All you need to know about COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting every aspect of daily life – including the real estate profession.

To help you navigate these uncertain times, we’ve compiled a list of information and resources.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

Services continue while REBGV offices temporarily close to walk-in traffic

Given the increasing concern around COVID-19, and government’s recommendations to decrease social interactions, we closed our offices to walk-in traffic on Thursday, March 19. All services remain available to members either virtually or by phone.

Contingency measures are being implemented to ensure minimal interruption to our operations. For example, staff are equipped with the capability to work from home to provide you with the service you need to conduct your business.

If you need assistance, or have questions, contact us at our regular phone numbers and email addresses listed below.

Quick contacts

• Member Services: 604-730-3090 (memberservices@rebgv.org)  
• Education: 604-730-3087 (education@rebgv.org) 
• Help Desk: 604-730-3020 (support@rebgv.org) 
• MLS® department: 604-730-3010 (mls@rebgv.org)  
• MLS® fax: 604-730-3100
• Ethics Guy® Kim Spencer: 604-730-3071 (kspencer@rebgv.org) 
• Communications: 604-730-3022 (communications@rebgv.org) 
• Government Relations: 604-730-3029 (hpermut@rebgv.org)

Executive contacts

• Brad Scott, Chief Executive Officer: 604-730-3006 (bscott@rebgv.org)  
• Eileen Day, Chief Operating Officer: 604-730-3028 (eday@rebgv.org) 

Click here to view more REBGV contacts.

All in-person events and courses are postponed

We recently postponed all in-person events and classes until further notice. Click here to read the announcement.

AGM postponed

Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) has been postponed. We’re exploring the possibility of hosting a streaming AGM. We’ll update you as more information becomes available.

Email communication

Email and social media will be our primary communication methods during the pandemic. Please check your email often for our messages. If you’re not receiving emails from us, check your junk mail folder and make sure we’re not being blocked by any anti-spam software. If you’re still not seeing messages from us, contact Member Services.

REALTOR® resources

REBGV strongly recommends no Open Houses

With concerns about the spread of COVID-19, your Board strongly recommends that all members refrain from holding Open Houses.

We’re making this recommendation after consulting with our Broker community and assessing the latest information and commentary from public health and other government authorities. Click here for more. 

MLS® rule change for showings 

Effective March 16, we removed the rule requiring that properties listed on MLS® be made available for showings. 

This change took effect on March 16 and will remain in place until, at least, April 30. Click here for more.

COVID-19 FAQ: Dealing with contracts and disclosure requirements

How we practice real estate in BC is being altered by the latest social distancing directives from government. To help you through these changes related to Standard Forms and other transaction-related issues, BCREA has created an FAQ. Click here to read the FAQ.

COVID-19 and the housing market

One of the biggest questions about COVID-19 and real estate is how it'll impact the market. BCREA’s economics team created a new Market Intelligence report to help answer this question. Click here to read the report. 

Social Media updates 

For the latest information on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it's affecting Board operations and the professiona and market, follow us on social media.

• REBGV Facebook page
• REBGV Realtors’ Facebook Group
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Instagram

Client resources

How to navigate today’s housing market given COVID-19 concerns

We’ve created an article to help buyers and sellers understand what to expect during the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here to read this article and share it with your clients.

 

REBGV strongly reccomends refraining from holding open houses

We've issued a news release that strongly recommends REALTORS® and their clients refrain from holding open houses at this time. Click here to read it. 

Government support

The federal government has announced measures to help support small businesses through the COVID-19 crisis. Click here to read the official release.

The federal government also announced an economic relief package, which includes an Emergency Care Benefit for Canadians who don’t qualify for EI. This benefit provides up to $900 bi-weekly for up to 15 weeks. This flat-payment benefit would be administered through the Canada Revenue Agency and provide income support to:

• Workers, including the self-employed, who are quarantined or sick with COVID-19, but do not qualify for EI sickness benefits.
• Workers, including the self-employed, who are taking care of a family member who is sick with COVID-19, such as an elderly parent, but do not quality for EI sickness benefits.
• Parents with children who require care or supervision due to school closures, and are unable to earn employment income, irrespective of whether they qualify for EI or not.

You can apply for the benefit starting in April 2020. 

Tax deferment

For individuals other than trusts, the tax return filing due date will be deferred until June 1, 2020. For trusts having a taxation year ending on December 31, 2019, the return filing due date will be deferred until May 1, 2020.

Businesses can defer payment of any income tax amounts that become owing on or after March 18 and before September 2020 until after August 31, 2020.

Mortgages

The federal government, through CMHC, is providing increased flexibility for homeowners facing financial difficulties to defer mortgage payments on homeowner CMHC-insured mortgage loans. CMHC is permitting lenders to allow payment deferral.

Temporary wage subsidy

The government is proposing to provide eligible small employers a temporary wage subsidy for a period of three months. The subsidy will be equal to 10 per cent of remuneration paid during that period, up to a maximum subsidy of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. 

Businesses will be able to benefit immediately from this support by reducing their remittances of income tax withheld on their employees’ remuneration. Employers benefiting from this measure will include corporations eligible for the small business deduction.

Other COVID-19 resources

• BC Centre for Disease Control – Latest Updates
• BC Centre for Disease Control – FAQ
• BC Government
• HealthLinkBC
• Government of Canada
• World Health Organization – Latest Updates
• World Health Organization – FAQ

The Ethics Guy®: “I’m in favour of progress, it’s just change I don’t like.” - Mark Twain

The times are a-changing – and so quickly. What’s happened to all of us since New Year’s Day?  Remember that time a short while ago when we only worried about the loss of limited dual agency, how to double-recuse ourselves, dealing with unrepresented buyers, and figuring out how to use Council’s new disclosure forms? 

I wrote this column on March 9, 2020. By noon that day I’d received four COVID-19 warning messages. (How quaint, only four? We’ve all had a blizzard of them since).

An investment advisor told me not to panic about my shrivelled investment portfolio. He said it would come back (in whose lifetime, I wonder). LandlordBC’s message reminded landlords to wipe down their rental property’s common areas and not, under any circumstances, to let other tenants know if one of them has COVID-19. The exercise place I don’t frequent reminded me I should wipe down equipment surfaces before I use them and, by the way, I should wash my hands and body at every opportunity. For reasons I can’t fathom, they decided to remove mouthwash from the bathrooms. I would have thought it a courtesy to have sweet breath when breathing COVID-19 onto others. Oh, and then there were the calls from members, quite understandably asking about showings, open houses, and procedures for sellers in quarantine. (Hint: have a look at the Board’s two recent COVID-19 notices sent on March 13 and 16, 2020).

I haven’t yet received a message from my mechanic, insisting I should decontaminate my garage before he comes over. But I’m sure one will come. He’s in his 70s and he needs to be careful. I’ve pleaded with him not to die on me before I get tired of my car hobby. “Die?” he says. “Are you kidding? No way, you’re my best customer. Without you, I’d be broke.” 

He’s older than me, at an age I once considered ancient. It’s no longer a theoretical possibility I could reach his age, unless this COVID-19 thing gets in the way. Reading The Sunday Times, I learned to my dismay, anyone’s chances of succumbing to COVID-19 increases as we get older. And, if you’re a man, all the bets are off since we seem to keel over twice as much as women. I’ve been telling my wife for years I get sicker than she does, but all I’ve been getting for my troubles is an eye-roll. 

Now, I’m wondering if you’re wondering if we’re washing our hands enough. It goes without saying we should wash our hands before leaving the loo. But, after our hands are clean as the driven snow, we’re faced with how to deal with a running faucet and door handle. We imagine all those little viruses happily wriggling away on their surfaces, waiting to attach themselves to our hands and thence, to our nose, eyes and mouth. Not touching the faucet and door handles is easily remedied with a paper towel, judging from the used paper towels I’ve seen strewn about the bathrooms I frequent. 

There’s more. 

For how long, do our hands stay clean? Emerging from the loo like a surgeon, our hands are only virus-free for a minute, roughly the time it takes to touch something others have touched, like the photocopier, elevator buttons, the dreaded door handle, keyboard, or phone. The list goes on. Gosh, what about the blotter on my desk? How many death-dealing viruses live on it? 

And then there are all those we’re likely to come into contact with during the day, for example the member who popped into my office to ask me a question. A nice fellow two months ago, now, I fear he’s a walking contagion factory. Clutching a piece of paper, he offered it to me for a look. I regretted not having a pair of tweezers to take it from him. Not wanting to cause offense, I took the paper, handling it as if it were made of Polonium. Our discussion was efficient so as to expedite his leaving, only to have him thrust his hand at me, hoping it would be shaken (which I did). Then, it was off to the bathroom again for another hand-wash. 

Which brings us back to Mark Twain’s goal of making progress without change. Regardless of what happens over the next while, people love to buy and sell real estate. They need us to help them do this. It'll be hard to, but let’s not overreact. Let’s balance what’s in the best interest of our clients with a thought for our own health. We’re going to get really good at hand-washing and social distancing. But those very good practices shouldn’t get in the way of helping clients understand the market. They need us now more than ever. That’s our value proposition, so let’s not change what we do in that department.  Worry, fear, and panic buying aren’t an antidote to the virus. Washing our hands, doing the fist-bump, and self-isolation are. 

Here’s another perspective: On the weekend, a Sunday Times reporter asked a passerby in Rome what she thought about the whole of Italy being quarantined. She replied, “This virus thing? That’s not bad. The Fourth Century was bad. Rome was sacked, and we also had the bubonic plague.” 

Let’s keep things in perspective: I’m just going to continue going about my business and hoping for the best. What else can we do? Going further north from Italy, I can hear the Brits saying, keep calm and carry on.  

COVID-19 – there’s an app for that.

Top Tip - Strata Insurance

With all the hubbub about strata insurance, I suggest you have a conversation with your strata sellers and buyers to acquaint them with what’s going on. There'll be some sellers, perhaps absentee owners or those who don’t read their property manager’s messages, who won’t understand the paradigm shift in thinking about strata ownership caused by massive insurance premium and deductible increases. 

I try not to be alarmist, but you’ve got to think there are going to be some consequences to all of this. How will the strata market be affected? What new policies and costs will stratas impose on unit owners, for example, aggressive re-piping, bigger budgets addressing deferred maintenance, and the commissioning of property depreciation reports put off, perhaps, for years. What will owning a strata look like in 2022 and beyond? Think about this if you’re working with buyers – do they understand, as Donald Rumsfeld so eloquently put it, “there are known unknowns” and possibly, “unknown unknowns,” that may affect strata owners? (Seriously, google “known unknowns” to hear Secretary Rumsfeld’s famous remarks).

Obviously, we’re not insurance agents. Our job is to identify known strata insurance issues like the new potential for big premium increases, larger deductibles and more aggressive maintenance costs, and to suggest our buyers get advice about this from professional insurance agents, lawyers, and the like. If your buyers are on a tight budget, they should consider leaving a bit of leeway in their cash-flow projections to deal with increased strata fees next year, and the year after that. For the foreseeable future, we should think about inserting the strata insurance approval clause into our contracts unless, of course, our buyers specifically instruct otherwise, in which case, we’re going to make sure we keep a record of these instructions on file. 

Work with me here. Maybe there’s a silver lining to all of this. Insurance agents tell me there are a lot of older buildings with deferred maintenance that don’t have depreciation reports. There’s been no re-piping, re-caulking, painting, or rain-screening, and the roof and boiler are old. 

This isn’t good for anyone. 

Sure, the strata fees have been low – because only the barest minimum of maintenance has been done. This kind of building maintenance regime will have to change – strata insurance underwriters will see to this. 

Maybe this is a good thing. 

A well-maintained building is a lower risk to buyers, sellers, and our own sweet selves. Sure, it’ll be expensive to deal with deferred maintenance. What’s the benefit? Better housing stock, more robust depreciation reports, fewer insurance claims, lower premiums, and most important, confidence in a product at least 60 per cent of BC homeowners like to buy.

 

New mortgage insurance program, bank rate drop, stress test changes on hold

The federal government has brought in two initiatives to help home buyers – including a bank rate cut and cancelled the proposed stress test reduction.

Read more.

Strata insurance update – six industry initiatives

Your Board has been closely monitoring rising strata insurance premiums – a complex issue without a simple solution. We’re participating in six initiatives aiming to find solutions.  

Read more.

Facts about the strata contingency reserve fund  

Strata corporations are required to establish a contingency reserve fund under the Strata Property Act and collect funds for unforeseen expenses. Can these funds be used for unexpected insurance premiums? 

Read more.

Building support with federal MPs 

The B-20 stress test was slated for improvement thanks to the diligent advocacy of CREA and your Board’s government relations advocacy. This is now on hold as a result of two recent bank rate drops.

Read more.

No in-person courses in Vancouver or Coquitlam; online webinars available

We’re not currently hosting in-person courses in Vancouver or Coquitlam due to mounting concerns surrounding COVID-19.

To help, we’ve converted most of our courses to live webinars so you won’t miss out on fulfilling your PDP requirements. If you’ve already registered for a course, we’ll send you the information you need to access your webinar shortly.

You can register for our webinars online on our Course Catalogue or by calling 604-730-3090.

Here are some things to keep in mind when taking our webinars:

• You’ll receive a link to your webinar and course materials in a confirmation email.
• You must be online for the full length of the webinar to receive your PDP hours, and you'll be asked to confirm your attendance at various times during the webinar.
• Each webinar will have a 30-minute break (approximately), but you can stand and stretch as needed.
• You can ask questions of your instructor using a chat feature.
• Please refrain from checking email or using the internet during the webinar.

Click here to find an upcoming webinar in our Course Catalogue.

Questions? Contact us at education@rebgv.org or 604-730-3087.