Even those who are not looking to buy a home will likely be on top of their local news, and if that local news is for Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or even Halifax nowadays they’ll be aware that bidding wars are very much the norm with homes for sale in desirable locations. In fact it’s even fairly true for less desirable locations in these cities too, and again that’s a reflection of how demand is exceeding supply to such an ever-increasing extent in these regions of the country.
It’s a free market, and bidding wars are entirely natural and if we’re going to be honest about it they’re not necessarily a bad thing.
But of course the buyer’s perspective is entirely different. Even though they’re always as equipped to participate in those bidding wars as any other would-be buyer, the big downside to the wars is that they have no means of being aware of what those other prospective buyers have bid to this point. In a sense they’re flying blind in a sense and have insufficient means of knowing what they should be bidding on the home.
Now of course some will say that realtors will be just as keen as homeowners to maintain the status quo there, and for obvious reasons. But that’s not an accurate thing to say, as realtors who are working with homebuyer clients will want to be working in their best interests. That’s just as important as it is advisable, and for realtors who need to build up their new client base our online real estate lead generation system here at Real Estate Leads is equally advisable.
Needed Assurances
The news here this week is that for about 6 weeks now the Real Estate Boards in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley are requiring bidding disclosure forms for homes on the market, and in truth this is a much needed move to protect the interest of homebuyers in what continues to be a significantly overheated market.
Starting on the 17th of last month, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board and the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board have been requiring a disclosure form that must be completed in instances when there are multiple offers for a property. Which of course is pretty much every instance around these parts.
It is referred to as the ‘Disclosure of Multiple Offers Presented Form’ and offers that a seller received and the brokerage of record that submitted them must be listed. What is important to note though is that the amount offered or any conditions that came with it don’t need to be provided in the form. The selling Realtor and homeowner will need to sign the form and make it available to everyone who submitted an offer within a day of the seller accepting an offer.
The stated aim is to balance buyers’ rights to transparency and disclosure with sellers’ rights to privacy along with bringing a degree of comfort to prospective home buyers in the region and the assurance that offers were fairly presented and considered in the process.
Enhancing Trust
The belief in the industry and among the boards’ decision makers is that this change will help inform the public and promote greater trust in the real estate transaction process, something which has taken a bit of a hit over the last decade plus given how so many stories of buyers being misled, undercut, or otherwise when it came to their genuine efforts to buy a home for themselves.
Some will ask why the actual $ numbers are not included, but the answer to that is there is a need to protect the home seller’s negotiating position if an offer falls through, and that is something that happens much more often than most people would think.
The primary focus is on prospective homebuyers though, and by providing a record of the number of offers received a buyers’ confidence in the process is increased due to the way they can be assured that by that their offers are always presented to the seller and given the consideration they should receive.
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