You know, not every story or topic necessitates 2,500 words.  We wish they all did (some of us, others not…) but once in a while, it’s nice to just sort of dip a toe in, and take a toe out.

Here are four stories that that fit that description.

I’m not sure which is the “best” but I’m also not sure if best actually means “worst.”

I suppose that depends on your interest in real estate.

So here goes…

“Hit me up @ the Hot”

I think there might be two lessons learned in this story:

1) Why “professionals” in our industry shouldn’t use free email accounts
2) Just how rampant financial fraud is in 2022

Alright, so this is supposed to be a story about the latter, but it’s simply not possible without the former.

Confused?

Just listen…

When we find ourselves in red hot sellers’ markets, it necessitates buyers needing to do everything possible to improve their chances of success on an “offer night” for a property with multiple offers.

Obviously, price is the major driver.  But an unconditional offer is almost always necessary, you want to give the seller their desired closing date, and more often than not, the buyer will have a bank draft or certified cheque in hand to show the seller and the listing agent that there is consideration for the deal that can be provided “herewith.”  The buyer agent will either scan the cheque into a PDF or take a photo, and include this in the email along with the offer to show, “Hey, I have the deposit cheque here with me!  Accept our offer, and I’ll bring it over to you!”

As an aside, I keep track of all the offers on my listings and the various metrics, such as how many have conditions or how many have deposit cheques.  I had a listing last fall for a freehold property that solicited 22 offers and amazingly, 17 of those offers were accompanied by deposit cheques.  However, my last downtown condo listing that produced 9 offers only produced 3 cheques “herewith.”

It depends on the market, but also the property and the type of buyers and buyer agents it attracts.

Last week, an agent in our brokerage had an “offer night” on one of his listings and multiple offers resulted.

Most offers were clean and most offers had deposit cheques, but that’s not the story here.

An offer was eventually worked with, signed, and a firm deal was in place.  That buyer produced a deposit cheque in the form of a bank draft, and that bank draft was handed over to our brokerage and deposited in our brokerage’s trust account.

However, three days later, one of the buyer agents who produced a lower offer, which wasn’t accepted, called the listing agent.

“How come you cashed my buyer’s cheque?” the buyer agent asked the listing agent.

The listing agent was confused and said, “I never cashed your cheque.  You didn’t buy the property.”

But the listing agent added, more importantly, “You never gave me the cheque.  I never met you.  I don’t understand…”

The buyer agent explained that when his buyer took the bank draft back to TD Bank to deposit the funds, the teller said, “This cheque has already been cashed.”

Confusion ensued, to say the least.

The bank looked into it and they said that the funds had been cashed “by the recipient of the deposit cheque.”

Now here’s the thing: you know that many businesses cash cheques by scanning them, right?  Individuals can do this as well, and from their phones, no less!  Ah, the future is here!

So in this case, the funds were cashed by scanning this bank draft and depositing it online.

But who cashed the cheque?

And how?

Well, the buyer agent was using a Hotmail account!

Several years ago, my brokerage installed two-factor authentication for our email server, which, despite receiving as much spam as the next server, is very secure.

But many brokerages out there don’t have “company email.”  Many agents use Hotmail, Gmail, Ymail, Live.ca, Rogers, or Cogeco.  I see it all the time.

I don’t want to judge………….but, when I see a real estate agent who’s email address is jeffbadboy91@hotmail.com, I just don’t take ‘Ole Jeffy all that seriously.  And I don’t know why the public would either.

But judgment aside, an agent is free to market him or herself however he or she chooses, and that includes which email address to use, and on which server.

But Hotmail and the like are not that secure.

In fact, if a fraudster had access to a Hotmail account, and found a scan of a $100,000 bank draft from TD Bank, that fraudster could probably take that .JPG or .PNG image, photoshop the payee or other pertinent data, and then deposit that cheque by scanning it.

And in this case, that’s exactly what happened!  The buyer agent found that his Hotmail account had been hacked, there were other fraud attempts, and in this case, his client’s deposit was stolen virtually.

The buyer lost $100,000.  Real dollars.  Real loss.

This is not the metaverse, folks.  But more on that later…

The bank told the buyer that there was nothing they could do and that the buyer was out the $100,000.

It had to be a dream, right?  A really, really bad dream?

Perhaps RECO insurance will cover this.  Maybe CIDC somehow.  The buyer will probably, at some point, get his or her money back.

But who’s to blame here, if you’re looking for somebody?

Sadly, I think the buyer agent who conducts his or her business via Hotmail, is obviously the culprit.

Perhaps the bank should have other safeguards in place, and I would like to think that it’s not that easy to scan a cheque for a deposit, but I have to think ‘Ole Johnny Gmail needs to upgrade his security or join a brokerage with real email.

–

“Honesty is (not always) the best policy”

A client of mine was set to list his house for sale earlier this year, and in the process, he moved out.  Like, completely.  Everything in his house, into storage and a rental respectively, and we staged the house from top to bottom.

When he called his insurance company to extend his coverage from his owned-home to the property he was now renting, the insurance company said, “Soooo…..you’re not living in the house anymore?”

This opened a can of worms!

You see, in order for that house to be insured, somebody must be living inside it!

You can’t expect an insurance company to provide coverage on a home where nobody is inside, nobody checks up on it, and where if a pipe burst, it might be a month or two before anybody notices!

As a result, I had to state that I would check up on the property every day before and during the listing, and provide nightly emails to say “Everything is fine here,” plus, he has to now spend the odd night at the house until closing to ensure his insurance policy isn’t canceled.

A lot of people in this position would never have called their insurance provider in the first place to let them know they’d be moving out.  And I think those same people would have promised to check up on the house, or sleep there again, but wouldn’t have actually done so.

This is a risk-reward scenario, is it not?

And while you’re probably struggling with which side of the fence you’d land on, if you want me to provide some data to help ease your mind, then read this:

“42% Of Canadians Renting Their Home Don’t Tell Insurer”

From the article:

Only 47 per cent of respondents to a recent survey said they told their insurance company that they were renting out either a room or a floor of their house (including basements) to a tenant. Meanwhile, 42 per cent said they did not notify their insurance company, while 11 per cent said they either didn’t know or preferred not to answer.

You might think that renting out your basement or even a bedroom in your home can be a quick way to make money, especially if you’ve bought a home recently and are struggling to pay your huge monthly mortgage. But keeping that information away from your insurance company could be a very costly mistake.

Omitting any relevant details about your home, including whether you have tenants, can void your insurance policy. That leaves homeowners at risk. If your tenant, for instance, accidentally leaves the kitchen faucet running and floods your home, you could be on the hook to pay for those damages out of pocket.

Not only are some Canadians failing to inform their insurers of tenants, the survey also found that many are not even aware they have to. Of those who rent out part of their home, 24 per cent said that they did not know they had to update their insurance company that a tenant was living on the premises.

–

“Utraque Unum………or something like that”

Patrick Ewing went to Georgetown.

Allen Iverson went to Georgetown.

Alonzo Mourning went to Georgetown.

And when I was in Grade 10, I had an awesome Georgetown Hoyas hat that featured a cool (at the time…) paint splash across the top and it was all the rage!  The Hoyas didn’t win that year, and still haven’t won since 1984 – their only victory.

I wonder what real estate is like in Georgetown?

Oh, wait, I have the wrong Georgetown.

I meant Georgetown, Ontario, population 50,000, give or take.

Georgetown is southwest of Brampton and northwest of Mississauga.  It’s 40 KM from Toronto but about a 60 KM drive from downtown.

Georgetown is also home to pre-construction condos for the low, low price of…………wait for it…………$1,200 per square foot!

“McGibbon on Main Condos” has launched!  Hurrah!

The slogan for the project:

Create your own legacy. Combining the rich village past of downtown Georgetown with the modern, spacious condominiums that rise above it, this will be a lifestyle that tastefully combines the past, with a vision for the future and a heart for living in the now.

Hot damn, that’s sexy!

So too is this artist’s rendering:

With a walk score of 49 and a bike score of 42, this is a far cry from downtown Toronto where a “bad” score is 89, but then again, we’re in Georgetown!

Only 169 suites exist in this building, and once you add in a parking space, prices are $1,200 per square foot.

I remember when $1,200 per square foot in Toronto was a lot.

Wait……it still is, in most buildings!

Georgetown, eh?

Now, I’ve seen everything…

–

“What the Sh!t is the Internet?”

That’s one of my favourite movie lines of all time.  Free coffee if you can tell me which one without looking it up.

But seriously, folks, what the hell is the metaverse?

I know I just started using Spotify in 2021.

I know I’m probably the only person you know who has a travel agent.

I know I’m in the minority of individuals who have never played a single game on their phone, save for Minesweeper, which I still play to this day.

I know I’m the guy who, back in 2011, bought four Blackberry 8700’s when they were discontinued, and stubbornly used this obsolete technology through several more generations of Blackberries, before finally switching to the iPhone.

But come on, folks.  Tell me you’re not buying this metaverse stuff?

This has got to be Dutch tulip bulbs, meets Bre-Ex, meets Enron, meets Bernie Madoff, meets Bitcoin, meets Chia Pets, meets magic rocks, meets sub-prime mortgages, meets Jack and the Beanstalk, meets that really hot girl with anatomically-impossible measurements who added you to Instagram and wants to “connect” and even though everybody tells you this is a Russian bot, you remain convinced that it might not be…

…but I digress…

I think I have a really good BS detector, but you tell me.

I saw this headline in Toronto Life:

“‘You Can Buy A House For $15,000’ This Guy Is The CEO Of A Company Paying Millions For Virtual Real Estate”

Like, isn’t this how ‘they all’ start?  With articles like this one?

Then we look back on this, or watch a special on Netflix, and facepalm just as often as we did when we watched “The Tinder Swindler,” and wonder how we got to this place?

The article mentions “Google Glass” and “Quibi” as comparable innovations that failed, and of course, I had never heard of either of them.

That tells you that I’m either:

a) Out of touch, behind the times, not ahead of the curve
b) A person who does not own a portfolio of swampland in Florida

Or both.

Is there an option for both?

But seriously, folks, this hurts:

“Virtual Real Estate Is So Hot, Investors Are Selling Off Toronto Holdings To Get In.  Should You Get In Too?”

FML.

Can you live in your virtual house?

No?

No kidding?

Imagine the person who sells his condo to buy virtual real estate.

Now, if he buyers virtual real estate, then sells it for a major gain, and is able to buy back into ‘real’ Toronto real estate (did I just say that?) all the while, bigger and better, then it makes sense.  But it’s no different than selling his condo and taking the money to the horse track and putting it on Alphabet Soup to win, place, or show.

I have a feeling that some of you are into this, and I’ll hear you out.  I’m happy to.  I’m also happy to hear you tell me that I’m 41-years-old, going on 91-years-old…

Oh, this is really, really awkward timing, but here goes: I was just looking for a photo of the Blackberry 8700, Google returned a result for a blog I wrote back in 2010.  I have written almost 3,000 blog posts in fifteen years, I can’t remember them all.  But reading this post from 2010 tonight was like reading it for the very first time.  And yes, I’m definitely old.  Bury me in the metaverse, already…

–

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Hey, when do the February TRREB stats come out?