Sooooo…….any plans for the long weekend?

Not me!

I mean, I do have plans, but when people ask about “long weekend plans,” they’re typically insinuating that these plans are taking place outside of the city.

Everybody has a cottage up north, right?  Or at least knows somebody who does.

Personally, I love being in the city over long weekends because of how quiet things are.

I love our city.  Er, I mean, most of the time.  But I constantly have to share it with everybody else!  So over a long weekend when it feels like 75% of the population has vacated the GTA, I can’t help but feel like the city is a little “more mine.”

There are fewer cars on the roads.  The downtown core is barren.  The grocery stores and many of the local restaurants are empty.  It’s just a bit more……..convenient.

Truth be told, I have two appointments here in the office on Monday but that’s just the nature of the beast.  I’ll spend time with the family on Saturday and Sunday, probably do 1-2 appointments therein, but experience more time away from work than I have on any weekend prior so far this year.

Now, with that in mind, let me ask a question:

Why would anybody list a property for sale before a long weekend?

We just talked about how so many people in Toronto leave the city over long weekend, and Victoria Day long weekend (if not Canada Day…) is probably the number-one long weekend of the year in our city.  So why in the world would a prospective home seller list their home on, say, the Friday before the long weekend?

My question is rhetorical.  I think.

If I were to wrack my brain trying to think of a reason, the only one that would come to mind is a seller who says, “I know that most people are away for the long weekend, but I also know that everybody else waits to list.  So I’ll list when there’s no competition and that will be my advantage.”

Right.

Except, well, I don’t agree…

There’s a reason that gas station owners will target a major intersection that already has one, two, or three gas stations in place.  You might think that building a gas station up the road away from the competition would make the most sense, but game theory, rooted in the concept of the Nash Equilibrium, suggests that there’s more mutual benefit if the gas stations are right next to each other and compete for a much larger piece of the pie.

I learned about this on the very first day of economics in university in September of 1998.  It blew my mind.  What a simple concept – but one that I never would have thought of on my own.

The author of, “The Joy Of Game Theory: An Introduction To Strategic Thinking,” Presh Talwalkar, authored a blog post on this topic way back in 2008:

“Hotelling’s Game, Or Why Gas Stations Have Competitor’s Nearby”

It’s a fascinating read and he offers the mathematics behind it, but all you need to know is that, in many cases, competition is a good thing.

When it comes to real estate, this can be very true or very and often catastrophically close.

If your 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom semi-detached home was for sale and you set an offer date for Tuesday night at 6:00pm, but there were nine other 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom semi-detached properties also reviewing offers at 6:00pm on Tuesday night, then obviously the competition would be detrimental.

But if you were to list your home for sale when 50% of the buyer pool was not paying attention and, say, competition was down 75%, do you think you’d come out ahead?

I don’t.

In fact, I think that listing a property (assuming sought-after in a seller’s market, at best, or balanced market, at worst) is a recipe for disaster.

If you want to list a 1-bed, 1-bath condo in Liberty Village tomorrow, be my guest!  I still wouldn’t do it, but it’s not the same recipe as listing that Victorian in Trinity Bellwoods.

Simply put, exposure is essential in this market or any other.  Yet time and time again, we see examples of sellers and/or listing agents failing to maximize exposure.

Listing a property for sale before a long weekend is just one way this happens.

Here are a few others…

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Delaying the commencement of showings.

Listing a property for sale on Monday and noting on the MLS listing, “Showings begin on Thursday, May 22nd” is not going to help gain maximum exposure.

You might argue, “Any buyer that wants to see that property is going to see that property!”

But what if you’re in a market where two, three, or ten listings of interest graze past every buyer’s eyes every day?  Maybe a buyer wants to see the new listing when it hits on Monday, but loses interest or is distracted by the time showings commence on Thursday.

TRREB rules prohibit this practice but it doesn’t mean that all agents abide by it.  Listings are supposed to be available to view within twenty-four hours of being listed.

It’s quite simple: list on a day, allow showings to commence that day.

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Showings on tenanted properties.

Here’s where the control is taken out of the hands of the listing agent and the property owner.

By law, the landlord/owner must provide twenty-four hours’ notice to the tenant for any visit to the property, whether it’s an inspection by the landlord or a “showing” by a real estate agent when the property is listed for sale.

As we know, tenancy in Ontario is very tricky.  Very….touchy.

Tenants can and do refuse showings all the time.

We have spent the last several years discussing how to sell tenanted properties and my best advice has always been, “Get rid of the tenants!”

In today’s world, that means “incentivizing” them, which means buying them off.

But if you do list a tenanted property, ensure that your listing and pricing strategy reflects the fact that you will not reach anywhere near maximum exposure.

I’m always amused by the agent who lists a tenanted property for sale – with an offer date.  The offer date strategy necessitates maximum exposure, and where you need 24 hours’ notice, at a minimum, and often must receive confirmation of the scheduled viewing by the tenant to gain access, you’re shooting yourself in the foot by listing a tenanted property with an offer date.

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Restricting showing times for any reason at all.

We all have lives, I know.

And many people work from home these days.  Good for them!

But if those people want top dollar for their homes, then they need maximum exposure, and that means rolling out the red carpet for buyers.

Back in February, I went to book a viewing on a west-end house but the showing times were severely restricted.  I believe I could only view the house from 7am to 9am or 5pm to 9pm.  But my clients worked downtown and were absolutely unable to view the property during the day.

I called the listing agent and said, “Can I see the property during the day?”

She said, “Sorry, it’s just not possible.”

I asked, “Is the property tenanted?  It doesn’t say that on the listing.

She replied, “No, it’s not tenanted.  The owner lives there and he leaves in the morning for a workout at the gym, so you could go from 7am to 9am, but then he works from home and he doesn’t want any disruptions during that time.  So you could go after work hours, assuming he’s not in meetings – he’ll let us know when you book the viewing.”

The funny thing is, this property was also listed with the “offer date” strategy.

It made zero sense.

I’m sorry, but I think we can all typecast this seller.  It’s not like he was a child psychologist and he had patients at the house who required the utmost confidentiality, but rather he’s likely in finance, law, accounting, or another professional field but he just doesn’t understand the supply-and-demand equation in the market.

When it comes to “people who have children,” I get it.  I do!  But when I listed my home for sale in 2018, I moved to my mother’s for two full weeks to allow unfettered access to the property at all hours.  When sellers are living at the property when it’s for sale and they say, “I don’t want any showings past 5:00pm because we do dinner, bath, books, and bed,” I ask them in return, “How many prospective buyers do you think we’ll be turning away after 5:00pm every day?”

It’s an honest question, and one that every seller needs to ask him or herself…

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“Seller/Agent to confirm showings.”

This is somewhat nuanced and you wouldn’t understand unless you’re in the business.

We have an appointment system called BrokerBay that 99% of brokerages use (don’t get me started on those who don’t…).

When a listing is entered into the system, you’ll check one of two boxes with respect to showings:

1. Auto-confirm.
2. Agent to confirm.

If an agent books a showing and option #1 is selected, then that agent will receive an email confirmation immediately.

If option #2 is selected, then the listing agent has to confirm appointments by hand, and that, of course, opens is up to human error and inconsistencies.

There are times when this is necessary.

If the sellers are elderly and the listing agent needs to ask them, “Does this appointment time work for you?” then of course the viewings should be vetted and confirmed.

But there are all kinds of vacant properties in the city where, for some odd reason, the listing agent has to confirm appointments before the confirmation email is sent to buyer agents.  There’s nothing more frustrating than booking a viewing for tonight and simply never hearing back from the listing agent with a confirmation – especially when the property is empty!

There are a lot of part-time agents in this business and many others who simply don’t live and die on their phones and computers.  If a client emails me at 4:30pm and asks to see a property tonight at 6:00pm, but the listing agent isn’t checking his phone and doesn’t see the showing request until tomorrow morning, then that will cost the seller potential exposure.

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“No double-bookings”

Remember the COVID-19 pandemic?

Five years already, wow!

Well, if you were looking for a house or condo in 2020, you’ll recall that in the spirit of minimizing human interaction, buyers were not permitted to enter a property listing when other buyers were present.

This was referred to as the era of “no double bookings.”

At the time it made sense.  Maybe.

History will question whether or not the plastic divider in the golf cart was necessary to “help stop the spread of COVID” when those two golfers drove to the damn course together in the first place, but I digress.

In any event, once COVID was over, we saw a lot of sellers and listing agents who stuck by the “no double-bookings” rule and in a busy market, it can have a huge impact!

Remember looking for a home in 2013?  Or 2018?

Surely you showed up to the house at 6:00pm and there were three other couples there with their agents.  Thankfully, you knew how to be civil, and you were able to walk through the house independently without gouging eachother’s eyes out.

I would like to think that, in 2025, we can return to this system.

I have absolutely no idea why anybody in this city lists a freehold property and doesn’t allow double-bookings.  For a popular property, you can see how “showing slots” can book up quickly from 5pm to 9pm, and how some buyers might not be able to get an appointment.

Condos is another story.  The last thing I want is an agent showing up at 5:00pm, taking the key, heading up to the unit, then doing a tour of the underground parking garage while another agent is there are 5:02pm to find the lockbox empty.

But for freehold homes, unless the property is a luxury home where you only expect 2-3 showings per week, and where that buyer wants privacy to view the home, I don’t see any reason to prohibit double-bookings.  Yes, that sounded snotty.  But it doesn’t make it untrue.

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“Listing agent to be present for all viewings.”

Last, but not least, we have the ever-popular “agent to be present.

I hate this.

So, so, so very much…

There are jurisdictions in the world where the listing agent is present at every showing, and are other places where you can walk in off the street and ask to see a home, and somebody with his feet up on the desk will simply throw you the key to the front door!

But here in Toronto, I would say that 99.9% of properties (not an exaggeration) have key access, and maybe one in a thousand requires the listing agent to be present.

But why must the listing agent be present?

Is it because the listing agent wants to give a massive sales pitch?  That’s quite common!

Sometimes, it’s just a seller who has fears, irrational or otherwise.

I recall a time I pitched on a listing down at Palace Pier and the owner said, “I want you here for every showing.”

I told her that there were three reasons why this wouldn’t work:

1. I would have to coordinate three people’s schedules: mine, the buyer, and the buyer agent.
2. Buyers do not want the listing agent present.
3. I didn’t want to.

I was honest about the last reason.  The seller said, “I would expect you to basically camp out in the lobby for the next month if it meant you were getting paid on this.”

The meeting was quicker than expected.

But the seller had absolutely no reason for wanting me to be there for showings.  The unit was vacant – this was her mother’s place.  Maybe she was emotional.  Maybe she was sentimental.  Maybe she just needed an additional layer of comfort.  Maybe it was something else!

Bottom line: buyers hate when the listing agent is present.  They spend far less time in the property and often feel the urge to rush out.

More importantly, this does not help to maximize exposure.  Not even close.

Imagine booking a viewing at 3:00pm today for 6:30pm tonight and the listing agent calls and says, “Hey, I have to be there for all viewings; can you come tomorrow at 9:30am?”

That’s hardly how you maximize exposure.

Couple this with an agent who has to confirm all showings himself and might not live on his phone, or any of the other items listed above, and you can immediately see compounding reasons why exposure is minimized.

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In a market like ours, the “finer details” can be more important than ever.

I just spoke to a prospective seller who has his property listed with another agent and I asked the seller, “Why does the listing say ‘Offers Reviewed On April 16th?’ when that was a month ago?”

The seller said, “Huh?”

Like I said: the finer details.

And when it comes to maximizing potential price, I would argue that maximizing potential exposure comes first and foremost…