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As I explained to my clients, they were so lucky to be working in a market in an area that provides three things the Toronto market does not: choice, inventory, and a buyer’s market. It was a long, long time ago, but once upon a time, you’d have that kind of inventory on the market, that kind of choice at your disposal, and while it wasn’t a true “buyer’s market,” it sure wasn’t what we see in the central core today. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel up there,” and upon receiving feedback calls from listing agents on Sunday, Monday, and into Tuesday (something very few agents down here do), I realized just how much of a buyer’s market it is. We know how to look past yellow paint in a house, because we know that people can buy a can, containing paint, and use a brush to apply it to the wall…

So at the risk of beating this horse to death, and spending far too much time on one topic when there’s a lot to talk about in the Toronto market, let’s look at the OREA press release: ENDING Bully offers WILL GIVE ALL BUYERS A FAIR CHANCE AT OWNING A HOME, say Ontario REALTORS® OREA responds to government consultation with 28 recommendations for raising professional standards and strengthening consumer protection TORONTO, ON – While I believe that many agents view bully offers as problematic, I would like to see where OREA’s data enables them to conclude, “Ontario Realtors are recommending an end to bully offers. It is the agents that don’t understand bully offers, and either don’t know how to submit them (as I explained last week), or don’t know how to work with them on the listing side. There are too many real estate agents, too many part-time real estate agents, too many crappy ones, too many that can’t speak English, too many that can’t read or do math, too many that lie, cheat, and steal, and too many that make the rest of us look bad.

That means I wrote them in 2014, and since that’s pre-baby, it means I can’t even remember… We talked a lot about bully offers this week, as well as the relatively (un)simple notion of “offer nights” in Toronto. In fact, I feel as though bully offers are even more confusing for some. On Monday, I want to go back to OREA’s big announcement this week, and examine their proposals to eliminate bully offers, ban escalation clauses, and introduce something called “disgorement.

I wanted to talk today about OREA’s announcement that they, apparently on behalf of Realtors, want the Ontario government to “ban” bully offers, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t describe a recent interaction with an agent that I think will put my above commentary in perspective, and shed some light on the real problem with bully offers. You essentially put the seller to a test for all their poker chips, and force them to either forego the next week of showings and the open house, and accept the offer right then and there, or turn the offer down, and risk you not coming back to the table on “offer night. “Jim, listen, I appreciate your offer, but my clients are in Jamaica, we’ve got a ton of interest in the condo, and I’ve talked to five or six agents already tonight that have said they’re bringing offers. Jim, you’ve submitted a conditional offer; an offer with not one, but two conditions, for a price that won’t work, on the day of offers, with a deadline of six hours before multiple other agents are going to submit offers.