A change in regulations for the Real Estate Industry put in place by the BC Superintendent of Real Estate to address issues in the province's large cities; is making for a number of head aches for smaller communities as realtors try to solve the problems posed by the provinces approach to New Dual Agency rules.
The new regulations which came into effect in June of this year, were first announced in September, with the move designed to combat what has been called "shadow flipping' mostly found in the hyper active markets of Vancouver, Victoria and the Okanagan.
To combat that practice, the new rules now ban BC Realtors from representing both buyers and sellers.
At Monday's BC Finance Committee hearings in Prince Rupert, MLA's received some first hand concerns from members of the provincial realty sector, with Trevor Hargreaves and Sheila Love, a Northwest realtor who provided for some of the background on the topic for the panel members.
"I'm a managing broker. I have three offices: one in Kitimat, one in Terrace and one in Prince Rupert. I have 26 realtors under my license. I've been personally licensed since 1992, and I became a managing broker a few years ago. So throughout my career, I was involved in numerous limited dual agency scenarios — never had an issue. Sellers want to sell; buyers want to buy. "
Ms. Love noted how the rules have impacted on the way they do business and have left customers bewildered as to the convoluted process now in place for them to sell their homes.
"The impact of losing limited dual agency for the smaller areas is that we don't have the pool of buyers. Between my 26 realtors in all three communities, the average usually has between 12 to 15 listings, which means they also have buyers looking at those same properties.
As it is now, when we go to a seller's house, we go through our market analysis, and we tell them, "We can list your house, but I can't bring you a buyer, because we are not allowed to do limited dual agency." The public aren't happy.
We have had people come in, basically get angry and walk out. "Well, if I can't buy a house because you can't write the offer, I might as well go somewhere else." Or a seller saying: "Well, I might as well list my house privately. Why am I hiring you if you can't sell my house?"
The Northwest realtor also highlighted the stress that the new rules are putting on the local real estate industry, with brokerages closing and realtors leaving the business.
" We have had a few brokerages shut down. I actually got a call from one of my realtors in Rupert that is going to be quitting. Since June, she's struggled. She's an older realtor. Not as old as I am, but she's been in the industry.
Her clientele base is previous clients that she's dealt — family members. Now she's having to tell them if they're interested in buying one of her listings, she can no longer deal with that."
You can review their full presentation to the committee from the archive of Monday's session available here.
For more items of interest related to the Northwest Real Estate industry see our archive page here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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