COVID-19 restrictions extended to January 8

The public health order restricting social gatherings in BC was extended this week to January 8. The mask mandate, in indoor public spaces, will remain as well with no definite end date. 

This order restricts social gatherings in homes, suspends certain group indoor physical activities, and asks people to avoid non-essential travel. It also asks businesses to avoid sending staff back to work in-person at offices where possible. 

The provincial government has deemed REALTORS® as an essential service during the pandemic. This means you can conduct a showing of a home so long as you and your clients wear masks and strictly follow the safety protocols established for our profession to date. 

We continue to urge you not to hold open houses. Click here for more information on livestream open houses.  

Here are the most up to date safety protocols: 

• Guidelines for showings 
• Guidelines for offices and Managing Brokers

New video series: The Board Development Committee answers your questions

Throughout the year, the Board Development Committee (BDC) works to identify, evaluate, and recommend candidates for our Board of Director election.

To answer your most common questions about the process they follow and the work they do on your behalf, we've created a three-part video series featuring our BDC members. We encourage you to invest the time to learn more about this important work.

Watch the first two videos in this series where BDC members offer further insights into their work.

Watch the second video in this series below.

Review our elections resources

Ahead of the 2021 Board of Directors election, take the time to learn about the Board Development Committee and the recommendation process here. The BDC’s work is also visualized above (click on the image to expand).

Thank you for helping the REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive raise $50,000 for local charities

Thanks to your donations and promotion on social media, the revamped REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive raised $50,000 this year for local housing-related charities!

The money you raised from the week-long fundraiser will help the Blanket Drive’s long-time partner charities that serve people across the Lower Mainland. These charities will be able to purchase additional supplies or provide more services to those most in need because of your generosity.

Given that most charities aren’t collecting clothing items this year due to COVID-19 safety concerns, we had to quickly adapt the purpose of this year’s campaign. The redesigned campaign raised funds through an online fundraising drive that ran from November 23-30. 

“The pandemic has been devastating for our partner charities and the vulnerable people they help. The resources at their disposal are down and the need from the people they serve is up,” said Colette Gerber, Chair, REBGV. “I want to thank all of you for helping to make this year’s campaign a success!” 

Did you know?

The REALTORS Care® Blanket Drive is the largest and longest running blanket drive in British Columbia. Since it began in 1995, it has helped more than 425,000 people in our communities keep warm and dry during the winter months.

Go to www.blanketdrive.ca for more information.

For photos from this year’s campaign, visit www.facebook.com/BlanketDrive.

When is an open house not an open house?

We’re all trying to do our best during these COVID times. Sellers want to get their places shown and sold. Buyers want to be shown places to buy. For us, rent and the bills must be paid. And, no one wants to catch this damned virus, so why tempt fate by holding physical open houses?

We know showings by appointment are allowed as long as the health and safety edicts of the inestimable Dr. Henry are followed. And with all the technological alternatives available, there’s little need for an old-fashioned open house. For those of us who’d rather not get too close to someone outside of their COVID-19 bubble, useful tools to keep us as safe as possible while getting the job done include virtual showings, tours, and Matterport.

In making our choices, we all have to remember that emotions are running high out there. Many of us, and our buyers and sellers, are understandably frightened about the risk of getting sick. Some of our clients are hyper-sensitive about the virus, especially about behaviour they consider risky and unhelpful in keeping “Monsieur Covid” at bay. So, when they see what they think is an open house, they may be concerned and may make judgments of the REALTOR®, the brokerage, and maybe our entire profession. They often follow up with calls to me, the Council, the health department, and heaven knows who else, demanding to know what’s going to be done about the open house scofflaw.

It’s not news that Dr. Henry has urged us to refrain from holding physical open houses.

Oh, and then there’s the rumour about roving bands of reporters looking to do “gotcha” interviews with Realtors holding physical open houses. This would suck, as my son is apt to say. But I digress.

Other clients are the opposite—demanding that their agent hold an open house. Maybe it could be argued theirs was a lawful instruction? But that doesn’t make it any less difficult to have a diplomatic conversation with a client while saying “no” or walking the plank and thinking about cancelling the listing. It’s a tough situation to be in, no doubt.

As with most things these days, the issue of “no open houses” isn’t a black-and-white issue. What’s clearer is that you need to manage your seller’s expectations more than ever, and be aware that neighbours to for-sale properties are watching all of us.

For example, what about the “by appointment only showings” to be held during a two-hour window on the weekend? Is this considered an open house? Pretty close to it, I’d say, but perhaps not over the line and in keeping with Dr. Henry’s wishes—assuming everyone takes care to physically distance. Or what about the “appearance” of holding an open house, which happened when one member who decided to hold a virtual open house placed “real” open house arrows on all the nearby street corners near to the property. Neighbours and members in the area reasonably assumed that a physical open house was being held and quite the hubbub resulted.

What’s the answer?

First, if I may suggest, and if your quality of life is important to you, you need to clearly tell sellers that a physical open house option isn’t on the table for now.

Second, if you’re going to arrange for scheduled showing appointments during a two-hour window on the weekend, don’t call it an open house in your ads and don’t use open house arrows. Make a point of saying in your advertising that no walk-ins will be allowed, with showings being granted only to prequalified buyers who have an appointment. Oh, and set up the appointments far apart so there isn’t a herd of frantic buyers standing around on the sidewalk outside. If that happens, some passersby and neighbours may assume you guessed it, that you’re holding an open house.

And finally, if you plan to hold a virtual open house, don’t put arrows up unless you want to suffer the wrath of the neighbours jumping to conclusions.

And keep in mind the hidden benefits of having to work in a different way through the pandemic. On the personal side, if you’re like me, who isn’t a hugger or big socializer, physical distancing is a boon. Professionally, maybe this is our chance to finally get a life by having weekend afternoons to ourselves for a while. I can see the smiles on your faces now. Christmas shopping anyone?

Top Tip

If you’ve done your holiday shopping and have a bit of time to invest in learning more about new regulatory matters headed your way, I suggest you check out these two links and listen to BCREA’s Broker Community of Practice Zoom recordings:

• BC’s new Land Owner Transparency Act and Registry.
• Council’s plans to add an Administrative Penalty regime to its disciplinary tool kit.

Another year done and it’s time to wish you the very best

My father’s version of “another year done” was “Another year shot to Hell.” Sometimes he’d substitute “day, week or month” for “year,” depending on his mood. But he’d say it most often around this time of year. He’d make his observation while sitting in his favourite chair beside the fire. Usually, with a glass of port in one hand and a chunk of stilton in the other. Completing the picture which, when I was young didn’t strike me as being odd, he’d be wearing his plum-coloured smoking jacket and cravat. I kid you not. God I miss him, especially at Christmas. Thinking about him in his mid-nineties and my mother now, with 100 Christmases past, I can only imagine the holidays they must have had from excellent and over-the-top to depression and World War-bad. But no matter what, they gave themselves to the times with relish. A good example to follow. Carrying on the tradition I’ll be wearing his smoking jacket this Christmas Eve. And maybe there’ll be a snifter of something good close by.

I don’t need to tell you 2020’s been tough. You’d probably have to go back to 1939 to find a year that changed Canadians as much. But we’ve gotten through it. Every generation has had challenges to deal with. This year will one day give you lots of stories to bore your grandchildren with. But silver lining or not, I’m certain Dad would have bid this year goodbye with vigour. Next year will be better, I’m sure of that.

I wish you and your loved ones the best. And, I hope your business prospects in 2021 will be even better than you imagine.

Empty homes tax, Westside homes coming, and federal rent and wage help

Vancouver’s Empty Homes Tax increases to three per cent

The City of Vancouver has tripled the Empty Homes Tax rate to three per cent from the original rate of one per cent when the tax was introduced in 2017.

Read more.

More than 2,600 homes coming to Heather Street – have your say

A rezoning application for the Heather Lands, the former site of RCMP E Division headquarters, proposes to create more than 2,600 homes. Have your say during a city consultation.

Read more.

New federal rent subsidy and extended wage subsidy

The federal Parliament has passed legislation to create emergency rent and wage subsidies to help businesses, non-profits and charities facing economic hardship.

Read more.

Need to renew your license? Here’s what you need to know

We continue to hear that some members need more clarity about the differences in requirements for renewing their license versus renewing their REBGV membership.

At the beginning of 2020, the Real Estate Council of BC (Council) separated its mandatory relicensing education program from the Professional Development Program (PDP), which BCREA and the BC real estate boards administer. This means that any Council courses you completed in 2020 to renew your license don't count toward your PDP requirements for renewing your REBGV membership.

To help you understand this distinction, here are Council’s current license renewal course requirements:

1. Ethics for the Real Estate Professional. Register here.
2. Legal Update 2020. Register here.
3. Anti-Money Laundering in Real Estate. Register here.

For more information about these courses, contact Council at 1-877-927-2077 or education@recbc.ca, or visit the Council’s Continuing Education page.

Why don’t these courses count toward PDP?

The professional development standards required to be a REALTOR® (a licensee who is also a member of a real estate board) are higher than those for solely being a licensee. Having the ability to call yourself a Realtor means that you’ve agreed to follow a more stringent standard for your professional development. It also means you’ve agreed to follow CREA’s Code of Ethics. For REBGV, Fraser Valley, Chilliwack, and BC Northern real estate board members, this includes agreeing to follow the Rules of Cooperation.

To maintain board membership, you must complete 18 PDP hours during each two-year licensing cycle. This is over and above RECBC’s relicensing requirements. The following infographic details these requirements:

Contact us

If you need more information, contact us at education@rebgv.org or 604-730-3087, or visit PDP Education Requirements. We’ve also developed PDP FAQs for additional questions you may have.