I swear, I thought I’d already written this post at least a couple of times over the years.

But I checked the archives, and I don’t see anything with the same title!

Maybe I’ve just written this in my head so many times?

Whenever I post something like this, there are always a handful of agents who say, “Hey man, I know this stuff goes on, but you’re not exactly making us look good by writing about it.”

True.

However, I’ve never shied away from a topic on TRB, and I’ve always had the mandate to inform and educate my readers.  While the following ten examples of real estate agents breaking the rules is not representative of the whole industry, it will teach you to be on the lookout, no matter who you are in this market.

If you’re reading this, and you’re an agent, be honest with yourself about which of the following offenses you’re guilty of.  Then ask yourself why.  Are you burned out, in need of a vacation?  Do you work for a brokerage that provides zero guidance and training?  Is it time you expand your business and hire part-time help?

If you’re reading this, and you’re a buyer, there might be something on the list that you knew was wrong, but had no problem with.  But ask yourself why you’re okay with your buyer agent breaking rules, some of which are egregious, and what that says about the potential for him or her to cut corners with respect to the service you’re getting.

If you’re reading this, and you’re a seller, be aware, not only of the things that your listing agent might be doing to bend or break the rules, but also those offenses that buyer agents commit.  The last few on this list are really, really bad, so be ready for anything.

Here goes…

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10) Manipulating the MLS “update”

You look for “new listings” on MLS, right?

But did you know that on the broker-version of the site, there’s a column for “new” but also “updated?”

If you were to click “updated,” you might find properties that have sold, and thus are updated as such, and you might find properties with price drops.  This, in my opinion, is how TRREB intended the “updates” section to work.

However, there are agents out there that simply want more eyes on their listings!  They feel that sneaking their listing into the “updates” will result in further exposure and potentially more agents seeing the listing and emailing it to their buyers.

As a result, some agents will literally change one character on the MLS listing to get the listing to “update,” and voila!

Change that comma to a semi-colon, and you’ve “updated” your listing.

You might be thinking, “Who cares?” and perhaps you’re right.  But there’s trying to gain an edge, and then simply doing things you’re not supposed to do, and make no mistake, TRREB routinely fines agents for this.

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9) Passing off inferior finishes

I understand that some people might not know the difference between today’s high-quality laminate flooring and an engineered hardwood.

But when you, as a listing agent, click the dropdown box for “Hardwood Flooring” on MLS and you know it’s a cheap builder-grade laminate, don’t you understand that you could be liable?

Sure, there are different qualities of hardwood, but a $7/sqft difference in your average condo might come out at $5,000.

Passing off that porcelain shower as “Marble” on the MLS listing simply because it looked to be marble when you were there two months ago is NOT okay.

Sure, some agents make an “honest mistake,” which still makes them liable, but they can blame ignorance.

Other agents know exactly what they’re doing and simply run the risk that they don’t get caught.

RECO has a section dedicated to “verification of information,” which goes into great detail, and this is a great example of where agents break the rules all the time, without a care.

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8) Access to building via ‘follow’ method

A status certificate costs $100.

Two weeks before I list a property for sale, I order the status so I can have it in tandem with the listing, to help market the property, but also to speed up the sale.

Some listing agents, however, don’t order the status until they have an offer.

Why?

Because cheapness knows no bounds in this industry!

By the same token, many listing agents refuse to include a building access “FOB” in the lockbox for fear that a buyer agent might walk off with it, costing them $75 to $100 to replace the FOB.

Cheapness knows no bounds.

In buildings where there’s no concierge, I often see showing instructions like this:

Confirmed 3:00 – 3:30pm. LBX on fencepost near entrance.  Code 1234.  Follow to gain entry.

Doesn’t a listing agent feel just a little dirty doing this?

They can’t do it.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  They can’t.  There’s no specific provision in RECO for this, but suffice it to say, advising other registrants to trespass would breach multiple sections in the RECO Code of Ethics.

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7) Including exterior square footage in “SQFT” on MLS

Dirty.  Sleazy.  And completely unchecked.

There’s no valid explanation here.  Listing agents know what they’re doing.

After all, a listing agent knows the difference between “owned” and “exclusive use,” which is to say that a condominium owner has legal title to his or her individual unit, but the balcony or terrace is, by definition, “exclusive use, common elements.”

So when you list a property on MLS as 645 square feet, but fail to disclose anywhere that the unit itself is 585 square feet and there’s a 60 square foot balcony, you know what you’re doing is wrong.

Some agents will check the box for “600-699” on MLS, then put “645 (585 int + 60 ext)” in the square footage field, and I still have a problem with this.

But grosser of the two is the former which is a negligent misrepresentation, in my books.

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6) Not notifying agents of bully offers

I can’t believe this is only sixth on my list.  How sad is that?

We’ve almost gotten so used to crappy agents doing crappy things that we’re not surprised anymore.

If you’re a listing agent and your property description says, “Offers Reviewed At 7:00pm On August 10th,” and you want to sell the property before that, you can NOT do so without notifying anybody who has expressed an interest in the listing.  Whether that means personally calling every buyer agent who has booked a showing or sending out a mass email, is up to you.  But here we are in August of 2021, when all this nonsense started back in 2015 or 2016, and we’re still seeing shady listing agents sell properties out from under a slew of buyers and buyer agents.

This one is short and sweet.  There’s nothing further to say.

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5) Not disclosing rental items

Rental items must be disclosed on the MLS listing.

But do you have any idea how often they’re not?

Sometimes, it’s because listing agents are lazy or stupid.  Totally fair.

But sometimes, it’s deliberate.  Sometimes, the listing agents get cute, and decide that the $180 monthly rental fee for the hot water tank and HVAC might deter some buyers.

A few years ago, I represented a buyer on the purchase of a Liberty Village where I knew there was a $180 – $200 monthly fee for these systems, having listed many of these units myself.  I told my buyer to expect to pay this amount, and she noted it.  When we made our offer, in competition, no less, we did not include any rental items on the Agreement of Purchase & Sale.  In fact, under Section 6 for Rental Items, we wrote “None.”

Amazingly, our offer beat out five others and was accepted.

Two days later, the listing agent sent me a copy of the completed Agreement of Purchase & Sale with the rental items inserted at $188.02 per month, and his clients’ initials.  His email said, “See attached, please have your buyers initial.”

Not a chance.

I told him that he didn’t disclose the rental items on the MLS listing, nor was it included in his “offer instructions” emailed to buyer agents.  Not only that, our offer said “None” for rental items, and his clients accepted.

“Doesn’t matter,” he lectured me.  “These rental items come with the unit.  Unless your buyers don’t want water, heat, or air conditioning, they’re gonna pay it.”

Closing was two months away, and for two months, he kept threatening me.  I ignored every subsequent email from him, and my buyers ignored letters from the sellers’ lawyer.

Upon closing, those sellers bought out the systems for close to $18,000.  I wonder what became of that agent?

That’s the only story I have where this worked in my favour, unfortunately.  Because so many times out there, listing agents deliberately fail to disclose rental items, and usually it’s the buyers who get screwed.

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4) Not updating property status

It’s Friday afternoon and you’re getting ready for your weekend of showings.  You book an appointment for a viewing of a condo for Sunday.

On Monday, your client draws up an offer and you send it to the listing agent.

He replies, “Sorry, but this property is actually sold.”

It’s frustrating as hell, no doubt.

But on Tuesday, when the listing is updated, the sale date recorded is last Thursday.

I can’t tell you how often this happens, and along with just about everything on this list, there’s no excuse for it.

I mean, the problem is crappy agents and crappy brokerages, but as long as there’s a demand for their services, then we’re not going to stop it.

If a property is sold on Thursday, the listing should be updated that day, or the next day.  Hard stop.  If a discount brokerage doesn’t update MLS on the weekend, then again, it’s our fault for providing these brokerages with demand for service, but the agent him or herself should update buyer agents.

You’re the listing agent, you’ve sold a property, and you see appointments booked thereafter.  Doesn’t your sense of common decency tell you to let those agents know not to waste their time?

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3) Not adhering to showing times

This is just the appetizer for the main course, which I’ll explain in point #2 hereafter.

But man-oh-man are there are a lot of buyer agents out there who constantly act out the meaning of the phrase, “No Fucks Given.”

A few weeks ago, a key for one of my listings was missing.  There were two agents sitting in the condominium lobby waiting for an agent to magically show up with the key, but nobody came.

As I was on the phone with my office trying to sort it out, an agent called me and said, “David, can you confirm the parking space?  It says Level B, Unit 54, but we assumed that’s P2 – 54, and there’s no space with that number!”

I asked him who he was and he gave me his name.  I looked up his showing time in BrokerBay and it was from 3:45pm to 4:15pm.

The problem?

It was 5:25pm.

I tore a strip off him.

He was muddling around in the parking garage, playing God with the keys, without a care in the world that he was more than an hour outside his showing time.

Incredulously, he glossed over that and went back to asking questions about the parking space and the locker.

The two agents in the lobby had 4:30pm and 5:00pm appointments, and thankfully there was nobody booked for 5:30pm, but there was somebody at 6:00pm.  We sorted out the appointments since I knew both of these agents, and order was restored.

Some agents just don’t care.  And what’s more, is they always have their excuse ready.  It’s never their fault.

Then again, it could be worse…

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2) No-showing.

This is an absolute epidemic in Toronto right now and it’s classless, thoughtless, and inexcusable.

It speaks to the lack of respect that so many agents have for the entire real estate industry these days, and dare I say, I think it’s far more prevalent among newer agents.

When you book a showing for a property at 7:00pm, you need to be there at 7:00pm.  If you arrive at 6:57pm, alright, fine.  We’re splitting hairs here.  And if your appointment is from 7:00pm to 7:30pm, and you show up at 7:20pm, that’s technically not a problem, but just ensure that you’re out by 7:30pm.

But what if you just don’t show up at all?

Well, if you call the listing brokerage to cancel your appointment, then no harm is done.  In a perfect world, you’d call before 7:00pm, and there’s no question about it – you have to call before 7:30pm.

But do you know how many agents out there don’t cancel at all?

What’s the harm, right?  No biggie.

Except that this is somebody’s home.  It’s not a vacant warehouse that you’re trekking through.  If you’re booking a viewing for a Liberty Village condo at 3:30pm on a Wednesday, and the property is tenanted, that means the tenant, who works from home, has to pack up his or her laptop and leave for a half-hour.

To book a showing on a property, not show up, and not cancel, is absolutely classless.

But it’s happening constantly out there and so many agents don’t care.

I had a listing recently where about 40% of all appointments were no-shows.  The two tenants worked from home and were extremely accomodating.  When the first no-show happened, they were cordial.  But when the tenth no-show happened, they were livid, and rightfully so.  I told them that I follow up with every single agent who no-shows, but that falls on deaf ears.  Who cares, right?  File a RECO complaint and it goes nowhere.

I emailed ten agents who no-showed and only four responded.  Two were apologetic, and two were complete assholes.

Heres’ one:

David, I’m showing nine leases to my clients in a single night, slip ups are going to happen.  Let’s cut each other some slack eh?

Incredulous.

It’s my fault for not “cutting him slack.”

I suppose it’s also my fault that he booked nine showings?

Then I got this one:

My client running very very late and better to not come to the property than to come two hours late!  We try to rebook!

So she’s telling me that no-showing was the lesser of two evils.

Showing up two hours late would be bad, so she just didn’t show up at all.  That’s her logic.

Two complete morons with no respect for anybody.

Although, the six agents who didn’t respond to my emails lack respect as well.

They’re all on my shit-list now.  The problem is: I’ve never heard of any of them.

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1) Providing property access to non-registrants, ie. buyers.

There’s absolutely, positively, zero excuse for this.  And yet, it happens all the time.

Buyer agents always think of this as a harmless act.  No big deal.  Didn’t hurt anybody.  “I was almost there, I just gave my client the lockbox code so he could head in before me.  I was like five minutes out!”

But I have a massive problem with this, as does the Real Estate Council of Ontario.

A licensed real estate agent is permitted to show a property listed on the MLS system and gain access to that property by showing identification to a condominium’s concierge, or, by obtaining a key from a lockbox.  Hard stop there, and for any buyer agent who thinks that giving a lockbox code to a buyer is “no big deal,” I hope you get a $25,000 fine at RECO.

A house is somebody’s home.  It’s not a right to visit that property, but a privilege.  And there’s nothing I hate more, when I catch a buyer agent doing this, then when that agent says, “The property was vacant.  It’s not like there were people living there.”  I fail to differentiate between any circumstances when a buyer agent unlawfully provides access to a non-registrant.  I don’t care if the front door was open and the property’s been listed for 200 days.

Back in the spring, I was on showings with a client and had my phone on silent.  When I got to my car, I saw three missed calls from one of my sellers, and I knew something was up.

I called my seller and he was livid!  His house was sold and the buyers were doing one of their “visitations,” only the agent wasn’t with them.

How did my seller know this?

He has security cameras outside the house.

He watched the agent show up on site, open the lockbox, hand the key to the buyer, and then walk off the property.  One hour later, he returned and locked up the house.

This was a few months back so COVID protocols were more strict and there were six people in the house, when there were only supposed to be two, and none were wearing masks.

That only added fuel to the fire, and my client was pissed.

I called the agent, and to his credit, he didn’t fight me.  He admitted it right away, said he was sorry, and simply told me, “I had to be in three places at once today, I’m spread way too thin.”  He knew he was wrong and I felt like he didn’t want to provide an excuse, but it’s human nature.

This is a good agent.  A good guy too.  But he messed up and my client wanted his head on a spike.  Eventually, cooler heads prevailed but it made the next six weeks leading up to the closing date very tense, and my seller refused them further access even though they had a “contractual right” per the Agreement of Purchase & Sale.

Buyer agents providing the lockbox code to their clients is rampant across the city of Toronto right now, and I think agents should be hung out to dry for this.  It’s not just lazy, or ignorant, or disrespectful.  It’s dangerous.  And it’s a terribly violating feeling for a seller to know that some random person out there not only accesses his or her home, but has the code to do it again.

I’m not overstating this.  I think unauthorized access of listed properties is egregious, and it’s the biggest problem in our industry right now.

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Ha!  And I thought this was going to be a shorter post.

Well, I couldn’t narrow it down to a “Top-5,” and my wife went to bed early tonight so what the heck else am I going to do?

I’m hoping that this doesn’t provide ammunition for a Realtor pile-on, but if it does, so be it.

There are a lot of different business models in real estate right now, with different services, fees, physical/virtual spaces, and with all kinds of licensed sales representatives and brokers.  Choose wisely, my friends!