Did you see My Cousin Vinny?

I did.

In the theatre, if you can believe it.

Was it the Hollywood or the Hyland?  I can’t remember.  Both were on Yonge Street between St. Clair Avenue and Heath Street.  It was rather curious to have two movie theatres within mere steps of each other, but maybe it was like why gas companies put gas stations on three out of four corners on major intersections?  Bring the flow of people and everybody sees traffic go up, regardless of competition…

My Cousin Vinny was a bit of a silly movie.  It starred Joe Pesci as a scummy personal injury lawyer who is tasked with defending his cousin and his cousin’s friend who are wrongly charged with murder, and this was two years after Joe Pesci did “Home Alone.”

I saw Home Alone 2 at the Hyland.  Just saying…

As you might expect from a somewhat hokey, formulaic Hollywood movie, Joe Pesci’s character, Vinny, goes through the trials and tribulations associated with getting in over his head but then, miraculously, gets the charges against the two young men dismissed.

Like I said: nothing special.

But then out of nowhere, Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as “Mona Lisa Vito.”

And here we are, thirty-one years later, with “My Cousin Vinny” remaining a 90’s cult classic.

A client of mine has a cousin named Vinny.

Small world, right?

My clients, Peter and Giulia, have been with me for a very long time.  If I have to think back (I actually just checked…) I met Peter in 2009 when I leased him his first property in Toronto.  Then in 2012, I sold him a condo.  Then in 2015, I leased the condo for him so he could move to NYC for a few years for work.  I leased the condo for him another time thereafter, and then in 2019, I sold Peter and his fiance, Giulia, their first house.

I leased the condo for Peter one more time after he and Giulia moved into the new house, and they have been happily living there since.

A short while ago, I was perusing the new listings on MLS and I happened to see a condo in Peter & Giulia’s old building, which happened to be on the same floor, and happened to look like it was next door……or something.

What was their unit number again?  I couldn’t remember.

But when I clicked on the listing and saw the name of the seller, I realized that this was Peter & Giulia’s old condo!

What?

Really?

Yikes, what did I do wrong?  I wracked my brain trying to think of any ways I could have offended or alienated them, and started to think back to when they closed on the house and if I left any boxes unchecked, but nothing came to mind.

Every real estate agent, no matter who they are, has been dumped before.  We’ve all lost listings.  We’ve all lost clients.  We’ve all logged on to MLS to see somebody we have sold a property to has listed the property for sale with somebody else.

But this was different.  These were such great clients and we had just great rapport!

I emailed Giulia and in the subject line, I wrote, “Good Luck!”

I wrote something to the effect of, “Just saw the listing pop up on MLS, good luck to you and Peter with the sale!”

I thought maybe I would hear back, but probably I wouldn’t.

But before I could finish that thought, my phone rang.

It was Giulia.

I had barely uttered, “Hi Giulia” before she just unloaded on the other end of the phone.

“Oh my god David hello, how are you, oh my goodness, the condo, I know, I can’t believe it, it’s crazy, oh my god, you saw it, that’s crazy, oh David…..”

It was one long stream of consciousness in which she essentially detailed that she and Peter were both sorry they listed the condo with somebody else….but…

“….we had to list with my cousin Vinny.”

She explained that her cousin got his real estate license around the time that they bought the house through me and that it caused a family stir.  She and Peter both knew, sorry to say, that they would receive better service from me than from her cousin Vinny, not only because he was brand new and had no experience, knowledge, or contacts, but also because he worked in Sarnia.

Regardless, the family wasn’t happy.  They felt that, even though I had worked for Peter for over a decade and had completed six transactions with him, now that Peter and Giulia were married with a child, they should work together to support both extended families.

Many of you have been here before, right?

I told Giulia that she didn’t owe me an explanation and that it was really nice of her to support her cousin Vinny, but she offered more unsolicited family drama.

“David, he’s not going to do a good job,” she told me.  “He’s going to cost us money.”

I cringed at the suggestion.  I had seen the listing.  I knew this was a fact, but I was surprised that she knew – and was so open about it!

“If we get less money for this, I see it as a price we have to pay to keep the family happy.  My mom, my grandmother, my aunt – there’s a value here to all of them.”

Then she added, “It just sucked that we have to be the ones to pay for it all.”

I wished her the best of luck and told her to keep in touch.

Two months later, the property hadn’t sold.

Giulia called me and asked me if I could do her a favour.  She asked me if I could be honest with her, so she could be honest with her cousin Vinny, and tell him what he was doing wrong so that he could turn things around and right the ship.

I told her that I was very uneasy with it.  I explained that there are rules about interfering with a listing and with another registrant’s client under contract, but since she called me, those rules don’t really apply, if I’m being honest.

She said, “David, this is a learning experience for my cousin Vinny anyways.  He’d be learning from somebody like you, so while I know he’s not going to be happy about this, we need to get the condo sold so Peter and I can move on, because the whole point to this was to keep the family together and after two months, it’s actually causing friction.”

So I agreed.

I told her that I wouldn’t put anything in writing, but that I would pull up the listing, explain my thoughts, and take notes.

So if you want to play along at home, and you want to think about what your uncle, cousin, BFF, or high school friend did wrong when they listed your property, then perhaps we can compare notes…

He didn’t stage the property.

I don’t know much about the market in Sarnia, but I’m sure they don’t stage properties there to the same extent we do in Toronto, if at all.

I stage every single property I list, without question.  I can’t remember the last property that I didn’t stage, but it would have to have been seven or eight years ago.  I have a good memory and I can’t remember; that’s telling me something.

Staging is essential.

As I write this blog post, I just sold a condo for $621,000 that I appraised for the owners at $550,000, and we obliterated the previous record in the building.  I chalk that up to the fact that my clients moved out 90% of their stuff, we painted the whole condo, feverishly cleaned (even the patio tiles on the terrace!), and then staged.  The property looked incredible.  Better than any previous listing in this somewhat-tired building in the past two years.

Cousin Vinny didn’t stage the condo.  He just left it empty, save for a few pieces of furniture that were left behind after the tenant vacated.  In fact, it would have shown better without the sad couch, broken TV console, and lone boxspring.

–

He took the photos himself.

I spend about $900 on the full “package” for properties I list, including still photos, virtual tour and 3D walkthrough, floor plans, Instagram reel, Youtube video, et al.

Some agents spend $700, some spend $500.  Some spend $300.  Some spend less.

But to take photos yourself?

I believe in specialization.  I believe in experts in their fields.  In the same way that I hire a stager for every property I list, I hire a photographer too.  The best of the best, in my opinion, but even if you don’t want to hire the best and spend the most, hire somebody and spend something!

The photos looked like crap, as you would expect.

Dark, dreary, unfocused, and of empty rooms.  Er, save for the boxspring, couch, and TV console…

–

He didn’t use the “under-list, hold back offers” strategy.

If everybody was jumping off a bridge, would you do it?

Wait, bad example.

But if there’s a market where almost every property type in a certain segment is being listed in a certain way, why would you choose a different approach?

Sometimes, being different is brilliant.  I’ll give that up.

But in this case, it wasn’t.  In this case, you price at fair market value (or higher, as you’ll read next…) and many buyers don’t even look at the listing because they expect an “offer date” and merely assume that you’re priced for multiple offers, which would make the price way too high!

–

He priced too high.

Of course, Vinny priced too high regardless.

Not “high” as in higher than what you would price the property at if you were utilizing the under-listing strategy, but rather way higher than anything resembling fair market value.  I’m talking 10% here.  It was really odd.

–

He listed on a Sunday.

This is a really, really weird one.

I wrote a blog post about this once.  Let me see if I can find it.

Ah, here: “Who Lists On A Saturday?”

Wow, that was in March of 2012.  I really feel old now.

I am of the mindset that you should only ever list a property on a weekday.  Actually, I only ever list properties on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that’s a longer conversation.

My point is that never, ever list properties on Saturday and Sunday because most of the buyer pool is asleep at the wheel.

Will the buyers still see the property?  Sure, maybe.  Most of them?  I dunno, maybe, I guess.

But why risk it?

Buyers browse listings on weekdays.  They’re at their desks at work.  Their agents are working and sending them listings.

Tell me, “David, this doesn’t matter,” and I’ll stake my reputation on it and tell you that it does.

–

He listed with 6 DOM.

If you know what “DOM” stands for, you’re spending too much time online looking at listings.

DOM stands for “Days on Market” and it refers to how long a property has been listed.

If a listing comes out new on MLS, presumably, that would result in zero DOM.

Right?

But when you date the start of the listing on the paperwork and when you actually upload the listing to MLS can be two different things.  They shouldn’t be, but in this case, they were.

The listing may have come out on MLS on a Saturday but the “contract date” on the paperwork, apparently, was six days prior.

So when this “new” listing hit MLS, it showed as though it had already been listed for six days.

That probably didn’t cause any major issues but it sure didn’t help either!

–

He hosted no open houses.

Why would he?  He lives in Sarnia.

Open houses work, folks.

The house I sold tonight was to a buyer who came through our open house on the weekend because his agent was away on vacation.  She never showed him the property.  He called her and said he wanted to make an offer, and his offer was the best of the six we had.

Ope houses work.

Oh, Vinny…

–

He asked that showing requests were emailed rather than using online bookings through MLS.

This also made no sense.

Once upon a time, we had to call the listing brokerage and say, “Hello, I’d like to book a showing please,” to which the receptionist would say, “For what property and what day and time?”

God, we were so hard done by.

Then along came online appointments, and eventually a couple of real estate agents invented “Broker Bay,” and we all rejoiced.

Vinny’s brokerage didn’t have Broker Bay.

They didn’t have any online booking system.

So for showings, they requested that buyer agents email their requests to an admin at the brokerage.

That’s problematic, for sure.  Who’s the admin?  How quickly can she approve the requests?

But this admin only worked weekdays.

Oops!

–

He put the parking space in the wrong spot, so it showed as no parking.

Vinny did note in the “blurb” or “write up” section of the listing that the condo came with one parking space.

He also checked the box for “underground.”

But he didn’t check the box for “1” space, therefore any buyer searching on MLS looking for a condo with parking did not find this listing, even though it did, in fact, have parking.

–

He listed the “terrace” as a “balcony.”

This unit had a beautiful 200-square-foot terrace with a great view of the city.

On MLS, there are five fields for outdoor space:

None
Open
Juliette
Balcony
Terrace

We can debate what makes an outdoor space a “balcony” and what makes it a “terrace,” but regardless, this was a terrace.  And as I noted above, there are some buyers or agents that could have a client specifically looking for a condo with a large terrace, and if they check the box for “terrace” on MLS, this particular listing won’t show.

This wasn’t a major issue, but again, if it costs Peter and Giulia even one or two potential buyers, then Vinny isn’t doing his job.

–

He put the listing in his broker of record’s name.

Vinny couldn’t help this one, unfortunately.

When an agent is not part of the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, his or her name can’t be displayed on the MLS listing.

Instead, it’s displayed in the name of the Broker of Record.

As a result, every single inquiry on the property would go to the Broker of Record, rather than Vinny.  And while Vinny would probably respond immediately to inquiries (we hope!), the same likely can’t be said for the Broker of Record.

But also…

–

The Broker of Record’s cell phone wasn’t on the listing.

I always put my cell phone on the listing.

I don’t know why an agent wouldn’t.

Many agents put their brokerage’s main phone line next to their name, but that’s lazy.  I don’t care who you are, how big you are, you need to allow people to reach you; both buyers and buyer agents.

Since Vinny’s Broker of Record appeared on the MLS listing, and not Vinny, it seemed the Broker of Record would have preferred if people didn’t contact him, and thus there was an office line instead of a cell phone.  But that office line went to a call centre after 5pm and on weekends, sooo…

–

He did a “price change” instead of a “new listing.”

When Vinny finally realized that the property was priced too high, he made a mistake that many agents make.

There are two ways to change a price on MLS.

Let’s say you have a property priced at $999,000 and you want to change the price to $949,000.  You could:

a) Sign a single document and change the price on MLS to $949,000.
b) Sign two documents, once to cancel the existing listing, and one to re-list the property on MLS for $949,000.

What’s the difference?

Well, in the second example, the listing appears as “new” on MLS.  It’s not just that the “Days On Market” starts at zero (which some of you will complain about, not to mention the duplicate listing), but rather that any new listing gets a thousand times more eyes on it than a “PC” for “price change” on MLS.

Why do anything less?

–

Phew!

That was my list.  I’m going from memory, which again, isn’t what it used to be.  But that’s enough though, right?

Poor Vinny.

But poor Giulia and Peter too.

They eventually sold that condo but it took another month and another price reduction, and this was during a market that was going up, not down.

Giulia reached out again and thanked me and noted, “My grandmother and my aunt are so happy, and I’m happy for them.  I guess.  But I’m a bit bitter.  This cost us real money.”

She’s not the only one who’s been through this.

I dunno, maybe I come off as an ass telling this story.  Self-aggrandizing, maybe.  That’s not my intent.

If you want to list your property with your cousin Vinny, have at it.

But hey, can anybody name the movie for which Joe Pesci won an Oscar, without looking it up?  Pinky-swear that you won’t…