Calgary company is a global leader in real estate technology
CALGARY, Alberta — Bōde’s latest innovation means Calgary buyers can use one of the world’s most sophisticated and advanced systems for making real estate transactions. With consumers increasingly making purchases through digital marketplaces, Bōde meets the modern buyer’s desire for convenience, self-service and the ability to source the best value for their hard-earned money.
Like other online shopping and e-commerce pursuits, 92% of Canadians start their search for their home online. Saving searches, sharing listings and creating favorite lists are all a part of the market research and organization phase of your home selection. In many countries around the world, including Australia and Denmark, the next step of requesting a showing, communicating with the seller and making an offer is done by the buyer without an agent. In fact, in each of these countries, there is no buyer agent service offering at all.
Today, any Bōde user can communicate, schedule showings and make offers to any Realtor.ca listing or Bōde listing without any fees from Bōde. The service collects a 1% fee from the seller only when the deal is closed.
“We are really excited about providing buyers with the ability to go from search to keys starting with 6,500 Calgary listings on Bōde at no cost to the buyer. This instantly cuts the cost of all transactions in half with even more savings when it is an offer on a Bōde listing,” says Lindsay Skabar, Bōde’s Chief Marketing Officer. “We’ve seen international buyers successfully purchase homes themselves for many years, and we’re taking that trend to the next level by automating and digitizing the transaction.”
Bōde launched in September of 2019 and successfully sold all four high-end properties for list price in just 21 days, well below the average time on market. The innovative real estate model is gaining popularity with both property developers and homebuilders across Alberta and was recently selected as the sole listing provider of 49 lots for the luxury Springbank development, River Edge.
“People who have utilized our system are overjoyed with the savings and ease of use. We’re really looking forward to the spring months when the market heats up. People have become very comfortable with our simple and intuitive customer experience, motivating them to buy their next house with us,” says Skabar.
In keeping with its non-traditional approach to real estate, Bōde gives every seller an Augmented Reality “for sale” sign that interested buyers can scan with their phone to receive detailed information about the home. You can view the sign here.
Bōde is a licensed real estate brokerage and follows the guidelines set out by the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA).
Bōde is Calgary’s first real estate marketplace and a smarter way to buy and sell a home. Bōde is reimagining real estate with an intuitive, universal platform that gives everybody with an index finger the ability to control their real estate destiny. Bōde reduces commissions by 75% by only collecting a 1% service fee when the deal is closed.
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.
