Real-estate market 'almost at a crisis situation'

Good news BM, that really is the way I think to do it. Go in knowing what your up against and just like any other game, or competition do everything you can to stack the odds in your favour. And at least for the foreseeable future, that largely means find the sleepers as you did ( and I did) that for whatever reason, escape "notice" and/or as soon as they hit the marker and where the sellers aren't holding out for Mondays bidding war.. The more other would be buyers are beating each other up on the other places, the better your odds. It might sound a little cold but times are what they are.

Nice read Hawkman.
Not sure what they hope to accomplish with a couple of the bullits and some of whats left out is telling, including some rule changes. Its not in CREA or TREBS hands to make those changes, but they should be at the table looking at them, proposing them. They have a role in this to.

Also think it's past time the industry look at, and find a different model for their comp. Its no fun being an agent on the buy side, I know my agent and Ive used her for years, trust her implicitly and more, has been reduced to tears a few times herself the last 1-2 years. Also know, just like buyers are averaging 10 (or more depending on the region) attempts...Well that means their agents can go weeks, months without closing a deal.......And with soooooooooo many agents out there, and so few houses on the market, its tough getting the listings on the sell side.......She (and her husband)went to the wall for me during our search, and because we were moving away from the asylum, that meant lots of hours and lots of Kms on the road for her to, meeting us at every property I went to go see............and know she did it for others (as mentioned including one family trying to move here from Montreal last spring).

But on the sell side?
Like prices and the bidding wars.
Just stupid, anything and everything is selling with zero effort, time or knowledge on the agents part.

And given house prices have been and are going up 20-30% each year.............................................. ....
Average price of a single detached in TO is just over 1,000,000 now.
$40,000 to $50,000 for about 5 minutes work.

It was only about 6 years ago, when "holding" offers, creating a log jam, intentionally setting up biddings wars was not supposed to be done. And the fact is, in this environment while there are a number of reasons for it all. Lack of inventory........aka liquidity
And Agents are intentionally reducing that...choking what little flow there is, .....and have been for some time, making a bad situation a lot worse than it should be. Not to mention what that is doing to the value of houses, going 10s, or hundreds of thousands over list.

J Ben the bungalow we bid on the week before had 12 bids, and if I where a betting man the agent listed it at $279,000. for a reason, to get people interested , if it was listed around the $310,000. or $320,000. mark where it probably should have been for the size of the Peoperty you might not have seen 12 bidders, the week before it was 3 bidders on a bungalow just 5 mins away and same size property. to me what that just did was drive the price of the other roughly 30 houses on that street up another $15,000. - $20,000.

My agent, who I have known and used for years have talked off and on about some of the possible/probable causes, some of the problems (and she more than agrees TREB should shoulder some of the blame) , what its doing to her clients (and herself, because she is one of those agents that actually cares about her clients, wont bs them, wont mislead them just get a deal closed, if theres something she doesnt like a bout a place and thinks I should walk back out the door, shell tell me...and will drive herself into the ground trying to find them a place). We've talked about the problems investors are creating (those looking to flip a house, or buy for rental property), we've talked about how agents themselves are creating problems either through the rules, or buying up properties to flip or rent and more.

Have 2 pretty good friends that are agents as well and obviously the topic comes up a lot. One actually just recently decided it was time to leave the insanity, that is the GTA and moved to Lindsay. Should also indicate how good my agent is....:)

One of the problems agents are now having is determining a fair market value. Low balling a house in order to help incite and insane bidding war has been part of the game for a long time now. But its so bad now, its a "crap shoot". Was a time one reason agents could justify their commissions was they would knows the ins and outs of their area's. Why a house on one block might be +/- 15,000 to 25,000 from a near identical house just a couple blocks away. Good agents could nail its fair value so it wouldnt sit on the market too long, or be listed too low, and the seller leave good money on the table.

Not only does that not matter a bit these days, its making it near impossible to gauge a properties true value. I mentioned earlier how banks use their appraisers......... Two comparable houses could go very differently. One might get 30-50 offers and sell for 200 over list, a near identical might get 10 or 5 and go for list or a little over.

Hence in part why many frustrated buyers hear the words. "Throw everything you can at it". And next thing you know "market value" for that neighborhood has jumped 50k, 75k.

I think ( am not sure) there was a pretty famous place in Oshawa, and it might be th one that started this thread. Listed around 800k, needs work and it went for 1.2ish.

So what does that tell a would be buyer looking at a similar place not far away, or would be sellers?

Jack squat, its a crap shoot

I have learned a thing or three in life:
- People think what people think.
- People do what people do!
- Everyone thinks they're being logical and they KNOW the truth!
- Common sense is not common.

When it comes to real estate and the recent insanity, all of the above apply - most of the time.
Crap shoot?
Maybe.

Simple rule is this >>> MONEY = POWER

What is our government doing to control any of this?
N O T H I N G.

At least nothing that would benefit the ordinary folk.

At municipal, provincial and federal levels, all I see is the government trying to make a buck for themselves. It's messed up big time if you ask me! They all want to welcome that foreign money and know that every sale means Land Transfer Tax in their pockets. Plus then they can collect higher Property Taxes because MPAC will give a new higher assessment value to plug into the tax mill rate.
Why stop there though? Follow Vancouver's lead and TRY to collect an additional tax from the foreign buyers, as if THAT will help stabilize prices for my kids or yours!?

It's just money money MONEY ... and nobody wants to fight that power. They just want a share of it for themselves. I can write here forever and still not be able to convey my thoughts effectively. Everyone reading here is "people" and people do what people do, regardless of who says what.

Think I mentioned a few times "fear and greed" Hawkman.
Two of the most powerful motivators there are.

Was reading two articles yesterday. Nothing new really, everything thats being bounced around here. One article keyed on the govt's reluctance to bring in a foreign buyers tax, another keyed on the lack of inventory and "causes" for that. TREB blamed this that and other, all good points but one thing they didnt mention, at all (maybe because they shoulder some of it). Is how many people are there, that wont and arent listing because its so insane. Have to live somewhere and there have got to be thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people standing pat, who might want to downsize, upsize, move into a condo, move across town to be near kids. If not for the fact that I knew it was time for me to leave the city ( sick of city life and some things ) and it was time to go country (as I have planned all my life).

I probably wouldnt have listed my place.............Made my place in Whitby available for someone.
Do know, it was an investor that bought it, and its now being rented out. Likely at a rediculous amount per month (Rental market isnt much better). Foreign buyer thats using a property management company or local person, dont know.

The one thing I keep wondering about and while stats never tell the whole picture and can be misleading. Even a few reports from Treb (maybe they've been from CREA) say almost 50% of transactions are first time buyers.
/boggle

MPAC.
Lol, yeah.

Something a wee bit different, from the point of view of realtors.

Have to call "BS" on a couple of items. One because one of my friends is a stager, a good one. I know what she charges for consults ( when the seller has good furnishings, colours etc and she just gives them a list of "do this, do that, move that here and that there) and what she charges for staging (when she does it and when she has to bring in better suited furnishings and accessories).

And what photographers charge, given I've done some and I know what the rates are
If a realtor is paying "$10,000 to stage a home, have the photos done....lol unless they are selling places on the bridle path, no wonder they are finding it hard....

But that said, and as mentioned. Yep, no picnic for them either.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle34429954/

Quote:

---

One of the biggest problems is the supply of housing simply hasn’t kept pace with demand. The Toronto Real Estate Board’s (TREB) multiple listings service registered 9,834 new listings last month; down 12.5 per cent from the same time last year.

---

New listings Down 12.5%,
prices up 28%

Probably a few reasons for that, one almost certainly is "fear". Fear of getting caught in these insane bidding wars, that over and above make "putting a price" on your house, or the house your buying, something of a crap shoot, because yup, people are people and who knows why they do the things they do. Your house could go ballistic and go for hundreds over ask,maybe the winner has been trying for 3 months (12 weeks, 12 attempts) and is now so desperate they just throw every single penny they have at it........ or it might go ask ( I bought mine right at ask, and it also was appraised by the bank at a little less than I paid, basically I paid exactly what the banks appraiser thought its worth, and his prerogative is to protect the bank, meaning.........a rarity,)

or just a little over like Big Mac bought his.........But neither Big Mac nor I were "desperate" enough to throw every penny we have at them.....Maybe our wives hadn't been reduced to tears 5 or 10 times....

Fear of having to spend weeks or months going to see properties, going to open houses, being told somewhere between 5 and 13 times (depending on region 1 to 3 months) every Monday night as the TREB created Monday night insanity comes to an end and theres 1 winner and for everyone else a punch in the gut, "I'm so sorry, you didn't get it" or "Im sorry, even though you scraped every available penny you could, and went in $50,000 or $100,000 over ask, you didn't get it, it wasn't enough . Now you get to hit the reset button and do it all over again, hop back on that stressful, emotional roller coaster.
Again
and Again
and Again
and Again
and Again

Or you could just decide not to enter the insanity ( not become a statistic) and not move.
funny TREB never talks about that when blaming (rightly) the demand/supply forces or lack of liquidity.

well in our case I went in at $10,000. less then the wife wanted to THROW at it. not sure i would have ever heard the end if we had lost out. but it was based on our realtor wanting us to go in at asking and I know if we did we'd still be looking today. I feel for the agents for the buyers as there are houses in Windsor selling $10, 000. - $20,000. under and only on the market a few weeks and places selling for anywhere from $10,000. - $100,000. over in the same amount of time, as someone stated a complete crap shoot., in our case it was a combination of amount of time spent looking, looking at places we probably wouldn't have liked and also the driving back and forth to Windsor almost every week, we also had a 10 point checklist of things we wanted in the house we where looking for and this house checked off 8 of them which was the same as the last 2 we had looked at. The 1 bonus item on this house is the Grounds and Flowers and shrubs, probably $10,000. - $15,000. alone which helped us in giving that little bit extra to get the house. also lucky enough to once again get a quiet street with a 75' X 215' lot which will be nice as we are leaving a 50' X 200 ' wife looked at some places that where 40' x 100' I would look and it would be a resounding NO. didn't even look at the location or the house.

All I can say to anyone else looking don't be afraid to ask that person on Kijiji who is having an open house on the weekend if they would take your offer before the open house, son-in-law got his place this way, same as us. I was emailing the selling agent Friday Morning to ask about getting gas to the stoves and dryer etc. etc. and that got the conversation moving along and next think you know we own the house 10 hours later.

It's "A Wild Wild West" in real estate these days and that's all I can say to sum it up.

Home Stagers, Home Inspectors, Pre-Listing Contractors, Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Realtors, Sellers, Buyers, Kijiji Shoppers, Foreign Investors ... have all seemingly joined hands to destroy our way of life here. As an immigrant myself, I sure don't appreciate others coming here to mess things up the way they have already messed up their own countries already.

Too much government and not enough governing. No fear JBEN. Only greed.

TREB, CREA, OREA, etc., are all asleep at the wheel. Federal, provincial and municipal governments are only looking for ways to increase their own $$$ share of this "hot market" and enable themselves to give themselves salary raises, increased benefits, and of course the financial ability to buy real estate!

Business owners are up the creek without a paddle. Renters? Ditto!
Nobody feels sorry for anyone else, and as I mentioned before, Money = Power.

In my 12 years I have never seen anything like this and my colleagues who have been in the biz for 30 years haven't seen it either. God helps us all - IF there is a God that is.

Hard to argue with that Hawkman. I have a gut feeling you and my agent would get along just wonderfully.

The RE issues like so many things have ties to politics. Even the fact that because the GTA is what it is, has what it has, is a magnet, black hole, what ever one wishes to label it. And there are reasons for that to.

In the end, it's just normal people getting hurt.

My girls are 19 and 23. One is just starting out ( she just found a place to rent yesterday)...

One of the articles I read yesterday was for "boomers". How to get your millennial kids out of the house...

Lol,
Good luck in years to come if there aren't widescale changes to more than just RE.

It's a bloody mess.
And honestly, no good ways out or answers I fear.

My daughters are 17 and 20 so I feel your pain.
It's beyond frustrating to see their futures destroyed because some rich people from OUTSIDE have decided to come in and mess up the scenery. Free enterprise, powers of capitalism, plus a LACK of governing governments have resulted in a toxic mix for our younger generation.
What can they possibly do to generate enough income to enable them to carry such ridiculous mortgages?! Which job would give anyone a 100% increase in salary due to the "logic" that house prices have increased that much in the past 4 years?

Our niece is in her early 30's and just got married to her long time BF. They both have reasonable jobs yet very little hope of being able to afford anything any time soon. Prices are still climbing...

Looking one inch in front of my nose, I should be happy that I own a home, mortgage and all; but my personal curse is that I always zoom way out and try to see the bigger picture. I do not like this picture at all.

When a house is listed and sold, I see the names of the sellers, the buyers and the respective realtors doing the deal. More than 60% of the names are Chinese or Persian. I myself am from Iran and I know how ruthlessly they have raised prices of everything there in the past 37 years, helped in part with their ever plummeting currency values. It BLOWS my mind that they can come to the GTA and buy/sell multi-million dollar properties as easily as drinking a glass of water!!!

Our loonie is weak and our policies are lax, so I can see why the Chinese people are crowding here and buying up our real estate even easier than the Persians are doing it...
There are numerous angles to look at this issue and I have too much happening in my head right now, preventing me from making simple and coherent statements on the subject. For that I apologize to anyone reading this.

Most agents I know truly care about their clients, but there are bad apples in every basket, from mechanics to financial advisors, etc.
The real estate industry needs more regulations indeed but all the governing organizations keep making bad decisions and ignoring the main problems. Too many talking heads. Too many simple minds.