A nice talk with my friend Sofia Falleroni from New York
A nice talk with my friend Sofia Falleroni from New York
Sofia Falleroni is a senior real estate agent in Compass, one of the most established real estate agencies in the United States. Sofia has lived and worked in Manhattan since 2005 and deals with real estate sales, especially for foreign investors.
Here is a link of her real estate page: https://www.compass.com/agents/sofia-falleroni/
Sofia can be reached at Sofia.falleroni@compass.com
Here is a resume of the interview with Sofia Falleroni from New York
Sofia can you tell me what services your agency offers?
The company I work for has started to offer “Virtual Agent Services”, where agents can make “Virtual Open House ” and video conference calls with customers, same as in Italy, where real estate agencies set virtual tours with customers on facebook.
Sofia do you believe the New York real estate market will suffer a short or long term recession due to the Covid-19?
Before the pandemic The US economy was doing very well, the unemployment rate was very low and the stock market was growing.
So were used to an extremely stable economy. Precisely for this reason I believe that since this is a health crisis, it will be a short-term recession and I believe that after the initial shock, people will start to refocus on the brick, since a property unlike the stock market will never drop by 30% in 3 days.
NY is historically a market characterized by stability: the yield is not as high as it could be in other cities but, being a market characterized by stability, even in times of crisis, it generally undergoes little decline.
Sofia the buyers will request more low size or luxury properties?Small-sized properties are and will always be requested, while luxury properties (over $ 5 million) could suffer a decline as the offer is currently very high and on the other hand there is little demand
Sofia are home staging and photo shoot really important?
In New York, home staging is very important. We at Compass have a service called “compass concierge”, which is a service that Compass offers its customers, offering to pay home staging expenses for the customer. The customer will then proceed to refund Compass at the time of the sale. Traditionally staging is very important especially if the furnishings of the houses are old / dated. We currently use virtual staging in addition to the real one.
Same goes for the photo shoot, we have always used professional photographers. During this pandemic, video also became fundamental. The costs for photos, videos, floor plans are borne by the agency while home staging is paid by the owner (although with the Compass concierge service, Compass can pay the cost of the same). Virtual staging is always a cost borne by the agency
Sofia do you think New Yorkers will buy properties just watching videos?
I doubt that New Yorkers decide to buy a house just watching videos, at the moment videos are only an excellent means of advertising
Sofia, did you get new selling mandates during the pandemic?
During this period, I have acquired new mandates, but we have decided not to put the properties on the market until it will be possible to show the apartments in person
Thanks Sofia
