From our MD: Our plans for dealing with Covid19

We know this is a difficult time for our clients, our agents, and our country, and our priority is everyone's health and wellbeing.

We are thus fully committed to all public efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus and have already implemented many additional hygiene measures in our business to help protect our people and everyone they come into contact with.

At the same time, we are very aware of the important role we play in our communities as estate agents and also have plans in place to continue meeting the needs of our property sellers, buyers, investors, tenants and landlords with minimum disruption.

We do not believe there is any cause for panic and intend to do whatever we can to do prevent a loss of confidence, economic decline and employment losses in the property sector. To this end, all our offices will at this stage remain open, although we are enabling as many of our people as possible to work at home with the support of our well-developed online marketing and business systems.

We have also requested that they refrain from all air travel at this time and any other non-essential travel and that they conduct meetings electronically (via WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, Google or Zoom) as far as possible rather than face-to-face.

We are also staying in regular contact with other key stakeholders in our industry, including the banks, mortgage originators, attorneys, local authorities and the Deeds Office so that we can provide you with the most accurate information about the state of the market and keep your transactions and transfers moving.

In short, we will be operating at full capacity, but these unusual times do call for some unusual measures, so please note the following:

* If you visit one of our offices, attend a show day or go to view a property, our agent/ staff member will avoid all personal contact and remain at least 1m away from you and your family;

*You will be requested to use hand sanitizers or other sanitizing products at all of our show homes and whenever you request a home viewing and be asked to not to touch anything in the home;

*Our agents have undertaken not to interact with any client or other team members if they are experiencing any cold or flu symptoms until the necessary medical checks have been made;

*Our agents will be asking clients about their recent travels and will not meet with any client who has recently been out of SA until 14 days after their return; and

*Similarly, any of our agents who have recently returned to the country from overseas will self-isolate for 14 days after their re-entry.

We would like to assure you that we share your concerns about the health risks inherent in the current situation and that your safety remains our primary concern, so these measures may be changed or increased if deemed necessary by the relevant authorities.

For now, though we would like to wish all our clients and their families well and thank them for their understanding and support as we try to remain productive and offer them the exceptional service for which we are known. We are certain that together, we can make it happen.