it, they argue.
To do this, they propose reinforced health measures, such as the right of the agent alone to touch the doors, the obligation to ventilate the accommodation and preselection through virtual visits.
“For now, it's too early.
On Tuesday, Emmanuelle Wargon, Minister Delegate in charge of Housing, confirmed the maintenance of the ban on visits to real estate.
Through a press release published the day before, the professionals had nevertheless asked him to relaunch the physical visits, to allow the sales and rentals of private housing.
Wasted effort.
The (non) announcements made by the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, Thursday evening, confirm the blockage.
And with it the freezing of an entire sector.
Only visits are prohibited
“Real estate is a chain and right now a link is broken.
The metaphor of Maël Bernier, spokesperson for the Meilleurtaux.com group, sums up the situation well during this second confinement.
All the links are active today: the banks grant loans, the brokers receive by appointment, the notaries can have the deeds signed in person.
Even the technical aspects continue to be applied, as detailed Jean-Marc Torrollion, president of the FNAIM, the national real estate federation: “We can take delivery of works in buildings where we are trustee.
We can go to appraisals for water damage, or do inventory for tenants who are leaving or arriving… But we cannot make visits.
"
For this expert as for his colleagues, the situation is incomprehensible.
Because if they are well aware of the health crisis, they are surprised to see that it is possible for agents to go to customers to sign mandates, sales agreements or make estimates, but not 'carry out the visits.
Do not immobilize real estate Mr. President. @ EmmanuelMacron pic.twitter.com/Zg5PmkjBcC
- Laurent Vimont - C21 (@LaurentVimont) November 9, 2020
Above all, professionals wonder when they see that the prohibitions are not applied to all.
Visits to social housing and HLMs are indeed authorized.
Jean-Marc Torrollion: “Why does the public sector benefit from this immunity?
How does visiting social housing present less risk?
"
Professionals also point to the fact that the individual market continues to turn.
Laurent Vimont, President of Century 21, therefore denounces a lack of fairness: “On the one hand, we have the DGCCRF which controls us through mystery shoppers, posing the threat of fines or even worse.
And on the other, individuals who offer tours with impunity.
"
"Nobody bets 200,000 euros on a virtual visit"
If virtual tours are encouraged by the ministry, this solution is only partial for real estate agents, deplores Maël Bernier: “It can work for rental, at the limit, if there are emergencies.
But for the purchase, this only serves to make a preview, to skim.
"Laurent Vimont goes in the same direction:" Nobody bets 200,000 or 300,000 euros on a virtual visit.
"He hardly lists a few rare cases where the virtual visit has resulted in a signature:" But always with conditions precedent linked to a physical visit.
"
If the professionals insist, it is because several interests come into play, according to them.
That of the sector, of course.
According to Jean-Marc Torrollion, around 40% of FNAIM members had to resort to a loan guaranteed by the State, and if the activity of the summer was quite good, this second confinement is a hard blow.
The president of the FNAIM fears that with the confinement followed by the Christmas period, usually very quiet, the agencies will start to run out of cash in the first quarter of 2021. And this in a sector of 200,000 jobs which is highly dependent on transactions ( 11 of the 16 billion euros of turnover in 2018).
But real estate players also advance the interest of individuals who, even in times of crisis, keep the need to find housing.
What is called the “necessity market”: “Students who have completed their semester.
A couple who divorce.
A parent who, to obtain custody of his children, must prove that he has an apartment or a house.
A worker who is transferred by his company, lists Laurent Vimont.
Many need to find accommodation.
He adds to his argument that during this second confinement, the economy does not stop, the demand for housing remains present.
Strict health measures to reassure the authorities
To convince the government, the FNAIM communicated the measures proposed to resume the “real” visits.
Initially, it would be a question of maintaining the measures taken since the beginning of the crisis: to organize visits only by appointment.
Make a pre-selection of goods through virtual tours to limit the number of these appointments.
Make the visits as much as possible in the absence of the inhabitants of the accommodation.
Have the doors and windows opened only by agents who will have gloves, who will disinfect all the handles after their passage and who will have to ventilate the accommodation after each visit.
The agents and customers will go to the places of visits in separate vehicles and the FNAIM undertakes to promote, among its employees and customers, the TousAntiCovid application during the visits.
If they are not yet fixed on their future after December 1, real estate players remain optimistic about their ability to convince the government.
Because according to Jean-Marc Torrollion, the visits are "the oxygen of our companies".
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