CEO Message

REALTORS® Stay Focused and Resilient Even in Challenging Times….

REALTORS® have shown she walked me through a nice home that amazing adaptability had caught our eye using Skype and she showed and talked me through every and perseverance in room. Her comment was “this home the midst of the pandemic. meets 90% of your criteria and if we like Frankly, you had to do this home, I’ll need to purchase it TODAY because it will be gone tomorrow!” it. Whether dictated by Well, I liked the home and location a governmental order, public lot, trusted her and our REALTOR Linda policy or just your own drive to keep your business going, STEVE STEVENS, CCE, IOM CEO – KENTUCKY REALTORS Moore. We made an offer that day and the transaction went very smoothly. We did the whole transaction without me you found ways to protect ever stepping foot in the house until we traveled back yourself and others, reassure potential from the West and were preparing to move in. I had buyers and sellers through new methods purchased a house without ever physically seeing it for the first time in 32 years of marriage and it didn’t hurt and practices that they can still do a real at all! estate transaction safely. For those of you The challenge of the pandemic has not been viewed who adapted and stuck with it, there have entirely as a negative by REALTORS®. To the contrary, been the rewards of real estate activity in many cases what we are now experiencing has been that is again rivaling some of our best a tremendous opportunity to step back and look at all of the ways in which we do business, make necessary markets in the past couple of years. adjustments to our circumstances and achieve notable The virtual world was always here for real estate and helping folks buy and sell real estate the way you are doing now could have been done for years. The reason it hasn’t is that real estate has been traditionally a bellyimprovements. Many of the changes in business practices we’ve seen take place will assuredly last long after the pandemic is over. We will see real estate professionals working smarter, safer and with new to-belly “people business” and most REALTORS® simply perspectives on the real estate business. Throughout enjoy the face-to-face interaction they have with clients. the past year we have offered virtual Town Halls for our members to hear best practices, staying focused on

When we returned to Kentucky after I was hired for their businesses and keeping themselves healthy. We this position more than four and half years ago, my own will work to continue to be the resource members need experience buying a home was all virtual. After my wife to support their business. and I planned a trip here to look at a list of properties, I could not come with her to see them with our The business of real estate was deemed “essential” REALTOR®. The market in Central Kentucky had heated at the start of the pandemic and our members never up and houses were literally “flying off the shelves”. stopped working – it always was essential and always Within the three to four days after choosing a dozen or will be. As businesses, our members were not only more homes and travelling here to see them, Marilyn “survivors” during these challenges, but in many cases found upon arriving that almost half of these properties they have been “thrivers”, succeeding when so many had already come under pending contracts! Luckily, other types of businesses failed.