Hurricane felt around the country
In light of Hurricane Harvey, many businesses and individuals have donated time, money, services, and supplies, but the devastation is beyond what anyone expected. Now imagine you’re a REALTOR® and not only is your own home submerged, but all the homes you have listed are underwear too.
Your primary source of income disappears and the timeline for resuming business is uncertain. What if you don’t have another source of income or skill to fall back on? Do you give up on real estate? Do you move to a different area?
REALTORS® have been doubly-hit
If your home was lost in a hurricane, you’re likely not going to be thinking about work right away, but eventually, you’ll begin to wonder how you’ll pay for things while waiting on insurance and other assistance.
The thing is, for REALTORS® , even when the water recedes and the rubble begins to clear, their main source of income is gone.
It’s going to take months, and likely years, to rebuild what was lost in Hurricane Harvey; in the mean time, REALTORS® have no homes or businesses to sell, no properties to manage, they’re at a total loss for income. What is the next step?
What’s the next step?
While this is largely a very personal decision as to whether you remain in the area, or leave to pursue work in an area unaffected by the storm (but even then you face competition from other REALTORS® fleeing the effected area, as well as, the competition of REALTORS® in the new area you decide upon), or attempt to find work in another field, the decision is a difficult one to say the least.
This is of course not meant to minimize the far-reaching effects of all the other victims because we know they’ve lost everything as well; it just seems as though REALTORS®, as well as many other Texan business owners, get doubly hit – losing their homes and businesses.
Realtor.com®offers assistance
These “what ifs” and “what do I do” are some of the questions Realtor.com® is tackling. They are getting in on the Harvey relief efforts by donating 100% of the cost from the sale of every realtor.com® Results Summit ticket sale to the REALTORS® Relief Fund.
The Results Summit is an annual two-day summit, offering REALTORS® hands-on learning, keynote speakers, and game-changing innovations through technology and strategies.
This year, 100% of the sales from the summit will be donated to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.
About the RRF
NAR first launched the REALTORS® Relief Foundation (RRF) as the REALTORS® Relief Fund in 2001, wishing hours of the horrendously devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The RRF raised more than $8.4 million to provide assistance to surviving family members so they could stay in their homes. Since then, more than $25 million has been raises for victims of disasters, including, wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Hopefully this money will be used to aid the victims of Hurricane Harvey.
If you’d like to contribute to the RRF, you can donate online through this link, or you can mail a check to: REALTORS Relief Foundation, 430 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60611 and please put in the memo line of your check that it is a “RRF Contribution.”
For some people, they may not have the option to leave the area due to finances, family, or other reasons, but some may have a long road to getting back anywhere close to “normal.” What do you think, would you leave the area to pursue Real estate work elsewhere, or would you stay?
#RealtorsReliefFoundation
