You know I’m not a big fan of gambling, right?

I think we’ve touched on this more than a few times here on Toronto Realty Blog, so we don’t need to get into the nitty-gritty today.

But I did want to mention that there is a particular pathway toward my becoming a huge gambler.  There’s exactly one way; one thing would need to happen for me to be a big-time gambler.  A “sharp,” if you will.

What is it?

If I knew the winners of every sporting event before it was played.

Sure, who wouldn’t bet on sporting events if they knew who was going to win?

Just ask Biff Tannen.

I mean, if you were able to alter the time-space continuum and reset the past according to an alternate reality, something like this might come in really handy in 1955:

Some of you know what I’m talking about.

The rest of you think I’m just weird…

I’m being facetious this morning for a reason, you see.  Because we don’t know who’s going to win a sporting event before it’s played (unless it’s basketball, which isn’t a sport…), and because we can’t know the outcome of an event before it takes place.

This isn’t just the case when it comes to sporting events or the spin of the roulette wheel.

This also applies to the “winning bid” on a Toronto property when multiple bids are submitted on the scheduled offer night.

Two weeks ago, I listed a west-end property for $999,900.

This was well below the market value of the property, of course.  Call this a “marketing price” if you want, or simply say that the house was “under-listed” in tandem with the setting of an offer date, but suffice it to say, it was worth more than $999,900.

How much more

Well, that depends.

If you believe in the adage, “A property is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it,” then we wouldn’t be able to establish a value until bids are submitted and the highest one is accepted.

Of course, we had some idea of what the property was worth.

Maybe $1,300,000 or more?

Give or take, more or less, on a good day or bad, but when I first discussed the value with my clients, we felt that a very, very rough range would have been anywhere from $1,200,000 – $1,350,000.

And thus we listed at $999,900.

“As one does.”

Two days into the listing, an agent called me and asked that question that I absolutely hate:

“What is your seller’s price expectation?”

First of all, why would a listing agent ever answer that?

But the reason I hate the question is that this isn’t actually what the buyer agent is asking.

They’re asking:

“What is this property going to sell for?”

Well, I don’t know.

Without Biff Tannen’s sports almanac telling us who’s going to win a horse race before it happens, how are we supposed to know?

As I said, we have an idea, but why would any listing agent answer this question?

There are three ways in which this question is asked:

1) “What is your seller’s price expectation?”
2) “What comparable sales did you use to come up with your listing price?”
3) “What is this going to sell for on offer night?”

See how the third question just gets right to the point?  Some agents just come out and ask this!

Back in 2022, a colleague of mine at another brokerage took to writing, “Please do not call or email listing agent to ask about price expectations” in all of her MLS listings, and she immediately became my hero.

Topic for another day, and those of you who want to complain about under-listing and offer nights may do so, if you want.

But back to the phone call where I was asked all three of the questions above, in order…

The agent on the other end of the line was a bit catty.

I tried to be professional when I said, “You have access to the same comparable sales that I do,” but she shot back, “Thanks, I know how to do my job.”

I tried to be honest when I said, “Our listing price wasn’t based on comparable sales, obviously, since it’s under listed,” but she said, “Yes, I know how the market works.”

I didn’t get a great vibe from my industry colleague on the other end of the line, and soon concluded that this isn’t somebody I’d want to ride in a time-travelling Delorian with, among other things.

Eventually, she offered, “Well, you know, I’m looking at what you’ve got, and I don’t think it’s worth a lot more than the list price.”

She was way off.  Not that her opinion mattered or was going to affect the market, and yet I remained intrigued.

“Is that a fact?” I asked her.

She said, “Yeah, maybe you get a small premium over list, but the comparables don’t justify a house that much higher.”

This house was very unique, by the way.  There were no direct comparables, but if any buyer agent did their job and put together a true market analysis, they would likely find the range to be what I quoted earlier.

My call ended, and I did not expect to hear back from this agent.

On the scheduled offer date, we received ten offers.

Or eleven, depending on how you define an “offer.”

Listen to this…

Offers on this property were to be reviewed at 5:00pm.

By 4:00pm, I had already received seven offer registrations, and the other three would come in the hour thereafter.

But shortly after 4:00pm, I received a phone call from the agent mentioned above.

She asked me again, “What do you expect this to sell for tonight?” to which I simply responded, “Whatever the market bears.”

And then she said something incredible.

You know how I feel about situations where something happens that I have never experienced before, right?

Those are always the most amazing!  That goes for both good and bad…

The agent said:

“We’re not going to make an offer, but if you don’t have more than $1,070,000, call me.”

Incredible.

I mean, first of all, I had seven offers registered at this point.  The property was listed for $999,900.  Any buyer agent with a modicum of experience would know that seven offers would absolutely blow $1,070,000 out of the water.

But second of all, and most importantly, this is not how the real estate market works.

I told the agent, “Just to set expectations here, I will not be calling you for any reason if you’re not submitting an offer.”

She said, “No, I’m saying my client would pay $1,070,000 for the house, but he’s not going to make an offer, so if you don’t have at least that amount, then call me, and we’ll make an offer.”

Ridiculous.

I said, “Sorry, but that’s not how it works.”

She said, “How what works?”

I explained, “You can’t make an offer without making an offer.”

She said, “I am though – I’m making a verbal offer.”

She was literally making up the rules as she went.

First, she said she wasn’t submitting an offer.  Then, she said she was submitting a kinda-sorta offer, but it was verbal.

She continued, “I don’t want to waste my buyer’s time making an offer if we’re not in the running, so this way, I’m telling you what we would offer, and you can tell me if that’s a number that would be at the top.”

I felt like I was getting down on one knee to tell a child that there’s no Santa Claus…

“Listen, I have no idea why you think you should get to sit back and watch the bidding unfold from the sidelines, be told the outcome, and then get to jump into the game.”

Seriously, what made this agent think she and her buyer client were so special?

I told her, “You’re essentially saying that you don’t want to wager on Alphabet Soup to place in the Preakness unless you know that Chocolate Thunder is going to snap its hind leg in the final furlong.  It doesn’t work this way.”

I don’t think she understood my horse-racing analogy, because there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

So I continued, “You cannot simply throw out a random price, with no deposit, closing date, terms, conditions, let alone signature under seal, and tell me this constitutes an offer.  This is not how real estate is sold, I’m sorry.”

She said, “Well, you should be sorry!  You have a fiduciary duty to your client, and you’re being cavalier right now.”

Whenever somebody throws out the term “fiduciary duty,” I know they’re about to grasp at straws.  It’s always used in a way that benefits them and not my client.

I told her, “I have seven offers registered right now, and after 5:00pm, I will sit down with my clients and review the offers, then decide what to do.  If your offer is not submitted, on paper with signatures, then you will not be hearing from me.”

Amazingly, she doubled down.

“If you sell that property for less than $1,070,000 without calling me, so I can get my client to make an offer, then you’re going to have a huge problem on your hands!”

At this point, you might want to ask, “David, why do you do this to yourself?”

I could have just placated her, but I chose to engage.

I knew I was getting over $1,300,000 for this house, so her number had no merit, but I continued the phone call.

Why, you ask?

Curiosity.

People in this business fascinate me!

Plus, it’s great fodder for the blog.

In any event, we received ten offers and the house sold for a whopping $1,400,000, which was more than we expected.

It was quite competitive, as we had three other bids well over $1,300,000, but in the end, a young couple with a $1.4 Million bid prevailed.  They were happy.  My sellers were happy.  It was a solid night all around.

But the very next day, my phone rang.

I saw that 519 area code and I thought, “Is this her?”

Oh, yeah, I should have mentioned that she was from the 519, but perhaps you could have deduced that from the story.

In any event, it was indeed my bench-jockeying friend, who skipped the salutations and asked, “Did you sell it?”

I asked, “How are you today?” just to satisfy myself, and she responded, “Great.  Did you sell it?”

I answered, “Yes, the sellers accepted an offer last night.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh and said, “Was it over $1,070,000?”

At this point, I wanted to prove a point, so I asked her, “Is your MLS token not working?”

She said, “Huh?”

I asked again, “Are you unable to get on MLS right now?”

She said, “No, I am, why?”

I answered, “Because the agent who submitted the successful offer last night met me in a Loblaw’s parking lot at 11pm to hand over the bank draft, and I updated MLS with the sale price shortly thereafter.”

She didn’t respond.

I said, “You didn’t think to check the listing first, eh?  You just picked up the phone and dialed…”

Then she hung up on me.

This type of agent accepts absolutely zero responsibility for his or her actions, decisions, or lack of awareness – personal or professional.

And this type of agent is out there in droves, believe me.

You can poke holes in the “game” all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that an agent like this is trying to make up rules as they go along, which is far more dangerous than any pre-existing set of rules, procedures, or practices in this industry.

I don’t think this agent was trying to think outside the box, either.  I think she was just lost, lazy, frustrated, or a combination of the three.

The question is: what will she do next time?  Will she actually have her client submit an offer?

Impossible to say!  After all, we can’t predict the future…