As a consumer, you owe it to yourself to ensure that you’re getting a reasonable return on the money you pay for goods and services.
I have no idea how the seller of the condo below hasn’t questioned where his or her money is going…
As a child of the 1980’s, I read more than my fair share of Dr. Seuss books.
My absolute favorite book of all time was called “Wacky Wednesday,” and even though my little brother scribbled all over the front of the book with red crayon making it impossible to read the title, I still knew which book I wanted to read every night before bed.
Here is the synopsis of the book from the inside flap:
“A baffled youngster awakens one morning to find everything’s out of place, but no one seems to notice! Beginning readers will have fun discovering all the wacky things wrong on each page while sharpening their ability to observe, as well as to read.”
It’s amazing!
Each successive page has one more “wacky” thing for kids to identify.
Here is page twenty of the book. See if you can identify the twenty things that are wrong.
1) The road is a carpet
2) The man on the bench is upside down
3) The pig has no legs
4) The police man has three legs
5) The fish is fishing for the fisherman
6) There are two suns
7) The tree has no trunk
8) An Airplane is on the road
9) The woman pushing the white stroller has no head
10) The woman pushing the blue stroller is on a chair
11) The red stroller has feet instead of wheels
12) The pink stroller has no carriage
13) There is a house in the air
14) There is a car in the air
15) There are three houses stacked on top of each other
16) The chimney is not attached to the building
17) The tree has a shoe for a trunk
18) There is a man pushing a stroller on the road
19) The road is coming from the sky (on the left side – cut off in the image)
20) ??
I can’t find the 20th.
Maybe it was cut off on the left or right sides, but either way – I feel superior to all children right now, and if there was a seven-year-old kid sitting next to me, I’d rub it in his face!
So if I haven’t lost you yet (“Why the hell is this real estate agent examining a kids book on his blog!?!?!”), I’d like to compare Wacky Wednesday to what is going on in our real estate market right now.
All across Toronto, Realtors are listing properties with rampant errors; some borne out of laziness, and some borne out of lack of knowledge.
I wrote an article in The Grid last week where I outlined five simple ways you can tell if your Realtor is cutting corners, and the response was very positive in my industry. Most people spoke up and said, “Very true; I can’t believe agents do that stuff!” But many agents did not speak up, because they’re the ones who are guilty…
I ask again: What the hell are you paying for?
Some sellers will list with a Burlington agent who has no idea where the property is located, just to save 1% in commission. Sure, you might save $4,000, but it might also cost you $25,000 because nobody is showing your listing, your listing shows poorly, or maybe, just maybe – you’re going to get sued.
I’d like to replay Wacky Wednesday with a listing that came out this week. See if you can find things that are wrong with this:
Should I tell you? Or do you want to figure it out on your own?
Okay – just do me a favour and before reading below, take at least 5-10 seconds to look over the listing, and then come back to this….
..
…
….
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Okay, here we go.
1) The photo is not of the right building.
That’s right – the agent didn’t even get the right building! Do you think he or she has ever been to the property that is for sale? A better question – has the agent ever been to Toronto? 375 King Street west is known as M5V, but the picture shows Victory Condo at 478 King Street West.
2) There are no interior photos.
This one is quite normal for discount brokers our out-of-town agents. This agent simply took a stock photo of the building from MLS (the wrong building), and neglected to take any photos of the unit itself, assuming he or she could find the unit, and assuming the unit exists.
3) The property management company is wrong.
M5V is managed by Brookfield, and the listing says Simerra. Oops!
4) The postal code is wrong
The listing says M5V1L7, but the correct postal code is M5V1K1. You can use www.canadapost.ca to look this up (takes approximately 20 seconds of your day), or you can find this by searching current MLS listings (where you might copy a stock photo of the wrong building…)
5) The condominium corporation is wrong.
The listing says MTCC/2206 when it’s actually TSCC/2206. In their defence, half of the listings on MLS have MTCC.
6) The square footage is wrong.
Maybe give them a pass on this one, but the fact that the square footage range says 500-699 and the listings says 600 is something that should have been sorted out ahead of time. Perhaps the condo is 550 square feet and they’re saying “approximately” 600 square feet, as any reasonable agent would do.
7) There are no room descriptions.
“Laminate,” written three times, is all you get to know about the condo. Again – what the hell are you paying your agent for? You’ve got three description fields for each room – so why not use them and actually advertise and market the property?
8) $620 per square foot
They call this “great value,” but $620 per square foot with no parking and no locker is not great value. This is like a tree with no stump, a police officer with three legs, or a house floating in the air.
I just don’t understand it.
What the hell are you paying for?
It’s your largest investment, and you’re going to put it in the hands of somebody that can’t even figure out which building is which, let alone somebody who likely hasn’t even visited the property?
Well, as somebody once wrote on my blog, “This is just another opportunity to separate yourself from the pack.”
I agree. And I, along with thousands of other hard-working, reputable agents do this every day.
As for the listing above – it’s a joke. And so is everybody involved in the entire process….
Moonbeam!
at 7:45 am
When I decided to get a manicure, I walked into 3 different nail salons to check them out a little… I agree with you Dave that sellers should know a little about an agent before listing! It’s as basic as Green Eggs and Ham!
Nick
at 8:29 am
The dimensions of the kitchen and living room are the exact same. Seems to me that they are the same room. Shouldn’t the shared dimensions be split in half so as to not double count, or is that standard?
David Fleming
at 9:42 am
@ Nick
I wouldn’t say anything is “standard” when it comes to unregulated practices. Normally, you’d see one of the description fields for the kitchen say, “Comb w/Living” if the kitchen and living are being included in the same measurement, and you’d hope that the living room description would say “Comb w/Kitchen” just to make sure the message gets across. But when you don’t have any description fields filled out, this is the result…
jg
at 8:57 am
Its sad to say- but im not surprised. its unbelievable how often this occurs. well maybe not this bad.
On a side note: i have a friend who dated a police officer and she said he had three legs, so maybe
there is some truth to that one!
RPG
at 9:35 am
This is quite possibly the best post you’ve ever written.
Ralph Cramdown
at 10:05 am
Hey, even if the realtor does the listing right, realtor.ca will screw up the location. Ever hover over a red dot on the map of Toronto and up pops a listing in Prince Edward County, or Newfoundland? Who knows how many poor sellers’ downtown condo listings have been mapped somewhere in the middle of the Canadian Shield?
David Fleming
at 10:54 am
@ Ralph
This is very true. I had a listing on Laurel Avenue in Scarborough, and even though I put the correct postal code on the listing, TREB’s system still placed the listing out in Etobicoke. I had a dozen calls the first day from people saying, “$330,000 for a property on Laurel?!?!?! I’ll buy it – sight unseen!” I guess the west-Laurel is a bit pricier than the east-Laurel…
Graham
at 4:08 pm
It’s Like Having A Park In Your Backyard!
Kyle
at 10:38 am
While i know double counting is pretty common, i suspect the dining room is being triple counted in the kitchen and living room measurements. Plus this sentence just sucks, “Bright and Comfort Unit, Good for Live On Or Invest”.
George
at 11:17 am
The lack of photos bothers me. If people can take the time to post photos of their $20 items on Kijiji or Craigslist, then an agent should be able to do the same for a $300,000+ item. I’d guess most buyers ignore listings that lack interior photos. No one wants to blind date in real estate.
Floom
at 1:24 pm
I can’t even fathom listing something without interior photos. Thats the definition of insanity. It’s like Autotrader listings that have no price. There are 8 dozen black Nissan Pathfinders for sale, yeah sure I’m going to call you to ask the price. Next. In the same vein, I am NOT going to call about a listing with no photos because 1. I assume it must be pretty bad 2. there are ALWAYS other options. Sure, maybe if its the-one-and-only 3 bedroom, detached in Leaside, newly reno’d, for $699k -then I might be forced to check it out. But if its a totally ubiquitous 1-bedroom condo in Toronto -do your damn job. I know first hand how hard this blogger works for his clients -if your agent doesn’t go the extra mile or ten miles -you could swing a cat and hit 5 other agents who will gladly do so.
JH
at 2:24 pm
Does the fact that the woman in blue’s chair is floating count as a separate form of wacky from the fact that she’s on a chair to begin with?
Pen
at 3:45 pm
You missed my personal favourite: Square foot source = Sqft
About this: “But many agents did not speak up, because they’re the ones who are guilty…”
Did the many agents who did not speak up all read your Grid column and if they did read it why are they guilty because they didn’t speak up?
Daniel
at 5:58 pm
Dude you have to learn how to use the number “8” with a parenthesis “)” without it showing up as a happy-face.
JH
at 10:14 am
Step 1: In the admin interface, go to Settings -> Writing.
Step 2: The second line down, next to “Formatting”, you’ll see a checkbox for “Convert emoticons like 🙂 and 😛 to graphics on display”. Uncheck that box.
Step 3: There is no step 3!
Deepa
at 7:34 pm
Hi David! The cat’s head and tail are facing the same direction!
Joe Q.
at 9:28 am
The no-pictures thing in listings is ridiculous, as is the practice (common among some agents, it seems) of keeping the listing addresses hidden from people browsing realtor.ca.
Phil
at 10:29 am
Besides the lack of interior photos, which happens to a surprising large number of listings, the absences of real square footage is also annoying. You shouldn’t be allowed to get by by saying “500-699 sf”, which I saw so many times. For a one bedroom condo, whether it is 500 or 699 makes a huge difference! Shouldn’t it be compulsory to release the actual size so that buyers won’t waste time on the condos which are not the right size? I think many buyers are fine with 620/650sf but definitely can’t accept something 500 or 550sf. Why waste their time?
JC
at 1:31 pm
Yes, pretty indicative of the crap that goes on out there. I had to laugh about the photo being of the wrong building. He would have been better off doing my pet peeve… not having any photos at all. You’re listing a property and you can’t be bothered taking or uploading ANY photos at ALL? Most sellers are all about saving $$ on commissions. This is a classic example of what cut commissions get you. He/she couldn’t even bother filling the “Remarks for clients” section with full words or English that makes sense? “Good for live on or invest”. Thats a keeper.
geneticistx
at 4:05 pm
i can’t accept ANY errors from real estate agents in toronto. For the most part, in the downtown core and proximal areas, properties are selling VERY QUICKLY. I just sold my house without an agent, luckily, using lawyers. An agent doesn’t warrant or guarantee anything. Plus, for $20K for a few days work and access to MLS, an open house (maybe), i better be given a gift certificate to holtz or something or a dinner at auberge.
Pete
at 3:56 pm
I thought the $0 taxes was an error, but apparently not? It says taxes are not included in the maintenance fees, so I’m not sure why they wouldn’t be listed.