by Jack Lorkovic, reporter
OMAHA – More than 70 percent of the real estate market has declined in places like New York and California and that’s a cause for concern with local real estate markets here in Omaha. Both Realtor John Lorkovic and President of Nebraska Realty, Andy Alloway, are both concerned for their jobs as global real estate sales see a drastic decline due to the pandemic. Each of them displayed their concerns on how their jobs might be affected but also displayed hope that their Jobs at Nebraska Realty would not be in danger of collapsing.
Both expressed their concerns with the virus and how it might affect future home sales in the market.
“Over the past couple months many real estate firms worldwide and nationwide have suffered. This leads to economic difficulties and other things such as a loss of jobs or a decrease in the sales market,” said John Lorkovic, Nebraska Realty Agent.
While fearing for the worst Lorkovic also stated how they were handling things to keep customers safe.
“The precautions that we take wearing masks, disinfecting, you know, maybe keeping distance from our people, even as far as writing contracts or doing more things virtually,” said Lorkovic.
For many other real estate firms across the country, they have suffered huge amounts of lost sales in the housing markets. In some cases, sales have dropped a drastic amount with at least 165,000 houses being taken off the market in Florida. Even here in the Omaha area there has been a dip in houses being sold on the real estate market.
When asked how Nebraska Realty was handling the situation with the global pandemic, Andy Alloway, president of Nebraska Realty thought there was a good turnaround rate for sales they had for the last couple months.
“What we found is we kept numbers every day of properties that went under contract properties that sold people who were putting their homes on the market and we expected there to be a big drop off, but what we found is there really wasn’t a big drop off,” said Alloway.
Though there is a sort of stigma and attitude with the current real estate market within the United States, both Lorkovic and Alloway are hopeful about the future for Nebraska Realty.
“But our spring market still was very good. The numbers in the Omaha market as a whole are very close to where they were a year ago and the year before that. So as far as sales volume, it’s had minimal effect not near as much as what we thought it would be,” said Lorkovic.
“We were also fortunate to say that Nebraska Realty, never fully had to shut down,” said Alloway.
