REALTOR® NEWSREALTOR® NEWS
April 21, 2021



Featured News

Helping your clients through an unprecedented market

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Metro Vancouver’s real estate market has been picking up steam since last fall, culminating in record sales and new listing activity last month.

In light of today’s competitive market, the Real Estate Council of BC (Council) and the Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate (OSRE) released a joint statement advising the public to do their research and understand the risks involved before making a buying decision. They also cited a 42 per cent rise in complaints received compared to the same period last year.

In an active market, clear communication with your clients is more important than ever. Today’s market is marked by subject-free offers, intense competition for properties via multiple offers, and properties selling faster than usual. These conditions can cause consumers to want to make quicker and perhaps riskier decisions.

Council and OSRE are advising consumers to:

  • Understand the risks associated with subject-free offers.
  • Be realistic about how much you can afford.
  • Be comfortable with the listing price and marketing strategy you agree to with your REALTOR®.
  • Be prepared for multiple offer scenarios.

Address these issues with your clients

Help your clients understand what to expect in today’s market:

  • Always discuss the risks and pitfalls your clients could potentially encounter by making a subject-free offer. These risks will differ slightly depending on your client’s situation, but they’re usually present in some form or another. Make sure your clients are aware.
  • Make sure your clients have a clear understanding of their finances and how much they’ve been approved to borrow, and don’t encourage them to make offers that go beyond their means.
  • Plan ahead with your clients for a multiple offer situation and have a strategy in place for how to navigate through one.
  • Use our statistical resources to help educate your clients on the trends occurring within their area and property type of choice. For example, you can generate area and price specific reports using REBGV Stats Centre, or share our Stats Centre Report for their area with them.
  • Discuss the COVID-19 safety protocols in place for our profession with your clients so they’re aware (e.g., no in-person open houses, showings by appointment) and they understand their responsibilities (e.g., wearing masks and following directional signage during showings, not gathering in groups outside a home while waiting for a showing, etc.).

REBGV hires economist to provide greater insight and research into Metro Vancouver’s housing market

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The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) has hired economist Keith Stewart to help the organization provide more extensive insight and analysis into the latest housing market trends.

Through research and analysis of MLS® data and other industry and economic information, Keith will lead REBGV’s development of innovative concepts, ideas and reporting on key real estate issues.

“Keith brings unique knowledge and skills to our team. He’ll regularly share his expertise with REBGV members, media, business and government leaders, and the public in a variety of venues and formats,” says Brad Scott, REBGV CEO.

Keith spent the last five years as a Specialist in Urban and Housing Market Policy with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. He’s also worked in BC’s Finance Ministry and as an analyst at the Bank of Canada. He has a master’s degree in economics and numerous designations related to financial risk management, data analysis, forecasting, predictive modeling and more.

Please join us in welcoming Keith Stewart to the REBGV team!

What do this week’s travel restrictions mean for real estate?

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On April 19, BC Premier John Horgan announced coming restrictions for all non-essential travel between health authorities in the province.

We’re reaching out to our contacts in government to better understand how this might impact your work.

What we do know is that REALTORS® have been named an essential service during the pandemic so any travel that you make between health authorities for professional purposes is presently considered essential.

We held a virtual event for members this week with BC’s Superintendent of Real Estate Micheal Noseworthy and Real Estate Council of BC CEO Erin Seeley. At this session, we asked how the new travel restrictions might impact real estate. In response, Seeley said that she wasn’t aware of the restrictions affecting real estate and that Council is waiting to review the language in the public health order to determine if there’s any new guidance applicable to our sector. 

Should there be new instructions relevant to your work, we’ll share it with you.

In the meantime, you must continue to strictly follow the existing provincial health and WorkSafeBC guidelines for the profession. This includes limiting in-person interactions as much as possible and refraining from holding open houses.

We also recommend you carefully consider how you advertise showings and livestreamed or virtual open houses. 

“We’ve been labeled as an essential service, which means we’re trusted enough to safely represent our clients. We can’t violate that trust,” said Taylor Biggar, Board Chair. “It’s important for all of us to think about that when we use terms like ‘open houses’. Even when they’re by appointment or held virtually, the term can easily be misinterpreted.”

Where possible, use technology-based solutions for activities such as showcasing a home, assessing neighbourhood amenities, and completing paperwork.

While Realtors are still permitted to conduct home showings, you’re expected to always wear a mask, to ensure that people aren’t gathering outside of a home, and to limit the number of people inside a home at once to six or fewer if you can’t maintain two metres distances at all times.

Also make sure to familiarize yourself with the latest safety protocols:

“They snuck that clause in there—the unethical so-and-so”

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In the frenzied market facing REALTORS®, buyers, and sellers, occasionally we may accidently overlook something. Sellers’ agents, with an armful of offers to review with their sellers, may especially be at risk.

A while back, a member phoned wanting to make a complaint about another member “for slipping one by,” meaning adding a clause to the buyer’s third counteroffer to the seller, and “burying” said clause in a place where it wasn’t noticed when the seller’s agent presented the counteroffer to the sellers.

The sellers missed it too. Having signed a few documents in my time using form-signing software, I have to say, it’s pretty darned easy to miss something when the urge to click a box strikes you.

At a recent meeting of the BCREA’s Standard Forms Committee, we had a parallel conversation about creating a form for buyers’ agents to confirm they’d advised their buyers to make their offers subject to financing (or whatever), when the buyer hadn’t agreed. We created a truly lovely form that will be unleashed on all of you in May 2021, maybe just in time for the hot market’s cooldown.

I probably didn’t endear myself to my colleagues at this meeting when I suggested that having a form was a classic response by our industry when faced with an issue; namely, “give me a clause to deal with that” or, “we need a form” to deal with the situation.

I voted in support of the form, but I did so with some sadness. Why? Because I felt as if we were again banging our head against the wall. Forms and clauses are fine and, I suppose, better than nothing. But if you haven’t explained them or the client says, “they buried that damned form in a bunch of other forms, and I didn’t realize what I was signing,” it becomes a mess. Now you have a form saying the buyer understands they didn’t want to make their offer subject to financing or inspection because there were probably 42 other non-subject offers, so if everyone else is doing it, why not your client?

It’s fine until it’s not, I suppose. Use this form and add as many “as-is/where-is” clauses you like. We’re agents, and the courts, Council, and our boards expect we’ll do our utmost every time to explain each and every form and its clauses to those with whom we deal so they can give informed consent.

Back to the member who phoned me. I felt really sorry for them. I have no doubt that, at 2 a.m., the member may have been bleary-eyed and not on top of their game. But that didn’t lessen their responsibility. Now, it would’ve been nice of the buyer’s agent to have pointed out there was a new clause added in a covering email to the seller’s agent. But, being nice isn’t the same as being an ethical requirement.

Folks, read the contract. All the way through. Every time. Then ask your clients to agree to it (or not agree if that is your advice). Then, using basic risk management, document your conversation in your file. If there’s a form, by all means, use it.

BC budget and throne speech review, federal budget highlights, and a municipal update from the Sunshine Coast

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BC Budget 2021 tackles housing affordability 

The BC Budget, tabled on April 20, contains good news for home buyers, home owners, and commercial property owners, thanks to initiatives to improve affordability. 

Read more.

Federal budget 2021

The federal budget, released April 19, 2021, has a few surprises including a new national vacant homes tax slated to come in January 1, 2022, and hints that interest rates could rise.

Read more.

Throne speech outlines BC government’s agenda

The Speech from the Throne, delivered April 12, 2021 opening the second session of the 42nd provincial parliament, outlines the government’s plan for the coming legislative session. 

Read more.

Municipal update – Sunshine Coast

In the midst of a hectic spring, REALTORS® on the Sunshine Coast took the time to attend an informative municipal update on what’s planned for their area.

Read more.

Share Paragon's new side-by-side property comparison feature with clients

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Paragon was updated on April 7 with new features and enhancements to help you work more efficiently. Here’s a rundown of the new features and enhancements you’ll see the next time you log in to Paragon:

Purge date column added to partial listings table

To help you track when your partial listings will disappear, there’s a new column in the listings table called Purge Date. It calculates and displays the date the system will purge your partial listings so you’ll know how much time you have left to finish and submit them.

New drop-down menu for your Hotsheet and Tour/Open House reports preferences

You can now specify your default results for Hotsheets and Tour/Open House reports (of which there are many) from the new reports drop-down menu on the right side of the page. Click 'Search'.

Then, click the cog icon to select your report preferences. Once you’ve selected your preferred reports, refresh the page to see them!

Previously, you could only change these preferences from the Preferences Wizard.

Clients can view properties side-by-side in Collaboration Centre

Using Paragon’s new compare feature, you and your client can compare listings side-by-side while in Collaboration Centre. You can access this feature by clicking on the new “Compare 2 Listings” icon on each of the two listings you want to compare to launch the new side-by-side comparison view.

New pop-up notifications when you change or delete a client’s primary email

You’ll now see a pop-up message asking you to confirm changes when you remove or change a client’s email address if they have automatic notifications enabled.

If you confirm a client’s email is being deleted, the system will disable all automatic notifications for buyer activity, seller activity, and agent recommended.

If you confirm a client’s email has changed, the system will send all automatic notifications for buyer activity, seller activity, and agent recommended to the updated email address.

Watch our video highlighting these changes below.

Questions? Call the Help Desk at 604-730-3020 or email support@rebgv.org.

Commercial real estate activity slowed as pandemic hit and regained momentum to conclude 2020

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Sales activity in the Lower Mainland’s commercial real estate market slowed in the first half of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and rebounded in the second half of the year.

There were 1,582 commercial real estate sales in the Lower Mainland in 2020, a 0.6 per cent decrease from 1,592 sales in 2019, according to data from Commercial Edge, a commercial real estate system operated by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

The total dollar value of commercial real estate sales in the Lower Mainland was $8.622 billion in 2020, a 21 per cent increase from $7.128 billion in 2019.

“Commercial real estate activity mirrored activity in our overall economy in 2020,” Taylor Biggar, REBGV Chair said. “The uncertainty brought on by the pandemic caused activity to slow in the first half of the year, but the market picked up in the latter half of 2020 as people and businesses established safety protocols and began assessing their real estate needs again.”

2020 activity by category

Land: There were 409 commercial land sales in 2020, which is a 2.4 per cent decrease from the 419 land sales in 2019. The dollar value of land sales was $4.283 billion in 2020, a 28.7 per cent increase from $3.329 billion in 2019.

Office and Retail: There were 592 office and retail sales in the Lower Mainland in 2020, which is down 8.8 per cent from the 649 sales in 2019. The dollar value of office and retail sales was $1.7 billion in 2020, a 2.1 per cent increase from $1.666 billion in 2019.

Industrial: There were 508 industrial land sales in the Lower Mainland in 2020, which is a 9.5 per cent increase from the 464 sales in 2019. The dollar value of industrial sales was $1.457 billion in 2020, a 6.1 per cent increase from $1.373 billion in 2019.

Multi-Family: There were 73 multi-family land sales in the Lower Mainland in 2020, which is up 21.7 per cent from 60 sales in 2019. The dollar value of multi-family sales was $1.180 billion in 2020, a 55.7 per cent increase from $758 million in 2019.

Download the Q4 2020 Commercial Stats Package.

Other News

Review the Board’s latest disciplinary decisions

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Stay on top of the work your Board does to uphold and enforce professional standards within the profession and resolve disputes between members.

Our Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) investigates alleged member breaches of the REALTOR® Code and our Rules of Cooperation. Click here to review the PCC’s latest ruling (C20-14).

Take our latest quiz and test your knowledge on REALTOR® safety

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We've developed a series of quizzes to test your knowledge on all things real estate!

In our latest quiz, we test your knowledge of Realtor Safety tips and practices. Do you know the most effective strategies to help keep yourself safe as a Realtor? Or how to spot potential red flags and react appropriately?

Take our new quiz to find out!

Test your knowledge

Our new Test Your Knowledge quiz series will help you identify your knowledge gaps so you can plan your professional education accordingly.

These short quizzes are completed anonymously and you're the only one who'll see your score. If it’s not a passing score, you’ll see information about the course you can take to learn more about that topic.

Our quizzes are quick and easy, and they’re optimized for mobile devices so you can take them anywhere! We’ll release new quizzes every two weeks for you to continue to test your knowledge.

If you missed it, try our first quiz on the Homeowner Protection Act here.

Questions? Email education@rebgv.org.

Congratulations to our 2020 Medallion Club qualifiers!

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Our annual Medallion Club Gala is one of REBGV’s signature events. As COVID-19 remains a public health issue, we’re unable to gather in large groups to celebrate like we usually would for this occasion. And since 2020 was a year like no other, we’re recognizing our 2020 Medallion Club qualifiers like never before!

We’ve created a new website at medallionclub.ca to celebrate with our Medallion Club qualifiers virtually. On the site, you can check out:

  • videos celebrating milestone achievements
  • a custom Facebook photo frame
  • the Medallion Club program
  • and more!

You can also join us on Instagram by using the hashtags #2020medallionclub or #medallionclubrebgv.

Congratulations to our 2020 Medallion Club qualifiers!

Register for one of our upcoming online events!

We're adding new member events all the time. Register for one of our upcoming virtual member engagements - here are the details:

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Fraud prevention: What REALTORS® need to know

Did you know BC’s Land Title and Survey Authority recently had two instances of attempted title fraud? In one case, the fraudster successfully had the title registered under their name.

Learn more about real estate fraud in BC at our session featuring Denis Gagnon, President of BCSI Investigations, and Steven Wilson, President of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners - Vancouver Chapter.

They’ll discuss these recent cases along with:

  • The latest trends in real estate fraud and their economic impact.
  • Due diligence and how to detect potential fraud in your day-to-day work.
  • Best practices to guard yourself from real estate fraud.

Register for this event here.


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Working with appraisers to get the job done

Join us online on Tuesday, April 27 at 10 a.m. to learn more about the value and complexity a commercial real estate appraisal brings to your transaction. Commercial REALTOR® Cynthia Jagger of Goodman Commercial Inc. will moderate our expert panel of appraisers, including:

  • Reagan Stinson, Director of Consulting Services, CWPC Property Consultants
  • Craig Hennigar, Senior Director, Valuation and Advisory Services Group, Colliers International
  • Ten Tran, Professional Appraiser, PK Appraisals Inc.
  • Dan Jones, President of Campbell & Pound Residential (1939) Ltd. and Campbell & Pound Commercial Ltd.

Register for this event here.


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LinkedIn best practices and thought leadership for the real estate industry

LinkedIn is an often overlooked but powerful platform. Join Tara Clark, founder and CEO of the social media marketing group Social T, to learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and establish yourself as a thought leader. You’ll also learn how to strategically connect with the right industry contacts. 

Building thought leadership helps lay the foundation for future marketing, sales, and client relationships. LinkedIn helps position you and your company as an expert from day one. Learn the three reasons why it’s important to start building your thought leadership today.

This session will cover:

  • How to optimize your LinkedIn profile to stand out from the competition and be seen as the go-to expert in your field.
  • LinkedIn best practices: Strategy, planning posts, when to post, how to craft the right post, measuring the results.
  • What it means to be a thought leader and how that adds value and impact via your LinkedIn presence.

Register for this event here.


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Housing Minister David Eby

Join us online on Wednesday, May 5 and get to know BC's Housing Minister David Eby. Minister Eby will share his current priorities and plans for BC’s housing market. There’ll also be a Q&A period.

Minister Eby will discuss:

  • Government’s housing accomplishments.
  • Current initiatives; and
  • Plans for the future.

Register for this event here.

Federal agency proposes new minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages

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The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has begun consultation on a proposed increase to the minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages.

The federal agency is looking to make the qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages the higher of the mortgage contract rate plus two per cent or 5.25 per cent as a minimum floor.

The stress test is currently set as the higher of the contract rate plus two per cent, or the prevailing benchmark rate (4.79 per cent). The proposed 5.25 per cent rate was the prevailing average benchmark in the 12 months leading up to the pandemic.

OSFI also wants to revisit the calibration of the qualifying rate at least once a year, “to ensure it remains appropriate for the risks in the environment.”

“The current Canadian housing market conditions have the potential to put lenders at increased financial risk. OSFI is taking proactive action at this time so that banks will continue to be resilient,” said OSFI in a news release.

OSFI is asking for feedback on this proposed qualifying rate by email to B.20@osfi-bsif.gc.ca before May 7.

The final amendments to the qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages will be communicated by May 24 and will come into force on June 1.

“The more stringent stress test will modestly temper some demand pressures if enacted, particularly for down payment constrained buyers including first time owners. That said, given a supply constrained environment, this is unlikely to derail the housing market by itself,” said Bryan Yu, chief economist with Central 1 about the proposal.

We’ll provide more information about this proposed change in the weeks ahead.

FINTRAC changes coming June 1: Be prepared with these resources

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The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) has made regulatory amendments and added reporting obligations that apply to REALTORS® starting June 1, 2021.

These amendments include:

  • New and revised definitions
  • Additional foreign money services businesses obligations
  • Virtual currency obligations for all reporting entities, including submitting Large Virtual Currency Transaction Reports to FINTRAC
  • Prepaid payment products and accounts obligations for financial entities
  • Obligations for life insurance companies, brokers, and agents when they are acting as financial entities
  • Beneficial ownership obligations extended to all reporting entities
  • Business relationships and ongoing monitoring obligations extended to all reporting entities
  • Politically exposed persons obligations extended to all reporting entities
  • Deemed receipt of funds and virtual currency obligations
  • Repeal of third-party deeming for persons acting on behalf of an employer
  • Certain record keeping obligations

FINTRAC will provide more real estate–specific guidance in the coming months. The BC Real Estate Association is also developing a resource page to help you better understand these changes.

We’ll provide more information as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, you can view FINTRAC’s published resources below.

Resources from FINTRAC

Courses and Events