I feel like I’ve done this one before.

To be honest, this happens to me quite often.  As we approach the 18-year anniversary of Toronto Realty Blog, it comes as no surprise that I often have an idea for something, only to find that I wrote it several years ago.

Last month, I wrote an entire blog about open houses only to find that I wrote essentially the same blog post six years ago!

So let me quickly Google this…

…ah, right:

One is from 2024 and one is from 2015, but after reading both of these just now, I think today’s blog is going to quite different.

After all, we’re talking about how not to sell real estate in 2025.

This is different from 2015 and it’s different from 2024.  We’re in a different market, we have different problems, and dare I say that more now than ever before, the problem is agents.

In last Thursday’s blog post, I introduced the analysis of Toronto condominium statistics with a story about a recent condo sale that I had completed.  I mentioned how the buyer agent, who brought me an offer on a listing, remarked that so many other agents he had spoken to told him “don’t bother.”

I am of the mindset that one of the major reasons why more transactions aren’t being completed is because of agents, both on the listing side and the buying side.

Interest rates, inventory levels, quality of listings, timing, and economic uncertainty are all playing major factors, but there would be more sales if agents didn’t keep getting in each others way, and more importantly, in their own way.

Today, I want to share three stories that explain exactly what I’m talking about.

I could share more, believe me!  But something tells me this will be a theme as we move throughout the rest of the spring market, so I’m going to hold a few back.

As the lead singer of The Crash Test Dummies once said…………”Let’s begin!”

–

1) Define “Market Value”

In February, a buyer-client of mine expressed interest in a west-side semi-detached house, nicely renovated, lacking a real parking space, but otherwise checking all the boxes.

The property was listed for $1,199,000, with an offer date.

The offer date was pretty standard, not only for this property type but also in this price point.

I figured that the property was probably worth $1,400,000 or more and had the potential to get up to $1,450,000.

My client decided to proceed with an offer on the scheduled offer night and we were one of eight bids that evening.

We offered $1,405,000, assuming that this particular agent (you can just tell…) would ask us to improve our offer no matter what, unconditional, with a deposit cheque to accompany the offer.

Sure enough, the listing agent called me and said, “You’re going to need to improve your offer,” and I asked her a series of questions that I always ask, even though I know the listing agent won’t answer.

“What are the other offers like? I asked, and amazingly she replied, “Well, you’re one of four offers that’s at $1,400,000 and change.”

I was shocked that she told me this, but she continued, “The other four offers are fucking bullshit and I don’t even feel like I need to call them back.”

Well, alright.  That’s one way of doing business.

But then without any prompting, she said, “I mean, your offer and the other three are all bullshit too.”

I thought she was kidding.

I waited for her to add some variation of “only joking,” but what followed next was amazing.

“God, does anybody know anything about real estate anymore?”

I said, “Well, I dunno, maybe you could educate me a little?”  Not trying to be sarcastic, but hoping she would just keep talking.

“Eight offers,” she said, “And not one of you could put a real offer on paper.”

A real offer, eh?

With four offers “at $1.4M and change,” it sort of felt like that was the market value for the property, give or take.

I asked her, “What’s a real offer on this property?  Are we talking, like, high-$1.4’s?”

She said, “More like over $1.6M,” and then asked, “Do you know much about the neighbourhood?”

I called my buyer client and told her that we weren’t going to be players for this property, and she agreed.

The next day, the listing was terminated and the property was re-listed for a ridiculous $1,649,000.

It’s still on the market at that price today.

A couple of weeks later, I was chatting with an agent who brought an offer on one of my listings and I used this story as an example of “how not to sell real estate,” and he told me that he was one of the eight offers that night!

“That listing agent was nuts,” he said.  “My client offered $1,415,000 and she called and basically yelled at me, saying I didn’t know anything about the quality of the house, that I didn’t know how to value their renovation, and that I wasn’t providing my buyer with a ‘proper’ evaluation.”

So it wasn’t just me that received special treatment…

–

2) What Year Is It?

Many of you know that an overwhelming number of real estate brokerages in Toronto use an appointment system called “BrokerBay” which was invented by a real estate agent and then rather oddly was purchased by Carrier Global Corporation, but I digress…

In any event, I’m not a huge fan of the automated emails that are sent through the system, most notably those requesting “feedback” on listings.

If you’re a listing agent and you want feedback, pick up the phone and call the buyer agent!

Imagine being a buyer agent and you show six houses on Saturday afternoon; by Saturday evening, you receive six emails from BrokerBay requesting feedback, and then on Sunday morning, you receive six more emails.

BrokerBay also emails agents for new listings, price reductions, re-listings, and general ‘announcements’ by listing agents.

One of those announcements is often for price reductions, and I’m always interested in seeing which properties are reduced in price, and by how much.  Not only that, but after how long.

Earlier this week, I received a BrokerBay notification that read:

Thank you for showing my listing at 123 Fake Street, #456.  Please note that the property has been reduced in price from $889,000 to $879,000.  This wonderful property is available to show any time, please bring your clients back for another look!

I had never heard of this property before, and no, it wasn’t actually on Fake Street.

I was so curious since I usually track all the properties that I see with clients, so I looked up my email history to see if I had booked an appointment.

And guess what?

I had!

But the date of the showing was Saturday, June 8th…

….of 2024.

I showed this property to a buyer-client ten months ago and my buyer purchased a property two weeks later, closed in August, spent the fall in the property, celebrated Labour Day, Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day, Family Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and just about got to Easter while this other property is still listed for sale.

This was crazy.

The property had been on the market for one year and was only now being reduced in price by a whopping $10,000.

But the best part was this:

“Please bring your clients back for another look!”

Does this listing agent assume that buyers who were active in June of 2024 are still in the market?

–

3) You Can’t Spell “Misrepresentation” Without “Representation”

Here’s a story that a colleague of mine started to tell me back in February, and here we are in April with the saga still ongoing…

We’ll call my colleague “Colby” for now, and let’s just say that none of us can believe this saga is ongoing.

Colby visited a property in Mississauga with her buyer clients who were looking to get into a particular neighbourhood and school district, even though they didn’t quite have the budget.  They always figured that if they purchased a “fixer-upper,” they could get in on the ground level, and upgrade the home over time.

I love that idea.  I’ve had a lot of clients do this over the last two years.

They found a home that was a classic estate sale; very old, untouched for many years, and being represented by an agent that just sort of reflected the state of the home, if you know what I mean.  And if you don’t know, you will shortly…

Colby’s clients were really anxious about the condition of the home and the major systems and components since they wouldn’t have a huge budget for upgrades.

The listing agent pestered Colby for a full week after their viewing, offering to “answer any questions” if it would help the buyers get on side.

Colby took the listing agent up on that and sent her a lengthy list of questions, notably about the age of the roof, windows, furnace, air conditioner, and hot water tank, as well as the last time that electrical and plumbing were updated.

The listing agent emailed back (so this is in writing, which will be important later…) and answered all the questions, representing that the roof and windows were from 2023, the furnace, air conditioner, and hot water tank were from 2020, and that there was no knob-and-tube wiring, clay pipes, lead pipes, cast iron stack, and provided answers to several other questions including one about “asbestos, UFFI, vermiculite, or any other concerning material.”

Colby’s clients submitted an offer on the property which was conditional on a satisfactory home inspection, and after a back-and-forth negotiation in which the listing agent routinely belittled Colby about the buyers’ ability to afford the home (as a negotiating tactic) and after a refusal to move much from the list price (of $1,199,900), a deal was reached for $1,190,000.

The next day, Colby attended the home inspection with the buyers and it was an absolute horror show.

The house was full of knob-and-tube wiring.

There was a cast-iron plumbing stack, highly visible to the naked eye.

The furnace was installed in 1992 and was approaching thirty-three years old, which is miraculous, but not the type of miracle the buyers were looking for.

The air conditioner was from 2006.

The hot water tank was from 2016 and was rented through Enercare.

The roof was in an awful state of disrepair.  There was no date stamp on the shingles, like there is with a furnace or air conditioner, but the home inspector estimated that it was at least two decades old.

The windows were all from the 1970’s.

There was also vermiculite in the attic, which came as no surprise by this point.

Suffice it to say, this was not what the buyers were expecting.

More to the point:

The listing agent had completely misrepresented the property.

Colby called the listing agent, assuming that the listing agent would be horrified with the results of the inspection, but the listing agent went on the offensive and told Colby that she was “making a mountain out of a molehill” and that any buyer looking to purchase a home, being sold by the estate, should be planning to do a substantial renovation.

But that was besides the point.

Colby asked, point-blank, “Why did you give us this list of dates associated with the components of the house that were completely incorrect?”

The listing agent just skirted the question and said, “You have the information you need now, let’s not get lost in the details.”

Colby said, “Alright, well before we start looking at a dollar amount for an abatement, the first thing you need to do is reimburse my buyers for their home inspection…”

The listing agent basically yelled…

…”you MUST be joking!”

Colby said, “You completely misrepresented the property and I have this in writing from you.  We did a home inspection and it revealed that nothing you said was true.  The least you could do is pay them for the inspection.”

“I will do no such thing,” the listing agent replied.

Colby decided to simply “let paper talk” and rather than trying to work colleague-to-colleague, she would have her clients sign an abatement, send it to the listing agent, and let the estate make the decision.

Colby sent an amendment to the listing agent that deleted the condition on a home inspection and inserted a new price of $1,170,000.

Twenty grand.

That was it!

That was all the sellers had to give up in order to get their property sold firm; the same property that had vermiculite, knob-and-tube wiring, a cast iron plumbing stack, 1970’s windows, an exceptionally old furnace, and more.

But the estate balked.

In actual fact, they went on the offensive!  Rather than signing back the amendment with a counter-proposal, or even communicating with Colby, they simply waited until the amendment expired, which was when the original condition expired, and let the deal fall apart.

The listing agent reached out to Colby the next day and said, “The house is still available but they’ll want the full list price this time.”

In hindsight, you can see how ridiculously misguided this was.

Colby’s clients moved on and looked elsewhere.

Ten days later, the listing agent called Colby and said, “I’ve been able to talk some sense into the estate,” as though she herself hadn’t been driving this ship all along.  “They’ll pay for your home inspection and, as a measure of good faith, offer you $5,000 as an abatement.”

Colby could have put her foot on this woman’s throat, but she took the high road and said, “No thank you.”

Two full weeks after that, which was about twenty-four days after the original deal fell apart, the listing agent called Colby and said, “Okay, you win!  My clients will agree to your $1,170,000 price but they’re not paying for the inspection.”

Colby thanked the agent very much for the offer, but told her that they would politely decline.

What Colby didn’t tell the listing agent was that her clients had purchased a home two days prior.  They told Colby, “Things happen for a reason, and we got a better home three weeks later because that greedy estate refused to work with us after our inspection!  Things happen for a reason, really, they do.”

The clients were super happy.

Two weeks after that last phone call, the listing agent emailed Colby a reverse-offer for the property at a price of $1,160,000.

They were essentially throwing their hands up and saying, “We messed up.  Take this property for $10,000 less than you offered us!”

But Colby didn’t blink.  I mean, her clients had already bought a house, but Colby didn’t feel the need to tell the agent about this.  She just said, “Thanks, but as I told you last time, they are not interested in your home.”

Five days later, the listing agent sent Colby another reverse offer, this one for $1,150,000, and the listing agent said, “If they’re really not interested, that’s fine, because we’re going to take the house off the market.”

This time, Colby told the agent, “Hey, thanks, really, but my clients bought a house…”

And one week later, which catches us up to the present, the property was re-listed for $1,149,000.

Is it greed?

Or is it stupidity?

You’ll say “greed,” but honestly, this is just another example of how real estate agents are getting in their own way, every single day.

Alright, well this was truly a grind!

Sunday night at midnight and I’m absolutely spent.

I’m going to admit this just because I feel like sharing: when Rory Mcllroy won The Masters tonight, I cried.

I did.  My daughter looked at me and said, “What are you doing?”

Rory fell to his knees on the 18th green and cried.

I fell to my knees on the family room carpet and cried.

I’m a Rory superfan.  There.  I said it.

He’s my second-favourite golfer of all time, after the great Tiger Woods, and he’s just an incredible person and an amazing spectacle to watch every week.  He absolutely deserved that victory and it was eleven years in the making.

No exaggeration: I’ve been daydreaming about a putt for the win on the 18th hole for years.  I certainly didn’t daydream it to be during a playoff after an epic choke on the same 18th hole fifteen minutes earlier, but I’ll take it!

Seriously, this is by far my favourite sports moment of the last six years.  The only thing that can top this was, coincidentally, when Tiger won The Masters back in 2019.  Nothing has got me excited since then.

Leafs.  Jays.  Raptors.  Meh.

Congrats, Rory!

For Northern Ireland!