Three things to look out for in Metro Vancouver’s 2022 real estate market

Our Economist Keith Stewart recently presented his 2022 Housing Market Forecast to an online audience of nearly 800 members.

Here are three key takeaways from Keith’s forecast.

Year-over-year sales will decline 9 to 20 per cent in 2022

It’s difficult to set a record for sales two years in a row, so the real question is what kind of decline will we see? Our forecast sees a decline of around 12.5 per cent for the REBGV area, which would be approximately 38,600 sales compared to the record of nearly 44,000 sales in 2021. The declines will vary between areas and property types.

And while doom-and-gloom media headlines would jump on a double-digit decline in a year-over-year sales total, context is important to keep in mind. A sales total of 38,600 in 2022 would be 17 per cent above the 10-year average for the region and would register as the fourth-highest total in the last 10 years.

A continuing lack of supply will keep upward pressure on prices

There hasn’t been a smaller pool of homes for the region’s buyers to choose from to start a new year in the last 30 years. Low inventory has been the key driver behind the price growth we saw throughout 2021, and it doesn’t look like there will be relief until at least the second half of 2022.

What will help inventory replenish? New construction of a diverse and more streamlined supply of homes coming onto the market would help break the logjam of availability. The ugly answer? The continued deterioration of affordability will push more potential buyers out of the market.

The X factors: Government intervention and rising interest rates

Rumblings about potential interventions from both the federal and provincial governments have been growing. Provincially, it’s likely the government will implement a cooling-off period for all resales in BC, like what’s in place for pre-sales. Federally, there’s been talk of an “anti-flipping” tax and a ban on so-called blind bidding.

And we already saw interest rates creep up to close 2021. The Bank of Canada will raise rates this year, which will have a suppressing effect on sales. A sharper rise in rates, especially early in the year, will in turn see a sharper decline in sales.

Watch Keith's forecast online

Watch a recording of Keith’s presentation below and read his full presentation online.

2022 REBGV Board of Directors election results

Thanks to all members who voted in our 2022 Board of Directors election. The voting period ran between January 14 - 21.

Out of 14,534 eligible voters, 2,384 members voted this year. This represents a 16.4 per cent voter turnout.

Here are the results:

Matthew Lee - Macdonald Platinum Marketing Ltd. - 1,153 votes - elected to a two-year term

Randy Ryalls - Royal LePage Sterling Realty - 1,092 votes - elected to a two-year term

Arnold Shuchat - Sutton Group West Coast Realty - 1,028 votes - elected to a two-year term

Sam Wyatt - Stillhavn Real Estate Services - 975 votes - elected to a two-year term

Jason Wood - Stonehaus Realty Corp. - 940 votes - elected to a one-year term

Michael Mitsiadis - Royal Pacific Realty Corp. - 836 votes

Gemma Wilson - Keller Williams Elite Realty - 630 votes

Stephan Sun - Saba Realty LTD - 385 votes

The devil’s in the detail

A conversation with an unhappy buyer a few days ago gave me an opportunity to consider how different situations can appear to others from their point of view. He was most definitely an unhappy camper.

Our conversation started off via email, with me getting more and more formal with him as time went by. I tend to do this whenever it looks like the temperature is rising. In these situations, I’ve found it’s best to become very polite and very formal. At least, this mostly works for me. Email, text and letters are often a lousy way of communicating with anyone who is upset. This is because written communication doesn’t often do a great job of conveying emotion and context, so it’s easy to get the wrong impression. And wrong impressions can lead to difficult conversations.

Back to the unhappy buyer. He was getting madder and madder, saying that the BC Financial Services Authority and the Board weren’t interested in his issue (more on this below). He suggested we and the regulator were deflecting to each other and that he’d next be going to the media. The ultimate threat, I suppose. It’s like playing the lawyer card. “Oh yeah? How about if I call my lawyer and sue you? Would that get your attention?”

It did get me thinking about the divide between standards and perception. This buyer’s perception of what had happened is important, even when no rule has been broken or standard breached. What then?

This kind of thing keeps us up at night, especially now with government intervention looming. It wouldn’t be good to see another article in the media saying, “their system is all wrong”.

So, after a few email messages, we had a conversation on the phone. The jist of it was that he’d spotted an interesting property on realtor.ca. He may have been sitting next to a pool at the time, in a resort south of the border. A resident of Metro Vancouver in the summer, he spends his time in warmer climes in the winter. He’d spotted the listing and it interested him, and he’d noticed it was a delayed offer situation. He talked to his REALTOR® but didn’t say he wanted to write an offer—just that he was just interested in the place. Then, a day or two later, he checked the listing again, as one does when there’s something of interest posted, discovering that the place sold early. “What the heck,” he had said to himself. “The listing had said offers on a particular day. Now it’s sold early. I missed my chance and I’m mad as hell.”

Our phone call went well after we figured out that we’re both grumpy old men. He softened somewhat when I explained what our protocol is; namely, our rules focus on member actions, while keeping client’s wishes in mind.

I asked, “Did you tell your Realtor you wanted to write an offer? Because if you had, he could have advised the seller’s agent in writing that he wanted to be kept informed, which would have required the seller’s agent to let your agent know when the early offer came in.” He understood. But he felt that once said, the seller’s original offer date should have been set in concrete. Why was it up to him to jump through hoops?

He’s probably less unhappy now, but he’s still annoyed and thinks our system isn’t right. Think about this when you’re dealing with buyers. Explain the protocols to them. And, if you’re a seller’s agent, do you really have to delay offers? I mean, it’s not like it’s a requirement.

Top Tip

It’s all fine until it’s not, as they say. So the next time you’re approached by someone offering to build you a fancy four-colour flyer showing recent market activity, stop and think about the REALTOR® Code’s Article 14 and Rules of Cooperation, Section 8 – Advertising, before you pony up and pay them to create and mail the flyer to homeowners.

Specifically, please remember that the advertising of listings is generally restricted to the seller’s brokerage. Publicly advertising a sale price before closing is a problem. Also, all solicitation materials must show your brokerage’s name and must include a disclaimer: “This is not intended to induce a breach of an existing agency agreement.” All information must be accurate, not misleading, and all claims must be supported, with any exceptions to offers being noted in the copy. To be fair, a third-party flyer builder may not know what our standards are, so it’s up to you to keep these rules in mind when you look at the draft copy. The PDP course Advertising Do's and Don’ts is available if you need to brush up on this information.

Bouquet

Congratulations, Tony Zandberger, PREC, Re/Max Treeland Realty, Langley! Margaret Wong, PREC, Dexter Realty, Vancouver is sending you a bouquet. Here’s why:

“I was working with one of my best long-time clients in finding a property. After losing out on four offers, the buyer exhaustion set in.  I saw this beautiful one bedroom in the West End that Tony Z and his team had listed.  I sent the listing to my buyer right away and he said, ‘Let’s go see it.’

“We booked an appointment with Tony Z and his team (the listing agent).  The experience from the first encounter has been exceptional.  Response has always been prompt, pleasant, professional, and courteous from anyone on the team.

“They had all the documents ready to go, and the showing REALTOR® was early and had the place all ready to show (lights on, blinds up, and fireplace roaring). They had comparables available on the table; all was very prepared.

“On offer day, the lead listing agent kept us all updated through consistent Touchbase messages and, again, all correspondence was responded to promptly. As you can imagine, the last 30 minutes prior to the offer submission time can get pretty intense. Throughout the entire process, the listing agent kept us informed, including when they would meet with sellers and when we should expect an answer. We did win this property.

“It was a tremendous pleasure working with Tony Z, Clint, and everyone on their team. I would hope to have more opportunities to collaborate with them in future transactions.”

Congratulations, Margaret Wong! Here’s what Melissa Carr from Tony Z had to say about you!

“Margaret was wonderful as well! I, too, noticed she was very prepared for the showing. Asked lots of questions but was also prepared with the docs she needed when viewing the unit as well. Never pushy, super complimentary, and very professional for her buyer. She, too, went the extra step.”

REBGV removing reciprocal lockbox access to REALTORS® outside of the Lower Mainland in response to recent security incidents

In consultation with real estate boards across the province, your Board is temporarily halting reciprocal lockbox access for REALTORS® who are not members of either REBGV or the Fraser Valley or Chilliwack real estate boards. REALTORS® from the other real estate boards in BC will now need to contact their respective board first if they want access to one of your lockboxes.

We’re making this change to help secure the lockbox system in response to recent criminal activity where hackers have gained access to members' email addresses, logged into their lockbox accounts and ultimately accessed homes listed for sale.

These security incidents have resulted in as many as 20 known attempted lockbox breaches, two cases of property theft and other instances of keys being stolen from lockboxes. One recent case at a strata property resulted in a Realtor having to pay more than $5,000 to have the building rekeyed.

Please exercise extreme vigilance with your email and lockbox security to help prevent further incidents. You can do this by taking extra steps to verify the identity of those you're working with and following the security recommendations below.

Protect your information

Since email is the hackers' primary point of entry, and they're sophisticated enough to impersonate a Realtor, we recommend you follow these safe practices:

• Be guarded when communicating through Touchbase. Take extra steps to authenticate unknown/unfamiliar senders by double-checking the contact info with their brokerage, the Board office, Google, etc.
• Ensure the phone number and email address associated with your Touchbase account is correct. Reset your password.
• Change your email and Sentrilock account passwords. Do not use the same password for both accounts.
• Do not generate One-Day Showing codes. A perpetrator who gains access to an unsuspecting Realtor’s account can use a Touchbase account to request a One-Day Showing Code to gain access to your lockbox.
• Don’t open links from unknown senders or from those whose identity you can’t confirm.
• Be suspicious of any official looking email message that asks for personal or financial information.
• Before clicking on a link, see if it’s safe or not by hovering over the link to see where it directs you.
• Be suspicious of emails or text messages sent to you in general. Check where it came from or if there are spelling or grammatical errors.
• Check your email account to see if your emails are being forwarded without your knowledge. If you don’t know how to do this, contact your email provider.
• Malicious links can also come from friends who have been infected too, so be careful.

What action is REBGV taking?

We’re in contact with police and are meeting regularly with senior representatives from our lockbox supplier and our counterparts from BC’s other real estate boards to address this situation. Our goal is to counter potential threats and secure the lockbox system without unduly disrupting your day-to-day operations.

To achieve this, we've taken the following actions:

• Halting reciprocal lockbox privileges: Automatic reciprocal lockbox privileges have been temporarily suspended for all BC Real Estate Boards except between REBGV and the Fraser Valley and Chilliwack real estate boards. Access to properties in the other boards in the province can be obtained only by calling your Board office, prior to planning a visit to show properties outside the Lower Mainland.
• Verifying Touchbase updates/changes: Board staff are now individually verifying all phone number changes that members are making on their Touchbase account.
• One-device policy: Along with other BC boards, we’ve instituted a one-device policy with Sentrilock, so that only one device can be registered per member at a time.
• Limiting new devices: Members who need to register a new device must first contact the Board to verify their identity.
• Verifying account updates: No changes or updates can be made to your REBGV account settings without Board staff verifying your identity first.
• Multi-factor authentication: Discussions are underway with Sentrilock and Clareity to incorporate multi-factor authentication measures for account access as soon as possible.

What to do if your lockbox is breached

If you experience a lockbox breach or act of vandalism, please contact:

• local law enforcement;
• the Managing Broker of your brokerage office; and
• REBGV at 604-730-3090.

We appreciate your cooperation as we work to enhance the security of our lockbox system. We’ll continue to provide updates as we learn more.

What's happening with employment trends? Read your Board's jobs report to find out

REBGV Economist Keith Stewart's latest job report for Metro Vancouver is out now! Learn more about the employment trends observed through the end of 2021 and how this activity could impact the housing market in 2022.

Highlights include:

• Unemployment figures in Metro Vancouver continued to trend downward in December 2021.
• Metro Vancouver's unemployment rate is outperforming Canada's other large metro areas.
• Core employment rates are converging between Metro Vancouver and other regions in Canada, pointing to stronger economic growth.
• Some occupations are growing faster than others.

Read the report today!

New videos highlight key elements of Keith's COVID-19 report

Keith's Where Have All the Homes Gone report on Metro Vancouver's housing market activity during the COVID-19 pandemic was released in December.

Watch two new videos from Keith that take a deeper look at the information presented in the report.

In the first video, Keith keys in on MLS® statistics and what they can tell us:

In the next video, Keith examines buyer and seller trends: