Urban Vancouver

"Is there a Realtor you would recommend to family, friends, or colleagues?"

No, there isn't. During my working career with public utilities like Ontario Hydro and B.C. Hydro I was transferred so often I never felt it wise to buy a property in any of the places where I found myself working, and in some of those that would not have been possible anyway. I continue to be a renter, and my feeling is that real estate agents are largely responsible for the ridiculously inflated prices of properties these days. Prices that seem to be unrelated to the cost of living or annual rise of inflation, or anything else usually used to determine wages or salaries or family incomes. The applicable rule seems to be "whatever the market will bear". The reason is obvious - real estate agents want more and bigger commissions, and the only way to get those is to increase sales and increase the values of those sales.

So an old guy like me on a pension is paying $725.00 rent to the owner of this 535 sq.ft. studio unit, and you're cluttering up our community blogging site with your spam, pretending to be seeking information, but really just scoffing some free advertising because you think that's perfectly acceptable and we're probably too stupid to realize what you're really up to anyway.
And if that's what you're thinking, Jon, you'd be wrong.

P.S. = That $725.00 rent represents 41.78% of my $1,735.00 disposable monthly pension income,
just in case you think you have problems.

Over the last 30 years I have used realtor's for 4 of my 6 homes. The last two I sold privately myself. WHY? Because in a realty market where there are more buyers than sellers - who needs an f-n realtor! In today’s Metro Vancouver realty market most homes don't stay on the market for more than 4 weeks! Some for only hours! You do not need their broad base wealth of buyers. They are already lining up at your front door!

All you need is a little intelligence, savvy and research into how to sell your home which should include how to have a strong open house. There is a lot of information on this subject at your library or online. BUT the most important key element in selling your home privately is "hiring an experienced lawyer who deals in realty". Your realty fees (for lack of a better term) should be spent using a law firm that has realty experience. The fine print turns into bold print. You know all legalities, titles, caveats etc. have been properly dealt with. There is so much more peace of mind when you see a lawyer’s signature at the bottom of your realty contract (when buying or selling a home).

Ironically the last two homes I sold in less than a month were bought by families who used a realtor. Realtors will flock with potential buyers, i.e. they will stop at nothing in bringing potential buyers to your private sale. Realtor's code of greed has no ethical boundaries - even among themselves they will sell any home whether it is a MLS listing or not.

I will take a lawyer's signature over a realtor's any day and so should you when buying or selling a home!...jlyon you just made one more enemy!

While I am sure we appreciate our friends position here as regards his rent and mortgage payments, let's consider this. In 1960 the average Vancouver home sold for $13,000 or so. By 2000, the average sale price was $295,000. That's almost a 2,260 % return. If you had made a ten percent downpayment of about $1300 you would be sitting on a 22,600 % return on that downpayment, and you would have paid for a mortgage free roof over your head.

So while we can blame society, culture, realtors and the capitalist economy for our problems, the truth is, society was not asking too much from you in the first place. You could have made a modest downpayment on an apartment (somewhere) and seen that investment, potentially change not only your financial landscape but your attitude as well. We live in the greatest counrty in the world and buying a home here is almost a divine mandate !

But it's still not too late. Why not buy now and in ten years time you will have done pretty well ? You could buy you own studio apartment for your curent rent (which by the way sounds like a good deal, if you live in Vancouver).

Bless your heart for jumping in here and lending me a hand. I knew I could count on you!
This 35-year-old studio unit I'm in here, when it first was put on the market by the original developers, Daon Developers, who had originally kept it for a few years as a rental property for themselves, sold initially for around $35,900. It's now 35 years of mostly neglect later, and this upholstered closet is said to be worth $125,000 or so. I think that's absolutely outrageous and verging on the criminal, regardless of what the real estate industry would have us believe. Thank you, my friend, for adding your contribution to this topic.

Hi ArtBoomer

I get your point about a private sale. It worked for you that's great ! (I bought my own home in a private sale and got a great deal). But how did you assess the current market value of your place. Did you tour every new listing in your neighbourhood. Did you then receive the sale prices of each of those homes and do a comparative market analysis. Could you pinpoint the value of your home accurately ?

My question to you is: How do you know you got the best value for your property ? Maybe the buyer and the realtor spotted a great deal and that's why they were so keen to buy it. Maybe with extensive marketing on the MLS you could have created a bidding war ? Even just having two buyers compete for your property can earn you an extra $5-50k (depending on type and condition of home). Even if you undersold it for $5000 you have just handed the buyer 2 luxury trips to Hawaii for a week this year.

Plus, why is the realtor greedy and unethical if he brings a BUYER to your home ! How does that compute. Surely you are conflicted or misunderstand the nature of the house sale process ? Is it because you had to pay the buyer's realtor a commission ?

In which case I would argue you think that someone is going to work for free to sell your home by bringing you 'your' buyers. That's a little arrogant, if not stupid.

Is that the case ? Please explain.

I detect the dulcet tones of a real estate agent here, and we're not getting into a game of "What If", or "If Only". I've already been all through that. You make some good points, but I've been renting in this complex for most of the last 28 years or so, except for five years that Hydro moved me out to Squamish just before retirement in 1988. I know these people and they know me, and I've been in this present unit now for almost 11 years, which is likely why I'm getting a reasonable deal. They know I'm a good tenant, and they know they don't have to worry about the rent payments. I'm 75, not in the best of health, and I don't really want to own my own closet at this point in my life. I should have done like you said 20 or 30 years ago, but I didn't, and this is not the time.

Funny how you never once in all your garble mentioned any "disadvantages" in using a realty lawyer instead of some realtor like yourself who makes all these crazed uninformed suppositions that I could have made a better deal using a realtor. And yes I did have a bidding war during the recent selling of my last home - idiot.

Do you not know that MLS listings are easily accessible to anyone? Knowing the "correct" market value of your home can easily be paralleled to similar homes especially "going prices" in your area. And to further imply that I did not check out property values before during and shortly after the sale of my homes shows your short slightness in anyone who choses to sell privately. When selling your home privately their is a "due diligence". It is something I and am sure others selling their homes privately DO NOT take lightly or half heartily. That is why we use LAWYERS - stupid!.

Also your callous ignorance when telling Ray how he could have better spent his money back in 1960 on a home is more than unnerving. How in the hell do you know what his financial status was back in 1960. Back then there was usually only one income in the household. Maybe he was physically or medically unable to find a job that would allow him the financial means to buy property. Maybe he had to support 6 kids, or was a blue collar worker making then 5 dollars an hour! Your reasoning (in Ray's case) is without clout and much ignorance and borders on prejudice!

And dearest arrogant stupid realtor I am not asking you to sell my home for free because I can do it without your services as so could most sellers under the "current sellers market conditions" i.e. as long as they are PRUDENT, do their DUE DILIGENCE and use a LAWYER!.

Time for you to find a real job and stop conning people and face the reality that under these current almost effortless selling market conditions you just are not required! All we really need is a free and open unprejudiced MLS that anyone has access to when trying to sell their home.

You've already chewed this guy to ratshit - let him limp away and save us the bother of washing the blood off the floors....

But I do heartily admire your tact & diplomacy and above all effectiveness!

Back in the sixties, just for the record, I was a recently-married father of a young family, and working for Great lakes Power Company at a hydro-electric development 92 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It was the last private hydro-electric company in Ontario, and it was a good outfit to work for, but the actual take-home pay wasn't very much. At that hydro site, we lived in rented company houses, and there was nothing else near our little colony for miles & miles.
The main line of the Algoma Central Railway ran right across the top of our dam, on a big curved trestle, and some of us didn't get out of there to "civilization" (Sault Ste. Marie) for sometimes months at a time. I usually got our household supplies shipped in on the train, which
stopped at a whistle-stop near the east end of our dam. I couldn't have bought a home of my own
around there if i wanted to, because it was all either Crown Land, or owned by the Railway, which had been granted several whole townships in return for building the railway through that part of the country. Otherwise, I was fit as a fiddle & ready for love. I just happened to be working for peanuts.

I for one am tired of you realtor's taking advantage of a "free" blog site to market your wares. For me this is not what a blog site should ever be about. But since this site insists on letting you guys advertise as opposed to actually blogging...

EXPECT (time permitting) me to counter your efforts in using this blog site as a marketing tool. As you can see my comments will be guile and transparently pundit.

Get used to it!

Good on ya! I just knew there was something about you that I'd like. Like the "John Wayne Toilet Paper", you "don't take no shit from no Indian" - or in this case a real estate hustler.

I got my car back about half an hour ago, three days and $1874.79 later. The good news is, it's running nicely again, and thankfully, I had enough money saved up to pay for it. I've been putting my "cigarette money" into the savings account, and toying with the idea of going on a nice little holiday on it. That's until the car went into the garage Wednesday morning. Then, that whole plan went "Poof!" - So now I get to start all over again, and I hope this little Neon keeps running smoothly until I get enough money saved up. While I was waiting on it this afternoon at the dealership, I was reading in today's Globe and Mail about the new technology required to meet coming requirements for pollution standards. They expect all that to add between $3,000 and $7,000 to the prices of new cars by 2016. I think we're going to have to completely re-think our methods of getting around. We're paying more & more for less & less, and that needs to stop. What do you say?

With the inevitable growing costs of any new vehicle today or 5 years from now leasing may be the only financial option. And don't forget to drop off the keys after your 3 lease maturity. Don't get sucker punched into the buy out spiel because after 3 years there is so much electronic and engine maintenance required it could no longer make sense to hold on to your leased vehicle. $$$$$

I am in a middle of a 3 year lease with my company SUV lease. With all the electronic gadgets and sensors there will no longer be a straight forward cheap maintenance schedule for this SUV. A tune-up will no doubt double in cost because of all these electronic senor devices with shop charges slowing creeping up to 115/120+ an hour in the next year or so. Buying out a lease may be cost prohibitive! Something to keep in mind...do your "due diligence homework"!!!

And lastly I find it quite refreshing blogging on a realtor's blog that has absolutely nothing to do with realty!!!

"I find it quite refreshing blogging on a realtor's blog that has absolutely nothing to do with realty!!!"

Me too! Just goes to prove an old saying of mine: "There's always more than one way to skin a cat."

Hi ArtBoomer

Thanks for your recent post about your successful private sale. The rant about real estate agent's is fine and good (I am not a real estate agent), but why does 90% of the market use them to buy and sell their home ? Are you saying that 90 % of the market is dumb as shit and not as smart as you. That seems to be your supposition. Just because you sold your home privately does not mean much-only that you wanted to save a few thousand dollars (which is ok).

But one of the key points of your post seems to be that realtors suck-but they only suck in really hot markets when there are more buyers than properties available for those buyers i.e in a hot sellers market. Fair enough. But what if you were in a buyers market (as we will be in about 12 months). I am guessing that, if your honest, in a really shit market you would hire a realtor right ? Seems reasonable.

let me know what you think

You say "I am not a real estate agent". So why are you vitally interested in what anyone thinks of them on a community blogging site supposedly dedicated to topics of general or community interest with a focus on the Vancouver area? Do you perhaps think that everyone in Vancouver is just standing around salivating over the prospect of immediately selling or buying property? Do you not think we have other interests? And why haven't you? The point of these comments was to convey the message that this isn't the place for advertising real estate or real estate agents or their personal websites. We do NOT want this site plastered with such writings. Our members and readers are plenty smart enough to know where and how to find a real estate agent if and when they want one. We do not need to be beaten over the head with these goddamned lectures every weekend when someone thinks our Webmaster is off duty. Get the point?

Why do 90% of home buyers/sellers use Realtors? TIME. It CONSUMES a lot of time and effort to completely fulfill your "real estate due dilligence".

And for you to say that I think that 90% of the market is "dumb as shit" and "not as smart as me" shows your complete inability to comprehend or grasp the essence of my realty comments. Try in the future not to spend so much wasted time in fruitless verbosity!

Just for you I will write (speak) slower so you might be able to comprehend the essence of my realty comments.

Realtors do not suck nor was it implied. But during an "inflated sellers market" IF you want and enjoy the challenges of selling or buying your home why not? Realtors do not have an exclusivity to the home market. "We have an open free realty market system in Canada".

Now if we were in a "buyers market" and IF I had the time I would no doubt FIRST try doing it on my own with a lot of realty due-dilligence, referring to MLS listings in my area and using the services of a good realty law firm. WHY NOT?

Realty is not for everyone just like crochet is not for everyone.

And the next time you or anyone who wants to make a comment using the name "Anonymous"... Just keep in mind your lack of blog etiquette in only identifying yourself as "Anonymous" shows your lack of confidence in laying it out all on the table. Are you not proud of your name and who you are?

And Ray if you ever get this far back into the blogs - thank you for your supporting comments.