A complaint has been lodged with the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver after a real estate agent was caught on camera picking bags of fruit from the backyard of a home he was showing to potential buyers.
One of the homeowners, Jill Chan, said in a Facebook post that realtor Peter Yang was showing her family home to buyers on Friday while no one was home.
“After noticing our large pear tree and beautiful berry bushes … he started picking the fruit off the trees and eating it,” she wrote.
She alleges that the realtor then went back to his car and returned with plastic bags. In the video, he can be seen picking fruit and placing it in the bags.
Chan claims Yang picked every single fruit from the garden, encouraged the buyers to pick fruits and spat seeds all over the ground.
WATCH | Realtor picks backyard pears during showing:
Realtor Peter Yang is caught on camera picking fruit from a backyard garden and placing them in a bag while he shows his clients around the home. 2:11
The garden belonged to Chan’s late grandmother. She said it was her pride and joy.
“I don’t think it’s acceptable practice to bag up someone’s entire garden at a home showing like a free market,” Chan said.
It’s unclear whether the listing agent was present at the time.
Chan says the family installed CCTV around the house following a past break-in.
After she started to speak up about what happened, she says Yang drove by and dropped the bags of fruit onto their porch.
When Chan contacted the Vancouver police, she says she was told they couldn’t get involved unless something tangible was missing.
In a statement, the Vancouver Police Department said it is investigating the incident, and VPD will be following up with the complainant. There have been no arrests.
‘He didn’t think that was a big thing’
Yang declined an interview, but Charles Zhou, the managing broker at his firm, Luxmore Realty, says the realtor has since apologized.
Yang admits he made a mistake, the broker said.
“He didn’t think that was a big thing at the beginning, but after we talked, he realized that it wasn’t the right thing to do,” said Zhou.
Yang spoke with the listing agent and apologized profusely, offering to reimburse any damages, he said.
“I understand that Peter made really irresponsible and unprofessional behaviour during [the] home showing,” Zhou later wrote in a statement from Luxmore Realty. “I deeply apologize to the homeowner and her family members who were offended by such behaviour.”
Complaint lodged with real estate board
Zhou confirmed that a complaint has been filed against Yang with the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
Yang is willing to accept any consequences or punishments that arise from it, the broker said.
As well, Luxmore Realty will strengthen training for its employees, “especially educating them about property privacy,” Zhou said.
The Real Estate Council of B.C., which investigates complaints, is aware of the issue and said real estate professionals have a responsibility to act honestly and to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.
“We expect the individuals we licence to act in a professional manner, and to consider their behaviour and actions in both their licensed and personal capacity,” it said in a statement.
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.
