Michael C. introduced his brother, Paul.
Michael C. introduced his brother, Paul, who he has determined is either his 6th or 7th sibling. Paul is and has been on a number of Real Estate Boards around the Lower Mainland and his role is limited to acting for or on behalf of Real Estate agents, though, naturally enough, the public dies not see his job in quite such simple terms. He describes his clientele as a “tough” one, which presumably means demanding and unreasonable: he clarifies his job as keeping ‘agents in line’. As the Professional Standards Advisor for the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, and over the years has seen substantial changes in the rights, transgressions and responsibilities for agents.
Interestingly he showed us some Multiple Listing Books for past years. These, of course, are interesting if only in the hugely altered prices of the few recent decades, but from his perspective the change is more profound. In the past century the agents had only one responsibility, that being to a vendor; however much one might “employ” the services of an agent, the duty of that agent never lay to the purchaser’s, a somewhat iniquitous position that certainly yielded some nefarious practices. It was ‘justified’ by the fact that it was the vendor who paid the fee to the agent, a position which many purchases thought quite fair until something went wrong. And it often did.
In addition to the agency issue, the actual activities of the agents were different, most of them being very localized in their selling practices. He said that in the old days the real estate business kept the courier business in rude good health, for each district, some of which were quite small, generated a tome of listings that, in practice, ensured that agents rarely dealt with properties outside the vicinity of their local offices.
Practices now are different. Limited dual agency is now obsolete, but this is in part because the industry has had its self-regulatory status rescinded. In order to better protect the public, a party to a transaction is presented with an explanatory document which sets out the moving parts of a deal. A brief look at the document showed, to your unwitting correspondent, a putative contractual morass that is about as complicated as learning to play chess by correspondence: possible but what a performance!
Interestingly he showed us some Multiple Listing Books for past years. These, of course, are interesting if only in the hugely altered prices of the few recent decades, but from his perspective the change is more profound. In the past century the agents had only one responsibility, that being to a vendor; however much one might “employ” the services of an agent, the duty of that agent never lay to the purchaser’s, a somewhat iniquitous position that certainly yielded some nefarious practices. It was ‘justified’ by the fact that it was the vendor who paid the fee to the agent, a position which many purchases thought quite fair until something went wrong. And it often did.
In addition to the agency issue, the actual activities of the agents were different, most of them being very localized in their selling practices. He said that in the old days the real estate business kept the courier business in rude good health, for each district, some of which were quite small, generated a tome of listings that, in practice, ensured that agents rarely dealt with properties outside the vicinity of their local offices.
Practices now are different. Limited dual agency is now obsolete, but this is in part because the industry has had its self-regulatory status rescinded. In order to better protect the public, a party to a transaction is presented with an explanatory document which sets out the moving parts of a deal. A brief look at the document showed, to your unwitting correspondent, a putative contractual morass that is about as complicated as learning to play chess by correspondence: possible but what a performance!