Finally! At long last, there has been a logical and viable suggestion put forth to lower the heat on our red-hot real estate crisis that is roasting our city like a pig on a spit.
Recently, the practically out-of-work Home Inspectors Association of B.C. (HIABC) called upon our provincial government to put in place a mandatory seven-day period after an offer is accepted on a home, in order to have that home properly inspected.
If you’ve been through the thankless process of attending an open house within the last couple of years, you’ll know the scene: it’s like a house party where everyone ignores each other while wandering the halls in their socks, poking in every corner, while a smug real estate agent stands in the kitchen handing out glossy flyers, which boast fish-eye lens photos that make every room look like a football field.
The open house happens on Saturday and/or Sunday, and they’re accepting offers just hours later, on Sunday evening. They expect a sale by Monday morning. Done and done. Who can make such a major life decision in mere hours? It’s scandalous.
In the old days, you’d find a house that could potentially suit your needs. You’d put various “subject-to’s” on your offer: subject to financing, subject to sale of your current home, and subject to inspection. These days, chances are your real estate agent is advising you out of the corner his mouth that if you want your offer to be remotely competitive, you must submit it “subject free”, which is otherwise known as “buying blind”.
That’s putting home inspectors out of work. These are the men and women who discover things like leaky roofs, cracked foundations, firetrap electrical systems and much worse, before you make the biggest purchase of your life. Often times, if an inspection is to happen at all in 2016, it occurs after the purchase, which is kind of like trying to put on a life jacket after you’ve fallen in the water.
I’m fully aware that it’s in the HIABC’s vested interest to have a “cooling off” window because it gets home inspectors working again, but it’s truly in your best interest as well. Those seven days could not only save you hundreds of thousands of dollars from money-pit hell, but could also substantially cool our mid- to lower-range housing market, as potential buyers walk away from million dollar shitholes that aren’t worth the reno headache. It doesn’t solve the problem of ripping down good homes or foreign buyers snapping up high-end properties sight unseen, but it would help the average-value buyers.
I’ll go a step further: the biggest problem in our current real estate bidding system is that it also forces you to buy blind, because you can’t see the other bids. That’s outrageous, and could easily cause the desperate house shopper to vastly overbid. The closed-auction system could also lead to corruption and collusion between real estate agents. Open it up!
Reality check: your agent is not just supposed to find you a sound home, but also represent your best interests by finding you the best house and price possible. I’ve often advised friends shopping for a home to never tell your real estate agent your ceiling price, because if you do, they’ll take you there faster than the elevator to the top of the Harbour Centre, leaving you dizzy.
Too often, the highly questionable threat of “multiple offers” is an emotional trigger potentially used by both selling and buying agents to hustle maximum dollars from you in a ridiculously short timeframe with no means of backing out, which is exactly why the HIABC is on the right track.
