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Toronto market is hot ... and shady
Dissident campaigns to head Toronto Real Estate Board
Michael Manley is an honest broker who cares about transparency and integrity in the real estate brokerage business. Is he about to be crushed by the Great Real Estate Cartel? A revealing article about problems in the Toronro real estate marketplace appears in today's Toronto Star.
In part it says:
"There's definitely a culture of greed that you didn't really see 10 years ago," says Michael Manley, from his office at the Prudential Properties brokerage he owns in the Beach.
He says he's heard enough stories about agents stretching and breaking the laws governing the industry. He wants transparency, including an open online bidding system to stop unfair practices when multiples offers on a property come in.
That's what he's promising if voted in as president-elect of the Toronto Real Estate Board. The weeklong election began last Friday, with 25,500 agents able to vote.
Manley's only opponent, Maureen O'Neill, counters that the system works. "I am completely opposed to Mr. Manley's platform. I believe the current market with the multiple offers is simply a supply and demand situation. It's proven it's successful, it works, it's excellent."
Asked about unethical practices, O'Neill replied that, "we have a mechanism within the industry, through RECO (the Real Estate Council of Ontario) to look into that. It's simply not a problem.
"I'm not disputing that that can happen," she explained.
Manley says without a transparent offer system, listing agents control all the information in multiple offer situations. For example, this makes it almost impossible to verify if competing offers are actually registered or if agents are divulging offers to their own clients, letting them know what to bid by doing so.
See full article in the Toronto Star »
June 13, 2007 in Real Estate Regulations | Permalink
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Comments
This was a very timely article that appeared in The Star.
In Mississauga we don't experience as many multiple offer situations as you have in Toronto, but I would love to see a formal online offer register available through TREB when you have an offer on a property. This would offer better protection for buyers and sellers when it comes to multiple offer situations. Although multiple offer situations may never become a level playing field, it will hinder the unscrupulous agents from boosting up the number of 'registered offers' when there is a multiple offer situation.
All the Best,
Mark
Posted by: Mark Argentino | Jun 20, 2007 11:03:59 PM
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