One week to go: Celebrate your Board’s centennial at this year’s AGM

One week from today, we’ll celebrate our Board’s 100th birthday at our Annual General Meeting (AGM).

I invite all members to come celebrate this historic event with us on March 13 at the Delta Burnaby Hotel and Conference Centre at 4331 Dominion Street in Burnaby.

This won’t be our average AGM. Alongside the regular business proceedings, this year’s event will include a hot breakfast, birthday cake, keynote speaker Leonard Brody and an announcement that every member will want to hear.

Pre-register

To help us prepare, please confirm your attendance with Member Services by calling 604-730-3090 or emailing memberservices@rebgv.org. You can also register online (login required).

Meeting day

The event will begin at 8 a.m. with registration and a hot breakfast. The AGM will begin at 9 a.m.

Meeting package

Click here to download the AGM meeting package.

About Leonard Brody

After the AGM, entrepreneur and Creative Labs co-founder Leonard Brody will give a keynote address (approximately 11 a.m.).

Brody was recently named one of the top 30 up-and-coming management thinkers in the world. He’s an award-winning venture capitalist, bestselling author, and a two-time Emmy-nominated media visionary. He also oversees new ventures for some of the most well-known celebrities and political leaders around the world.

As we celebrate our past, Brody’s insights will help provide a vision for our future.

Who can attend?

All members can attend. You’ll need to present your membership ID at the door for admission.

Proxy forms

A proxy form allows you to assign your vote to another member if you’re unable to attend. Remember: you can only bring one proxy form. All other forms will be voided.

What you’re voting on

Members will vote on three special resolutions at the AGM. Here’s an overview:

• Special Resolution 1 - to delete transitional provisions put in place in 2017 when members voted to end the Area structure. At that time, those Area chairs automatically served as Directors as per our bylaws. The terms for those Directors have all expired as of this year, so the transition rules are no longer applicable.
• Special Resolution 2 - to limit Directors’ terms to a consecutive period of no more than six years, and a cumulative lifetime maximum of 10 years, both of which exclude years served as President, President-Elect, and past President.
• Special Resolution 3 - would entrench the longstanding practice of past REBGV presidents not returning to serve as a Director except to carry out their one-year term as immediate past president.

Review the meeting package for more details on these proposed bylaw amendments.

Event location

The meeting will take place at the Delta Burnaby Hotel and Conference Centre by Marriott in the Grand Villa Ballroom at 4331 Dominion Street in Burnaby.

March 13 will be a day of celebration, an opportunity to learn about initiatives and services your Board is working on, and a chance to get together with your fellow REALTORS®.

Please take the time to register and celebrate this special event with us. I hope to share a slice of birthday cake with you all!

Sincerely,

Phil Moore
REBGV president.

100 years of memories: Our MLS® is born

In March 1951, a Vancouver REALTOR® named John P. Roberts (pictured here) submitted a report to the Vancouver Real Estate Board on a new, cooperative form of listing property information. It was the first step in creating what’s now known as the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS®, in Canada.

Roberts and others had long pondered a way for members to share listing information with a guarantee of cooperation. His report was circulated among the membership to gauge support, and with that support in hand, the Board created the Cooperative Listing Bureau (CLB). Roberts was named chairman.

In the first year of existence, the CLB had just 19 subscribers. Each subscriber paid $30 per month to finance operations. Throughout the year, members met regularly at dinner meetings to nurture a growing spirit of cooperation.

The public learned about cooperative listing through advertisements in newspapers and on radio and TV. After a year, the CLB doubled its membership, and by the end of 1952 it had reached more than 90.

Sales volumes rose in step, with a then unprecedented $2 million recorded in sales in 1952. Just two years later, the CLB recorded its first “million-dollar month” with over $1 million in sales volumes in June 1954.

Later that year, we changed the name from the Cooperative Listing Bureau to the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) of the Vancouver Real Estate Board.

In 1962, we assigned the MLS® trademark to the Canadian Association of Real Estate Boards, now CREA, so Realtors across the country could use it.

Today, our innovation is the standard for reliable, accurate, and comprehensive real estate information in Canada.

Housing market conditions continue to favour home buyers

The Metro Vancouver housing market saw increased supply from home sellers and below average demand from home buyers in February.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential home sales in the region totalled 1,484 in February 2019, a 32.8 per cent decrease from the 2,207 sales recorded in February 2018, and a 34.5 per cent increase from the 1,103 homes sold in January 2019.

Last month’s sales were 42.5 per cent below the 10-year February sales average.

“For much of the past four years, we’ve been in a sellers’ market. Conditions have shifted over the last 12 months to favour buyers, particularly in the detached home market,” Phil Moore, REBGV president said. “This means that home buyers face less competition today, have more selection to choose from and more time to make their decisions.”

There were 3,892 detached, attached and apartment properties newly listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in Metro Vancouver in February 2019. This represents a 7.8 per cent decrease compared to the 4,223 homes listed in February 2018 and a 19.7 per cent decrease compared to the 4,848 homes listed in January 2019.

The total number of homes currently listed for sale on the MLS® system in Metro Vancouver is 11,590, a 48.2 per cent increase compared to February 2018 (7,822) and a 7.2 per cent increase compared to January 2019 (10,808).

For all property types, the sales-to-active listings ratio for February 2019 is 12.8 per cent.

Generally, analysts say that downward pressure on home prices occurs when the ratio dips below the 12 per cent mark for a sustained period, while home prices often experience upward pressure when it surpasses 20 per cent over several months.

“Homes priced well for today’s market are attracting interest, however, buyers are choosing to take a wait-and-see approach for the time being,” Moore said. “REALTORS® continue to experience more traffic at open houses. We’ll see if this trend leads to increased sales activity during the spring market.”

The MLS® Home Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver is currently $1,016,600. This represents a 6.1 per cent decrease over February 2018, a 6.2 per cent decrease over the past six months, and a 0.3 per cent decrease compared to January 2019.

Sales of detached homes in February 2019 reached 448, a 27.9 per decrease cent from the 621 detached sales recorded in February 2018. The benchmark price for detached properties is $1,443,100. This represents a 9.7 per cent decrease from February 2018, a 7.6 per cent decrease over the past six months, and a 0.7 per cent decrease compared to January 2019.

Sales of apartment homes reached 759 in February 2019, a 35.9 per cent decrease compared to the 1,185 sales in February 2018. The benchmark price of an apartment property is $660,300. This represents a four per cent decrease from February 2018, a 5.1 per cent decrease over the past six months, and a 0.3 per cent increase compared to January 2019.

Attached home sales in February 2019 totalled 277, a 30.9 per cent decrease compared to the 401 sales in February 2018. The benchmark price of an attached unit is $789,300. This represents a 3.3 per cent decrease from February 2018, a 6.7 per cent decrease over the past six months, and a 1.4 per cent decrease compared to January 2019.

The Ethics Guy®: A hierarchy of posterior-covering stuff to consider

My legal “consigliere,” Brian Taylor, never disappoints with his simple, common-sense advice. I was reminded of this when chatting before and after the making of the most recent Ethics Guy® Top Tip Video.

In the video, Taylor reminds us that it isn’t up to the complainant, whether buyer, seller, or other person, to convince a court or the Council that we did or didn’t do something. The onus is generally on us, as professionals and agents, to convince a judge or a complaints panel that we met the expected standard.

One way of doing this is to “paper a file” with records and documents that support the advice or warnings we’ve given to our clients. We’ve all seen the contracts of purchase and sale with clauses like, “As-is, where is;” “Buyer is satisfied with the size of the place so don’t come crying to me if it turns out to be too small;” “Are you sure you really want to buy this place. I think you’ve taken leave of your senses so, when you regain them and take me to task for getting you into this deal, I want this clause to remind you that I told you to talk to a lawyer first before signing the contract.”

This practice is used in other professions, too. My doctor once asked me to sign my chart because I’ve been ignoring his advice about cholesterol for years. Apparently, I have high marks in that department. And, since I don’t like the notion of living on water, fruit, quinoa, kale, and God-knows whatever else might be good for me (I like bacon bits too much), he insisted that I initial my chart, right beside some number that’s apparently too high, confirming to any regulator sniffing around his practice that I was duly warned. I think he must have taken a risk management course just before he saw me.

So if the onus is generally on us to convince a judge that we warned our buyer not to go in with a non-subject deal in a multiple offer presentation, what’s a good course of action in our own practice?

For starters, always make sure you have a clear conversation with your clients about the risk you’re warning them about. To buttress this, put something in writing for the file that supports the advice you gave. “In writing” can take many forms.

Here’s my hierarchy of backup documents you’ll want to make sure are in your listing and deal file if the courts or a regulator ever come calling.

1. No written backup at all: If the risk is small and you’re prepared to accept the consequences if something goes wrong, have the conversation and leave it at that.
2. Note to file: Summarizing what you did or said by making notes in your file can be compelling. If you’ve been paying attention to a certain American law enforcement agency’s investigation into a certain high public official’s alleged actions, you may have noticed that at least two terminated agents have said they made notes for their file describing what they saw, did, and heard in various meetings. Such notes are good in the absence of anything else, but there are better options.
3. Text message: Text is best for informal conversations; for example, advising when you’re going to be late to a showing. But a text could also be used to confirm advice given or instructions received. You could write, for example, “Just want to confirm you don’t want to counter the Chan offer. Please confirm.” Capture a screen shot on your phone and save it to the file.
4. Email message: Email is better than text because you write the same thing as above, but you can also set a “read receipt” and/or a “delivery receipt.” Plus, you don’t have to fiddle about taking a picture of some long text thread. You can save an email thread to file much easier.
5. Letter: It’s more formal, but a signed letter from you to your client, confirming something you want confirmed, has heft. Take a page from our legal friends. They send letters more than email messages and texts.
6. Clause in the contract: Including a clause in the contract is a good thing to do. However, keep in mind that some clauses may inadvertently give away your client’s personal information to the other side. Before taking this step, consider whether it would be more appropriate to put this advice in a separate agent-client communication: for example, “I’ve warned this buyer he needs to put in a subject to financing clause because he’s not going to win the lottery by next week. And he needs to, because there’s no way he can buy this place unless someone gives him a mortgage.” You get the idea.
7. Notarized statement/statutory declaration: A notarized statement carries a lot of heft. If you think you need the strength of a notarized statement, talk to your broker about the situation first.
8. Stone tablet brought down from a mountain: This would be tad cumbersome to write, but one confirming what you said would sure be impressive!

Other than writing stuff down to put in your file, what else can you do?

Consider adopting standard language explaining the concepts and advice you often give. If you always explain something the same way in response to a particular circumstance, and one day a client says you didn’t, you could, for example, ask three of your other clients to whom you said the same thing to confirm what you said to the court or Council.

By developing the habit of taking notes, explaining things in a standardized way, following up on advice or instructions given/received in writing, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief and very likely prevent a costly misunderstanding in the first place.

Now… I have a hankering for some bacon-flavoured chips. It’s okay; you don’t need to send me a warning message!

GR Voice

Nothing for home buyers in Budget 2019

The BC Budget 2019 tabled on February 19, 2019 by Finance Minister Carole James contained no new tax hikes or cuts, including no changes to the Property Transfer Tax (PTT).

Read more.

BC launches first-of-a kind pre-sale condo registry

The BC Ministry of Finance introduced a new Condo and Strata Assignment Integrity Register (CSAIR) to track condominium pre-sales throughout the province.

Read more.

Government addressed tax fraud and closes loopholes in the real estate market

In 2018, the government implemented six initiatives to address tax fraud and close loopholes in the real estate market.

Read more.

Before you tweet or post

Never post a comment that could be considered defamatory – a comment that isn’t true and causes harm to someone's reputation. Find out what can happen if you do. Also find out what to do if someone defames you.

Read more.

Updated standard forms include Speculation Tax clauses

The BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) announced changes to the following standard forms effective February 28:

Residential Contract of Purchase & Sale

A new clause (clause 7) has been added to the information page to explain new references to the Speculation and Vacancy Tax in clause 11A. Clause 11A has been revised and renumbered to include references to buyer’s and seller’s responsibilities now that the Speculation and Vacancy Tax has come into effect.

Commercial Contract of Purchase & Sale

In clause 25, Social Service Tax Act has been replaced with Provincial Sales Tax Act. This change reflects the fact that the Social Services Tax Act was repealed in 2013 and Provincial Sales Tax (PST) is now governed by the Provincial Sales Tax Act.

In addition, the purchase price was added to the first page of the contract as Clause 4.1. This better reflects the wording on page 3 of the contract (Clause 14 Purchase Price) where it refers to Clause 4.1.

Assignment of Contract of Purchase & Sale – New Development

Clauses 5.6 has been updated to reflect the fact that the assignor is responsible for getting the developer’s written consent to assign the contract if consent is required under the terms of the contract or the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA). This clause also outlines what information the developer must collect regarding the assignee and assignor.

In addition, on page 10, a third clause (Clause 3) has been added to reflect REDMA and the developer’s new responsibilities to collect certain information from the assignor and assignee.

Tenant Occupied Property – Buyer’s Notice to Seller for Vacant Possession

This form has been updated to make it easier for a buyer to request that a seller give notice to tenants living in a property that the buyer has just purchased.

Updated Data Input Form available March 13

An updated Residential Data Input Form will be available for use on March 13.

The updates are based on member feedback and designed to include more relevant details about your listing.

Some fields are moving to better align with the way data is entered in Paragon, some fields are being renamed for clarity, and some will get new options. Here are some examples:

• Type of Dwelling field will be expanded to specify detached, attached, and multi-family options.
• The Rooms and Bathrooms fields will be expanded to include a higher room total.
• New fields for Sewer Type and Metered Water.
• New options in the Style of Home, Title to Land, Amenities, and Maintenance Fee Includes fields.
• A new View field with more options for the view description.

You can find the updated form on WEBForms starting on March 13.  

Watch BCREA’s Conversations on Cannabis videos

The BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) has launched a Conversations on Cannabis video series. The series looks at the risks and opportunities that homeowners need to consider regarding the legalization of cannabis and buying or selling real estate.

Watch the first video to see REALTOR® and CFAX radio host Tony Joe speaking with mortgage broker trainer Dustan Woodhouse on the risks of growing cannabis when it comes to financing, refinancing, and protecting the value of your home.

In the latest video, Tony Joe speaks to housing lawyer Grant Haddock about cannabis and strata properties. They cover the risks of growing cannabis inside a strata unit and how to identify whether the strata bylaws align with your client’s purchasing needs.

BCREA will release a third video later this spring. Feel free to share these resources on your websites and social media accounts.