Do you like Green Day?

I do.

More than a little, in fact.  They’re my favourite band of all time.

Now, surely that statement could result in some snap judgments on your part, depending on what you think of the band, the frontman, the genre, the style, or any of the songs or lyrics that stand out in your head.

But I believe that so much of life and our personalities are shaped by early childhood experiences, and as many of you will undoubtedly relate to, this band came along at one of the most vulnerable times in my life.

Fall, 1994.

I just started grade nine at Leaside High School, and as history, pop culture, and personal experience have taught us all, grade nine can be a very difficult transition.

For whatever reason, I found myself striving for academic success.  Tell me it was the over-bearing father or following in my older sister’s footsteps, but instead of being social, attending parties, and enjoying life as a teenager, I basically locked myself in my room every night from 4pm to 10pm and studied.

Green Day’s third studio album, Dookie, was released in 1994 and it was one of a handful of CD’s that I listened to over and over, every night, for the entire year.

Green day’s next album, Insomniac, was released the following year when I was in grade ten.  That became a staple in my after-school listening collection.

Then in the fall of 1997, by the time I was in grade twelve, Green Day released Nimrod.

If you’re not a fan of Green Day, I can’t possibly explain to you just how talented these guys are.  Listen to Dookie and then listen to Nimrod and you’ll think it’s two different bands playing two different genres of music.

Dookie was hard-rock.  Well, it was classified as “Alternative” in the mid-1990’s when a new word for a new genre of music was needed, but if you listened to it today, you’d consider it rock.

Nimrod was different.  While the very first song on the album, “Nice Guys Finish Last,” is a rock song, every other song on the album feels like it’s a different genre of music entirely.  It’s exceptionally musically diverse.  It’s funk, ska, pop, and soft rock all in one, with basic, catchy melodies that make you want to sing along.

If you’re the type of music fan to listen to the words of songs, I would say that while Dookie was all about teen angst, boredom, and laziness, Nimrod’s themes were retrospective in nature and dealt with personal reflection from the view of somebody much older.

While the hit song “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” remains one of Green Day’s most famous songs (think: the last episode of Seinfeld), my favourite song on Nimrod, for some odd reason, was King For A Day.

It’s such a departure from the band’s rock origins, and ironically, it’s a song about a grown man who likes to dress up as a woman.

Billy Joe Armstrong famously said.

“It would be funny for a bunch of macho fraternity guys to be singing along and, little do they know, the song’s about being in drag.”

I won’t lie: I used to sit in my bedroom of my childhood home, studying at night, listening to King For A Day, and fantasizing about what I would do if I were king for a day.

King of the high school?

King of the house league hockey team?

King of the newly developing thing called the “Internet?”

What kind of 17-year-old didn’t have a propensity for daydreaming?

Twenty-seven years later, I certainly haven’t given up the habit of daydreaming.  I think we all do it.

Sometimes, we just need to think of something pleasant as we lay in bed, trying to fall asleep.  Then other times, we strategically daydream when we’re bored at a company meeting, or sitting in the denist’s chair.

We can daydream out of anger or frustration but we can also daydream out of hope.

After twenty years working in Toronto real estate, I would say that my thoughts on the industry and my desire for change in certain areas are borne of equal parts hope and anger.  There has been some recent change in leadership, direction, strategy, and scope at the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, and already, we’re seeing some serious changes in business practices that will have an immediate effect.

Last week, I wrote: “New TRREB Rules: How Will They Affect You?”

Today, I want to take this a step further.

Today, I want to pretend that I was King For A Day, and outline what I would immediately change on our TRREB MLS system if I could.

Some of these were already mentioned in the comments section last week by our astute TRB readers, which tells me that they’re long, long overdue…

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5) Incorporate “Offer Date” Settings On MLS Listing

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about how every MLS listing should have some sort of “checkbox” for whether or not there’s an offer date.

For the life of me, I can’t find the blog post. 🙂

But after eighteen years, it seems to be lost somewhere in the mound of verbose real estate ramblings I’ve scattered across the Internet so if I find it subsequently, I’ll let you know.

The point was quite simple: if we’re looking to help educate and inform the consumer, then they should know how a property is being listed.

Is the property under-listed with an offer date?

Or is the property listed at fair market value with offers “any time?”

I recognize that there’s a grey area and that any solution to this problem will come with some caveats, but surely we can all agree that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh those caveats, no?

As you’ll see with respect to the next few changes I’m proposing, this would go hand-in-hand in addressing other issues we currently face.

But the public is consistently being misled by $1,000,000 houses being listed for $799,000 with an offer date, and I believe it would be very simple to put forward a client-facing solution on the MLS listing, like this:

Simple.

Yes, there is an offer date for this property.

Whether or not that date and time are disclosed publicly remains to be seen, and if the goal of TRREB is to ensure that consumers reach out to their agents to inquire further, then this solution satisfies that goal.

Last week, a client of mine compiled a list of thirty condos that he felt represented “value” based on analyzing their price-per-square foot versus the two-year trend.  The problem, however, was that the top-ten on his list were all condos that were under-priced with an offer date.

How was he to know?

Offer Date: YES

It’s so simple.

Why are we not doing this?

And this isn’t just to satisfy the consumers.  This would help agents in the field tremendously as well.

I would love to be able to search or sort by properties with “offer dates.”  Wouldn’t you?

And in order to solve that “grey area,” we could offer criteria like this:

I’m viewing a house in Leaside tonight that doesn’t have an offer date, but the listing specifies “24 Hours Irrevocable On All Offers.”

That’s what we call a “soft holdback,” and while it’s occasionally used because the seller is overseas or there’s a POA, it’s typically an indication that the listing agent doesn’t want to set an offer date but also wants to keep the door open to multiple offers.

My solution is easy to implement and would benefit everybody.

If I were king for a day, this would be a no-brainer.

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4) No More “Seller Reserves The Right To Accept Pre-Emptive Offer Without Notice”

If you don’t know what this refers to, consider yourself lucky.

This practice began seven years ago and the fact that it hasn’t been addressed is disheartening.

As with most other poor practices, it seemed to stem from a combination of laziness and self interest.

Consider the following:

First, we adopted the practice of set “offer dates” in real estate.

Second, we adopted the practice of “pre-emptive offers”, or bully offers.

Surely there could be problems with either, or both of these practices, but for the most part, the downsides were limited as most market participants played by a set of unwritten rules in addition to the few actual written rules that existed.

With respect to the “pre-emptive offer,” the only rule in place from organized real estate was this:

The listing agent must, at his or her earliest opportunity, notify all interested parties of the presence of a pre-emptive offer and the seller’s intention to change the offer date.

Simple, right?

The problem was: agents just started ignoring this.

Imagine showing a house on Tuesday, November 12th for which the listing reads, “Offers Reviwed at 6:00pm on Monday, November 18th,” and then finding out on Wednesday or Thursday that the property sold via bully offer.

You can’t imagine, right?  Because that shouldn’t happen!

But back in 2016 or 2017, some listing agents just didn’t care.  They would receive a bully offer and they and the seller(s) would decide to work with the offer and simply sell the house out from underneath every other interested buyer.

It’s awful business and it’s unprofessional.

But what happened in 2017 was next level.

In 2017, we started to see this:

How in the world can an agent get away with this?

This is tantamount to painting your car door with “Driver Reserves The Right To Drive 150 KM/hour” while driving on the 401.

You can’t get away with breaking the rules just because you specify so in advance!

Or can you?

Because this has been going on for seven years!

Not only that, the screenshot above isn’t from 2017; it’s from a current listing in the 905.

The answer that I receive from agents who do this, and the rebuttal for my suggestion, is always the same.

If a listing agent receives an offer at 11:00am that’s acceptable to his or her seller, and the offer expires at 12:00pm, then how can the seller be expected to notify “all parties who expressed an interest?”

Try.

Just try.

Back in 2017, alright, it’s tough, I know.

But today, you spend ten seconds in BrokerBay sending out a mass email to all agents who have booked a showing:

PLEASE NOTE: BULLY OFFER RECIEVED ON 123 FAKE STREET, IRREVOCABLE IN 58 MINUTES.  CALL LISTING AGENT ASAP IF INTERESTED.

No?

Too hard?

Agents are too lazy?

I’m ashamed that this business practice is still going on after seven years.

If I were king for a day, I’d have every single one of these listings taken off MLS.

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3) Enforce Regular Updating Of Listings Where “Offer Dates” And Pricing Are Concerned”

You listed a property for sale last week and there was an “offer date.”

That offer date was last night and unfortunately, the property didn’t sell.

What are you going to do?  Are you going to increase the price?  Will you terminate the existing listing and re-list at a higher price?

This happens to a lot of agents out there and we all have different ways of addressing this while trying to represent the best interest of our clients and, hopefully, being professional.

Many agents will take a day or two to “let the dust settle,” and I don’t have a problem with that.

But how long is “too long” to update a listing?

And what happens when agents abuse this privilege?

I just went into MLS and searched for the word “September” in the BROKERAGE REMARKS, looking for something like this:

This is awful.

It’s disgusting.  It’s unfathomable.

And yet it’s one of dozens of examples I found on MLS only a few minutes ago.

This property was listed on September 17th and the listing agent set an “offer date” for September 25th.

But September 25th has passed, and we’re not in that “grey area” of 2-3 days after a failed offer date.

Here’s what you don’t know about this practice:

It’s often used as a “strategy.”

As you’ll read in the next section, I have an issue with listing agents putting properties on MLS at prices that their sellers would never accept, and doing so without a specified “offer date.”

But we see agents do this as part of a Plan-B strategy.

List a $1,000,000 home for $799,900 and set an offer date.

The offer date fails.

Rather than re-listing for $999,999 or increasing the price to $999,999, simply leave the listing, untouched.

Why?

Because agents and the general public will call you!

By creating deliberate confusion, it spurs action and interest.

The agent whose listing above shows “Offer Presentation On September 25th” likely isn’t so stupid and lazy that he or she can’t update the MLS listing, but rather he or she is intentionally leaving the listing as is, so that buyers and buyer agents continue to show the property, and call to inquire.

We might not be able to stop “false advertising” but surely we can send letters (or faxes) to listing agents demanding listings be updated within 48 hours or they will be removed from MLS.

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2) Eliminate “False Advertising” For Prices On MLS

Here’s a tough one to police, but it’s something that needs to be addressed.

We have addressed this mulitple times on Toronto Realty Blog and as recently as this blog post from earlier this month:

October 28th, 2024: The Worst Listing “Strategy I Have Ever Seen”

In this blog post, I detailed a home that’s been listed by four different agents, eleven times, at thirty-nine different prices, with eight offer dates.

There are many issues contained within that blog post and that listing, but the idea of “eliminating false advertising for prices on MLS” that I would change if I were king for a day is simply this:

If you will not sell for $2,500,000 then you can not list your home for sale for $2,500,000 unless you specify an “offer date” or some sort of “reserve price.”

We all know that people will list a home for $799,900, with an offer date, trying to obtain more than $1,000,000.

But if you list for $799,900 with “offers any time” and you’re sitting on the market for 58 days, then the consumer believes $799,900 is the real listing price, or worse – that it’s negotiable.

In the case of the house from the blog post above, that property was listed without an offer date, at a price that the seller would NEVER consider, over twenty times.

How is this not false advertising?

I wrote about this on my blog many yeas ago and some of the readers suggested that the presence of an “offer date” doesn’t change the concept of false advertising, and that under-listing to begin with is false advertising.

I disagree.

But as we addressed in #5 above, perhaps we could solve this by creating a field on MLS for a “reserve price?”

Perhaps we could solve both #5 above and #2 herein at the same time?

This is simple:

This would solve two problems:

1) Eliminate confusion regarding “offer dates” and under-pricing.
2) Stop agents from listing properties at $1,499,000, with “offers any time,” when they truly want $1,800,000.

If I were king for a day, I would have this up and running before you could finish reading this sentence.  Period.

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1) Mandatory Square Footage For Condo Listings

It’s 2024.

It’s absolutely insane that this hasn’t already been addressed.

And at the risk of offending those in charge, let me say this:

I am personally and professionally ashamed that we, as real estate professionals, haven’t figured out a way to ensure that some sort of actual square footage of condominiums is offered on MLS listings.

My only experience with organized real estate came back in 2009 or 2010 when I was on the “Condo Committee” at TREB.

We were encouraged to make recommendations on how to better the MLS system for both agents and consumers.

In my mind, it was easy.

Back then, square footage ranges were ridiculously large:

0 – 699
700 – 1,100

And so on.

Not only that, and perhaps most egregiously, the square footage range itself wasn’t mandatory!

Imagine that?

Not only did we not have exact square footage, and not only were our ranges ridiculously large, but the field itself didn’t need to be populated.

So if you think that listing a 1-bed, 1-bath condo and checking the square footage box for “0 – 699” was bad, imagine not seeing anything in that field.

If I have ever done anything positive for real estate, it was contributing to:

1) Reduce the “ranges,” ie. now the smallest range is 0 – 499, and from there it’s 500 – 599, 600 – 699, etc.
2) Make this field a mandatory part of the listing.

However, I wanted this go further.

I proposed that we make exact square footage mandatory and offered that anything less than this was an absolute failure.

Upon offering my proposal, all the heads in the room turned to the right and looked at one person sitting quietly in the back of the room.

That person scratched his or her chin and slowly, calmly, and deliberately said, “Yeaaaah…….I think we’re gonna have to speak to legal about that…”

This is how quickly an idea is not just deferred but rather killed on the spot.

Yes, we did manage to make the square footage field mandatory and yes, we did shrink the ranges.  But why can’t we expect agents to put exact square footage?

Liability.

Sure.  I understand that.

But I’m sure a crack team of lawyers can work their way around this one, and how do other jurisdictions do this?

Imagine buying a condo in Manhattan and not being told the exact square footage?

This would never happen!

Not only that, most freehold properties listed for sale in the United States have exact square footage on the listing.  I understand why this is problematic here in our market (BOMA standards would offer a far larger square footage than your third-party company, plus how do you deal with basements?), but I’m merely making the argument today as it pertains to condos.

MPAC has square footage data on every condo in the city.

Realtors can purchase the “Square Footage Report” for a fee of $5.00 and it looks like this:

Yes, I know, there’s a liability here about the accuracy, but is this any different than a Realtor taking measurements with a laser or a measuring tape and putting it on MLS?

How about “hardwood” versus “laminate?”

I simply can’t believe what I have to go through to find square footage in 2024.

If I find a listing on MLS – say it’s 123 Jones Drive, #2301, I’ll go through the following steps:

1) Look at the listing history to see if any previous listing agents detailed the square footage.
2) Look up any sales for the “01” unit in that building, provided the floor plates are the same.
3) Google.

Yes, that’s right, my last resource is Google.

You would think that in today’s day and age, we could do better than Googling our way to finding the square footage of a condominium listed for sale on the MLS system, but unfortunately, that’s a very common occurrence for today’s Realtors.

Thankfully, this is the lowest-hanging fruit on our list.

If I were king for a day, I’d have this taken care of immediately.

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Well, that’s it for me, folks!

You know I have many more than five ideas, but these are the most burning and easiest to solve.

Does anybody want to forward this to TRREB, or shall I simply assume they’re already reading?