The Ontario government is introducing new real estate regulations that would allow home sellers to share bids on their property and disclose the details of competing offers.
As the system stands now, individuals looking to put an offer on a home do so blindly, without knowing how much their competitors are offering above the asking price. The new regulation will give sellers the option to “opt for an open offer process.”
“Sellers will no longer be limited to selling their property through a closed or traditional offer system,” the Minister of Government and Consumer Affairs Ross Romano said in a statement to CTV News Toronto.
“With these changes, hard-working Ontarians can rest assured knowing that our government has their backs as they embark on their journey of home ownership.”
It is not yet clear what, exactly, sellers will be allowed to disclose under the regulation or how many will choose to take part in the process.
The new sales tactic is part of a larger regulatory change to the Trust in Real Estate Services Act (TRESA), which will go into effect on April 1, 2023.
The changes include a new code of ethics for real estate agents, simpler standardized forms and more powers to the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO), a regulatory body that enforces rules for salespeople and brokers.
“These regulations also allow RECO to go after bad actors taking advantage of vulnerable Ontarians by emboldening their disciplinary processes and expanding the scope of their jurisdiction to encompass the entirety of TRESA,” Romano said.
“By giving RECO these powers, we’re streamlining and speeding up the process needed to resolve issues and ensuring real consequences for those acting in bad faith.”
Kevin Crigger, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board, applauded the government for bringing “further options to the home seller process.”
“I think optionality is a good thing,” he said.
Crigger added real estate regulations such as this, at both the federal and provincial level, are aimed at appeasing buyers and trying to find alternatives to affordability outside of the supply conversation.
The CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association agreed, saying this policy strikes the right balance between adding more transparency to the offer and protecting the rights of home sellers.
“We called for the province to introduce these common sense reforms and we’re pleased to see them coming forward today,” Tim Hudak said.
On the other hand, the leader of the Green party of Ontario issued a statement calling for a “consistently transparent bidding process.”
“Home-sellers shouldn’t be able to pick and choose when the bidding process is transparent and when it is blind. That defeats the purpose of ending blind bidding, since it’s in sellers’ best interest to keep buyers in the dark,” Mike Schreiner said. “Let’s end blind bidding and let’s do it properly.”
The new regulation comes as real estate brokerage Royal LePage predicts home prices will be up about 15 per cent by the fourth quarter of 2022.
In a record-breaking first quarter, Royal LePage said the average price of a home in Canada rose 25.1 per cent year-over-year to about $856,900. The average price of a home in the GTA is expected to surpass $1.3 million by the end of 2022.
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.
