THORNHILL, Ontario, Oct. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While many reasons were blamed on property prices going sky rocket high post April 2017 in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and surrounding markets, Ali Salarian, Real Estate Broker and Vice President of Pay Per Service Realty puts the blame on Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO).
According to RECO’s current rules, information is available to the public for any active listing on Multiple Listing System (MLS) with exception of selling price. This procedure has no justification other than to satisfy requirements of The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
Clients have to rely on Realtors’ knowledge about the property’s estimated market value and have to have faith in the code of ethics imposed by RECO on its members.
Ali Salarian shares a recent experience when he represented a buyer and submitted an offer on their behalf in a multiple offers situation with 4 other competing offers. The condo townhouse was listed for $499,000 with an estimated market value of between $540,000 and 550,000. He lost the bid and was surprised to find that the house was eventually sold for $590,000, way above the asking price. The listing agent mentioned that all other 4 offers were all around the $550,000 price mark.
This is a case of there not being full disclosure of data by the Realtor who convinced his client to put forth the highest bidding. The public argument is who cares since the buyer is willing to pay this price. But the real problem is that this one transaction has the ability to affect the prices of all other properties in a neighborhood. In recent times as a matter of fact, many buyers didn’t waive their finance clauses and walked out of deals when they were informed that the appraisal evaluation report was significantly below the purchase price and their lender asked for more money to put down in order to meet the approved LTV.
Buyers are already exasperated with some dishonest Realtors and don’t believe all of them would act ethically. Meanwhile, RECO cannot control all of its Realtors; however it is trying to modernize REBA 2002 since awhile, contradicting the fact that the industry is self-regulated. It is nothing like other North America real estate regulators who provide sold information directly to clients on demand.
Ali Salarian
Phone Number: +1 (905) 209-7400 ext. 102
Email: ali@ppsrealty.ca