Some real estate agents are convinced that the online transition of home sales will fundamentally reshape the Metro Vancouver real estate sector. Others say that merging an old stalwart – live auctions – with new technology could smooth and speed more housing sales.
Realtors have progressively provided clients with online videos of homes for sale, and websites such as REW.ca have started to add property listings that have virtual tours to give buyers a better sense of what homes look like. The pandemic has accelerated demand for virtual tours as some buyers and sellers want to limit physical access to properties.
The new reality for some realtors is that they speak with clients on smartphones as they walk around homes, and show the clients the property via video on FaceTime or other apps.
But some believe that online auctions of homes provide a less cumbersome way to get buyers and sellers together.
The North Vancouver branch of New Zealand-based Harcourts has been selling B.C. homes in online auctions since 2017.
Five bidders took part on July 9 in a Harcourts auction for a Squamish home. They were able to see the most recent bid in real time and to continue bidding until the auction closed. An accepted bid is now in the process of closing.
Among the homes Harcourts has sold in online auctions are a luxury home at 4310 Rockridge Road in West Vancouver for more than $5.5 million in 2018 and homes at 14210 Malabar Avenue in White Rock for almost $1.8 million and at 2350 Ottawa Avenue in West Vancouver for more than $2.4 million, last year.
Metro Vancouver properties are likely to be in online auctions later in August, Harcourts principal Greg Paddy said.
“The actual auction livestream is only a small part of the sales process, but it does allow people to participate from wherever they may be,” he said.
“We’ve had inquiries for [future] auctions from as far away as Invermere, Prince George, Kelowna, and Vancouver Island. We get more calls in a week from people who are looking for another solution for selling their homes than we’ve ever had before.”
Harcourts is, however, poised to get some upstart competition.
Vancouver-based Lambert Premier Auctions has partnered with Vancouver’s Luxury Alliance Group (LAG) to create Vancouver Luxury Real Estate Auction and hold a series of online auctions for up to nine luxury Metro Vancouver properties starting in late August, Lambert CEO Alec Lambert told BIV.
Lambert has auctioned six B.C. homes since 2013, with most of those sales involving Okanagan properties at physical auction sites.
He developed an online platform last year and is partnering with LAG, he said, because LAG principal Craig Stowe has a “significant database” of high-end buyers in Metro Vancouver who may want to buy real estate.
“We’ve got it to the point where we’re confidently going to be able to do multiple homes per year, and multiple homes at one time,” Lambert said. “We have three homes for the first auction.”
Properties in the auctions are expected to be in North Vancouver, West Vancouver and the west side of Vancouver, while dates for the auctions have yet to be set.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
