SUDBURY -- For the past few months it’s been very different for Real Estate agents, buyers and people selling their home, but just recently agents say things seem to be returning to normal.

Officials with the Sudbury Real Estate Board say for people selling their home, there are guidelines that have to be followed by anyone interested in viewing.

“Every home with their listing agent has guidelines of what they would like us to do, whether they would like us to wear a mask or gloves and then we have the forms to fill out also on behalf of us, clients, our buyers saying that we have not had any issues and we have not been travelling,” said Dan Gray, President of the Sudbury Real Estate Board.

“We fill out those forms and we have to hand them to the listing agent before we show the home.”

Buying and selling a house in the middle of a pandemic can be a little different from what most people are used to.

Brenda Larouche-Robinson and her husband just recently sold their home and say it’s been a stressful process, especially because not everyone filled out their mandatory questionnaire.

“Only 50 per cent actually filled it in so there is certainly room for improvement there. My husband and I decided that we wanted people to wear masks and use hand sanitizer when they entered our home,” said Larouche-Robinson.

She says they did have a supply of masks just in case people did not bring their own, but says people took advantage of the offer.

“We requested that people bring their mask but in the event that they didn’t have a mask we did have a supply of masks but we went through 30 masks in a very short period of time so then we started to say ‘no, you need to supply your masks or at least your relator to bring masks’ so there was a little bit of resistance,” said Larouche-Robinson.

More than fourty appointments were scheduled over the span of four days.

“Each appointment had at least three people involved, sometimes five, so we estimate at least 125 people went through our home,” said Larouche-Robinson.

She says as soon as the bookings were done for the day, she would head back inside and sanitize their entire home.

Open houses just recently started up again and Gray says there are additional rules that have to be followed if home owners decide to stage one.

“You are only allowed a certain amount of people in at one time and if you start getting more people, close the door. Again, it’s up to the agents, sellers and buyers that are comfortable with doing open houses,” said Gray.

Officials with the Sudbury Real Estate Board say once COVID-19 hit, it stopped the market for a while but with people starting to buy-and-sell again, the percentage of sales has increased by 27 per cent this June compared to June 2019.