June 17, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of The Last Honest Realtor, David Fleming reveals how the disappearance of buyer feedback and agent follow-up is quietly reshaping Toronto real estate. In 2025, buyers have gone silent—and most listing agents are missing the signals, killing deals through inexperience, confusion, and a refusal to adapt.
From aggressive feedback calls before a showing is over, to agents clinging to 2022 tactics in a buyer-driven market, this episode breaks down the small missteps and missed conversations that now separate a successful sale from a lingering listing.
In This Episode:
- Why listing agents are chasing feedback the moment you leave a showing
- How fear and confusion are paralyzing agents on both sides of the deal
- The critical difference between patient buyers and buyers stuck in indecision
- What actually happens when agents refuse to negotiate or communicate
- The new metrics that matter: showings, inspection requests, and vanished offers
- Why outdated playbooks are costing sellers six figures in lost opportunities
- What listing agents must start doing differently—or risk irrelevance
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro: Why the feedback loop is broken in 2025
02:10 – Agents desperate for live feedback (and what it signals)
06:15 – Real stories: missed deals, stubborn sellers, and silent buyers
12:00 – Patience vs. inaction: which buyers win?
17:30 – How poor communication turns opportunity into failure
23:10 – What metrics actually matter now (and which don’t)
28:00 – The case for direct, honest agent collaboration
32:15 – Closing thoughts: adapt or be left behind
Subscribe, comment, and share this episode with anyone still waiting for the market to “go back to normal.”
Bosley Real Estate: Family-owned since 1928, delivering trusted real estate services across Ontario.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You haven't even locked the front door and put
the key back in the lockboxbefore the listing agent calls
you to ask how your showingwent.
Hello everybody and welcome backto the Last Honest Realtor
podcast.
I'm your host David Fleming.
Thank you so much for joining metoday and yes that is a true
story.
That happened to me last week.
I was standing on the frontporch of a property literally
(00:20):
locking the front door when thelisting agent called.
I answered it of course becauseI was at her property and I
thought maybe she was going toremind me to set the alarm or
tell me that the back door hadone of those hockey sticks that
you put down in the track tomake sure no one breaks in or I
don't know maybe ask me to feedthe cat but no.
She was calling to ask how theshowing went.
Now I said, we're actually stillhere.
(00:41):
And I thought she would say, ohmy gosh, I'm so sorry.
I thought your showing wasyesterday, let alone three, four
hours ago.
But no, she said, well, while Igot you, how is it going?
How is it going present tense?
If you need to know anythingabout the 2025 market, there is
a microcosm, the showingfeedback, not after the fact,
(01:02):
but live and on the spot.
Folks, the feedback loop haschanged significantly as the
market has changed in 2025.
And today we're going to talkabout how this feedback loop has
provided both an opportunity forsuccess and failure between
listing agents and buyer agents,buyers and sellers, as I always
say, the four parties to thetransaction.
(01:22):
Now, this is, of course, areaction to the market and as i
said an opportunity for successthose agents the listing agents
who i always talk about i holdmyself and my team to a very
high standard when we areworking in this changing market
but i also talk a lot on torontorealty blog and within this
podcast about how these listingagents have an opportunity for
success if they can adapt tothis market and unfortunately
(01:44):
failure if they don't recognizehow it has changed now there's
sort of this blind inexperiencethis wistful optimism in the
voices of many of these listingagents and it's very interesting
because not only will they callyou for feedback during a
showing or after which issomething they never did when
the market was hot but i'mgetting this sort of are you
(02:05):
bringing us an offer for yourproperty that's been on the
market for 46 days i just showedit 15 minutes ago to use an
analogy it's kind of like if youmeet somebody and you say do you
want to get married beforeyou've even gone out on a date.
Now I know the analogy doesn'thold perfectly true because of
(02:27):
course we're showing theproperty, but this is yet
another example.
Property's been on the marketfor 40, 50 days, I go do a
showing, I'm in the car, thephone rings, it's the agent,
hey, it's so-and-so, are youbringing us an offer?
Not even how did your showinggo?
So as I said, this is anopportunity for success or
failure.
And what I would say is that thelisting agent should start with
(02:49):
small talk.
How's it going?
How are you finding the market?
How did your showing go?
Ask questions.
Then try to offer some value,not selling me.
Well, this sold for this andthey want that.
No, no, no, don't make it aboutyou.
Tell me about the property.
What are some of the things thatI might not know about it?
Well, did you notice that thewindows were all replaced last
(03:10):
year?
Great.
There's some value.
Tell me that there's a pre-homeinspection.
Ask me if I've got a copy of it.
Tell me that you just did asurvey from last year.
But a lot of the times we're notgetting this.
We're getting, are you bringingme an offer?
And a lot of the times, even ifthey're not being so direct, the
listing agents, instead of sortof extending the hand and
offering the olive branch, so tospeak, they can't help
(03:32):
themselves.
You say, well, I'm not sure.
And God forbid you say, I mean,listen, it's been on the market
for two months and the price.
And then they jump right downyour throat and they bark at you
about the price.
They bark at you about what'shappening in the area and what
the comps were and what this wasworth.
And I think that that is atremendous mistake.
Now, the market is mixed, so tospeak, but it's not all of the
(03:55):
market.
I'll give you an example.
I brought a listing outyesterday.
And it's a decent listing.
It's a B, maybe a B minus.
We're underlisted as everythingis with an offer date as people
do.
The only difference betweenmyself and I think most listing
agents out there is I haveprepared my seller clients by
telling them we have maybe a 25%chance of selling this on offer
(04:16):
night.
Offer nights just aren'tworking.
Now I get a phone call from anagent and she says to me that
her clients are really tired andworn out.
That's kind of news because it'sa buyer's market, but go on.
And she said, you know what?
They were going to rent, butthey saw your listing and
they're just kind of curious.
So great example right now thatunderscores this dichotomy
between what I'm seeing outthere, which is opportunity for
(04:39):
buyers, and what she tells me,hey, there were 16 offers on a
house on Bastido the other day.
Right.
That's one house.
And I'm not trying to benegative about the market.
I'm trying to be realistic aboutthe market.
Is it yes or no?
There were 16 offers on thathouse.
And yes, the house on Riverdalegot multiples and the house on
Sparkle got multiples, but thoseare in prime Riverdale.
My listing is further east,further north, different
(05:02):
locations.
So the market is mixed, butyou're still seeing examples of
these particular buyers that aretired and worn out because
they've seen properties thathave been in multiples or
they've lost on offer nights.
But that leads to kind of theantithesis of today's podcast.
which is the way that the buyermentality has changed.
(05:22):
Buyers are operating slower.
The feedback loop is differentbetween agents on the buy side
and the sell side.
And I have this idea, thisconcept of patience versus
inaction.
So buyers go and look atproperties.
If this was 2022, here's how itwould be.
(05:43):
Your agent emails you at 9 a.m.
This property just came out.
Can you meet me at lunch?
You have a meeting.
Can you cancel it?
You need to get in there atlunch because they do have an
offer date, but it could get abully offer.
You rush over.
You've got to go get a check.
You've got to look at the homeinspection.
You've got to be ready to go.
And if there's a bully offer,you've got to compete.
(06:04):
And if there isn't, you're onoffer night and there's 14
offers and you know how thatworks.
The market has changed now andbuyers are taking their time.
But why are buyers taking theirtime?
I have a theory on this.
There is patience and there isinaction.
Now, patience is a function ofcontrol.
Inaction is a function of lackof control.
(06:28):
And what I mean by this is thatpatience among the buyer pool,
that is strategic, it isdeliberate, and it is
information-based.
That is an informed consumerthat is deliberately and
strategically taking their timeand looking at the market and
seeing opportunity.
(06:50):
The flip side is an action,which is a function of fear,
inexperience, and confusion.
Now, let me segue for a moment.
I'm going to talk about a storyI told on Toronto Realty blog
last week, which underscoresfear, inexperience, and
confusion.
And so this is more on the sellside, which kind of goes into
this whole feedback loop ideathat we're talking about today.
(07:12):
And while the idea for thispodcast is obviously from the
buyer's eyes, I want to give youan idea of how this fear and
this inexperience and thisconfusion on the sell side, on
the listing agent side, cancause a reaction in the buyer
pool.
There is a property, it's listedfor 999.
(07:33):
Once upon a time, 1.4, maybeeven 1.5.
Now we're looking at 1.3, maybe1.25.
So we go and view this property,me and the buyer clients.
We like it, we get to the offerdate, we get our bank draft, And
away we go.
We draft the offer, we registerthe offer, and we wait.
We wait all day.
We wait to get that email thatsays second offer registered,
(07:56):
third offer registered, fourthoffer registered, but nothing
ever comes.
We have the only offer on theproperty.
So it's 999 list.
We think it's a 125 house.
Now it could be 13.
I don't think so.
It could be 12.
Depends on what the seller willsell for and what the buyer will
pay.
That's how the market works.
So what do we do being the onlyoffer?
(08:18):
Some of you are gonna say, offer9.99.
Some of you are gonna say, offer9.50.
I work in reality.
We offered 1.1 million.
Right off the bat, I'm gonnalose a bunch of you.
How could you offer 1.1 millionon a 9.99 list?
You're the only offer.
Because they're not gonna take9.99.
They're just not.
In fact, they're not gonna take1.1.
They're not going to take 1.1.
(08:40):
Complain if you want.
Tell me the market shouldn'twork that way and people should
be forced to accept and all thatnonsense I disagree with.
But we offer 1.1 million.
The listing agent comes back.
Hey, thanks so much for youroffer.
Can they come up?
What do I say?
Well, my clients have told methey can come up.
They fully intend to come up.
Our offer of 1.1 million iscompletely exploratory.
(09:02):
And I say, yeah, they can comeup.
So what does the listing agentdo?
He says, great.
Why don't you do that and get abetter offer on paper and send
it back to us?
No.
It's not 2022 anymore.
Now, let's say it was 2022.
I mean, listen, let's say it was2024 because we're not that far
removed from situations wherethis house would have got 12
offers.
When you have 12 offers in ahouse listed at$9.99, you can
(09:26):
bulk email all 12 agents andsay, improve your offers.
It's a mistake.
I think personalization andcommunication is important.
You can call all 12 agents andsend them all back to improve,
or you can do what I do.
Start from the bottom.
Call the agent with the worstoffer.
Thanks so much.
We're going in anotherdirection.
If they say, can I improve myoffer?
You say, yeah, if you want to.
I really don't think you should.
There's a pretty big gap.
(09:48):
But that's how I do things.
I start from the bottom.
I go up to the top.
And that is what we do.
And you offer people anopportunity to improve.
Some of you watching it arelike, I don't like this.
You should just be forced totake the highest offer.
Listen, it is what it is.
I work for my seller.
I work within the rules that areprescribed to me.
Today, we have the only offer inthis example.
And the listing agent says, Iinvite you to improve your
(10:09):
offer.
I say to that agent, No, we'renot going to do that.
The agent says, why not?
I said, we have submitted anoffer to you.
If you would like more money,we're happy to discuss.
Sign our offer back.
The agent then gives me anexplanation on how offer dates
work.
This is our offer date.
We're not signing it back toyou.
Why not?
Because we're not.
(10:31):
Okay, I mean, my eight-year-olddaughter could have come up with
a better justification, but whynot?
Because we're not, becausethat's not how offer dates work.
Enlighten me, tell me how offerdates work.
The agent takes the bait andsays, we review all the offers,
and then we make a decision.
We invite people to come back,and I'm like, uh-huh.
And I said, okay, yeah, but yousaid offers, plural.
(10:53):
You have one offer.
You have one buyer in the cityof Toronto who wants to
potentially purchase your home.
We have made you an offer.
We have even told you that wewould consider paying more for
it.
You're listed at 999.
We've offered you 1.1 million.
We invite you to sign it back.
This agent would not listen.
This agent said, no, we're notsigning back.
(11:13):
Fear, inexperience, confusion.
That's what this is.
And this isn't arrogance.
This isn't greed.
This isn't stubbornness.
This is fear, inexperience, andconfusion.
This agent has never worked in amarket where he has to
communicate with all parties tothe transaction.
(11:34):
This agent doesn't know how tobe courteous, professional,
respectful.
This agent barks orders.
You improve your offer or we'redone here.
Okay, I can go and buy one ofmany other houses on the market.
That's changed.
If this was 2022, I would laydown in the street and let this
(11:54):
agent run me over with his car,metaphorically, literally.
Times have changed.
So I explained to the agentagain, if you are not interested
in accepting an offer of$1.1million, you can take the offer
and sign it back, change theprice.
And I said to him, the price isnot going to change itself.
(12:15):
Sign it back at 10 million ifyou want to, but sign it back.
There's an expression in ourbusiness, never let a deal die.
Agents say things like, listen,I'm not gonna let it die on my
operating table.
Agents say things like, in orderto get a deal done, I need to
have something for my clients tosign.
If you would like for my clientsto sign an offer, I have to have
(12:39):
one to give them.
I explained this to the agentand the agent was so dug in.
No, it's our offer night.
No one signs back on an offernight.
We have leverage.
He lost me at leverage.
I said, what leverage do youhave?
We have leverage.
We have a listing.
We have an offer date.
And you can see how this is kindof circular, so I'll sum it up.
(13:01):
But it went on until eventuallyhe said, we're done here and
hung up on me.
The next day, he called me threeo'clock.
Are your clients stillinterested in the house?
Hey, he's doing the right thing.
Some contrition.
Yes.
Not much has changed since lastnight.
And he said, well, the door'sstill open if they want to
resubmit.
(13:23):
Oh, man.
I thought he was going to comeback to me and say, hey, listen,
cooler heads have prevailed.
We're giving you a sign back of$1,250,000.
See what you can do.
We're giving you a sign back of$1,300,000.
See what you can do.
Hey, we're giving you a signback of$1,220,000.
It's our absolute rock bottom.
If you like it, take it.
(13:43):
If you don't, send it back.
None of that happened.
Fear, inexperience, confusion,those three things.
So I said, okay, yeah, great,thanks very much.
And guess what I did?
I asked my clients if they'restill interested and they said,
yeah, we are, but there's theseother properties out there that
we wanna see.
So that night I went and Ishowed them two other houses,
(14:03):
very comparable, both of themlisted low with offer dates.
And then an agent called me andhere's where we return to the
feedback loop.
This is a very experienced realestate agent, a lady that I have
known my whole career.
I would say I've probably done10 to 12 transactions with this
agent.
There's a mutual respect.
(14:23):
She called me.
How's it going?
How are you finding the market?
She asked me about my kids.
Now say what you want.
Call her a schmooze.
She's doing her job.
We probably talked for 10minutes before she said, so how
was the showing?
And I said, you know what?
They like it.
It's a great house.
Last night, you wouldn't believethe situation I had.
(14:44):
And then I told her the storythat I just told you guys.
And she said, well, listen,David, I understand what the
market is and we're certainlynot there.
I'm happy to work with you.
And I said, yeah.
I mean, do you have an idea onprice?
There.
Right there.
There's where deals are made andthere's where deals were lost.
And I will come back to this ina moment.
(15:06):
Do you have an idea on price?
Fear, inexperience, confusion.
Those three things are makingmost real estate agents right
there just stop in their tracks.
Or if it's 2022, which I'llexplain in a few moments, you're
taking a different strategy.
She said to me, well, listen, Ithink my clients would love
(15:27):
$1,250,000.
Their floor is$1,200,000.
I don't know, David, somethingin between.
Boom.
There.
There, that's how you get dealsdone.
So some of the people watchingthis on both sides of the
argument are gonna say, I can'tbelieve she sold out her
clients.
Why would she give you thatinformation?
Some of the other ones are gonnasay, it's so nice to finally see
(15:48):
agents being honest and open andnone of this under list with
offer date nonsense.
I took this back to my clientsand I said, guys, they have told
me what they're expecting.
They would be open to apreemptive offer.
Now, could they get a millionthree on offer night?
Maybe.
Probably not.
Would they sell for less than1.2?
They absolutely don't have to.
(16:08):
My client said, you know what?
We like that other house, theone on which they bid 1.1
million, and we probably wouldhave gone to 1,250,000 for that.
What if we could get this housefor 1,220,000?
I said, yeah, listen, they saidthey're rock bottoms 1-2.
They'd really like 1-2-5.
Would you guys pay 1-2-2?
(16:28):
Yeah, we would.
We could offer one, two and seewhat they do with it.
No, you know what?
For 20 grand, this is a waybetter house.
The next morning they went andthey got a deposit check.
They drafted an offer.
They submitted it for one, two,two.
The listing agent said, thankyou so much.
You rock.
This is great.
I'll see what I can do.
The page through broker bay wentout and it says one offer
(16:50):
registered preemptive becausetechnically they have an offer
date.
That's how you know you're inbusiness and the property sold.
My clients bought a property.
That agent got that deal done.
Three days later, I get a callfrom the other agent.
Mr.
This is how an offer nightworks.
And he said to me, we're goingto be relisting, but I wanted to
(17:12):
see if your people want to takeanother run at it.
So I didn't tell him that I hadalready sold my clients a
property.
I said, what are you relistingat?
Do you think he told me?
He said, well, that's between meand the seller.
I said, would you like to giveme a range so that I can discuss
it with my clients?
He said, no, if you know whatproperties are worth in this
(17:32):
area, I wouldn't have to tellyou.
I said, so you're calling me,you're asking me to bring an
offer.
I brought you an offer already.
I've given you opportunity tosign it back to me.
You haven't done that.
And now you're calling me andasking me to bring you an offer,
not just moving the goalposts,but changing the complete game
here, whatever analogy you want.
And he said, listen, you haveone more chance at this before
(17:53):
we relist.
And I said, okay, I'll talk tomy clients.
I hung up and I never called himback because my clients already
bought a property.
And if you're asking me, whydidn't I feel the need to tell
him that?
Because I don't care.
The minute I feel the need toshow somebody, I know better
than they are.
And that property is relistedfor a million 299 and it's still
(18:14):
on the market.
So that was a long story.
That was a long tangent.
I told you I was going to go offon a tangent.
But the point to this story isthat that was based in fear,
inexperience, and confusionamong that listing agent.
That listing agent didn't signmy offer back.
Not because he's a jerk.
I mean, he was a jerk.
Not because he's greedy or hasan ego.
(18:35):
Probably both those things.
But because of the fear.
That agent's afraid of doingsomething he's never done
before.
That agent doesn't want to signit back because it might be too
low, it might be too high.
Never having done it, not havingworked in the market, doesn't
understand.
That is how so many deals arebeing lost in this market, is
this fear and this inexperienceand this confusion.
(18:57):
So that story is based on thesell side.
I want to return back to the buyside.
where I mentioned the concept ofpatience versus inaction.
Buyers out there right now aredividing themselves into these
two camps.
There are those that arestrategically waiting because
they are patient, and there arethose that are waiting because
(19:19):
of inaction, and that is basedin fear, confusion, and
inexperience.
Now, I'll tell you another storyhere, because I seem to be full
of them, which underscores themarket that we are in.
We have a development site.
Absolutely gorgeous.
17 luxury townhouses and everyweekend we're there and we see
(19:40):
buyers come through.
The buyers are so excited andthe feedback is incredible.
Unbelievable finishes, nothinglike this in the area, no
objections to the price.
It's condominium, but the feesare only$300 a month for two and
a half million dollartownhouses, two underground
parking spaces, direct access tothe unit.
(20:00):
All the feedback is amazing.
Every weekend, there's an agentthat comes through with a buyer
and says, I'm going to call youon Monday.
This is great.
Every weekend, there's a randombuyer that says, well, and this
is verbatim last weekend, wewill be in touch this week.
We want to decide which unit wewant, and then we'll move
forward.
(20:22):
This isn't like when you go outon a date with somebody and
you're like, I'll call you andyou don't mean it.
These are people that arelegitimately telling me, we're
going to let you know which one.
We're going to sit down andwe're going to decide.
I don't think that they need tolie to me as my analogy of going
on a date.
They just turn around and saythank you and walk out.
(20:44):
But every weekend, it's followedup with an action.
So why?
Is it based on fear andexperience and confusion, or is
it based on this informational,strategic desire among the buyer
pool to wait?
I would say once again, buyersfall into two different buckets.
Now, I continue to get emailsfrom people that have come
(21:07):
through once, twice, or threetimes that say things like, hi,
David, do you have an updatedavailability list?
They're just keeping an eye.
Now, if I send them a list andunit nine sold and unit two
sold, they write back, they'relike, okay, appreciate it,
thanks.
(21:27):
What is it that they're tryingto do there?
They're keeping an eye on it.
They're interested, but theyjust can't move right now.
Can't or won't and why?
And that's what I want to getinto next.
Now, I'm a numbers guy.
I'm a data nerd.
When I look at our listings,there are a couple of different
measures and I track these andshare them with the sellers.
(21:50):
The first is the overall numberof showings.
The second is requests for thehome inspection.
So the first is an indicator ofinterest, just basically how
many people have come through.
The second is an indicator offurther interest or next step,
if you will, which is to reachout and ask for a copy of the
home inspection.
So as I've mentioned on, I thinkit was a few podcasts ago, it's
(22:12):
getting a lot harder to predict.
I wrote a blog post once yearsago where i looked at and there
were condos in this example tooso as opposed to asking for a
copy of the home inspection itwill be asking for a copy of the
condominium status certificateremember when we used to list
condos low set offer dates andget 10 offers so in this blog
post i looked at the number ofshowings the number of requests
(22:34):
then the number of offers andlooked for a correlation and
what i found in that market waswe were getting 60 showings And
then we get 10 offers.
Okay, so what's that as apercent?
One sixth, what is that, 18%?
So then I would say, all right,of those 60 showings, we got 15
requests for a home inspectionor a status certificate.
(22:56):
And you know, half of thosepeople ended up making offers.
So what's that, six, seven,eight?
This is what the blog post wasabout.
And there wasn't the biggestcorrelation in there, but it was
enough to suggest that these arereasonable measures of the
market.
Number of showings is downsubstantially.
So I once had over 100 showingsin a week on a condo at 311
(23:19):
Richmond Street East.
It was absolutely ridiculous,100 showings.
When the market was really busyon a freehold, you would expect
to have 50, 60, 70, maybe even80 showings.
In 2024, when things sloweddown, you would expect to have
40 showings.
With what I've seen so far thisyear in this sort of million one
(23:41):
to million four entry levelfreehold, we're seeing 25
showings.
There's a measure of the market.
You're sharing that with theseller and you're using that to
adjust expectations accordingly.
Request for a home inspection,25 showings, five requests for
the inspection.
Then along comes the offer,Nate, and what?
indeterminate you can have zerooffers one offer or two offers
(24:05):
an example i told you earlierguy was priced at 9.99 for one
two five one three house we havethe only offer doesn't mean it's
worth 9.99 let alone one one asi explained it's just me kind of
introducing this concept of whybuyers are employing this wait
and see strategy there are a lotof buyers now that are targeting
(24:25):
houses that don't sell on offerdates now there's always
exceptions to the rule A houseon Plater, beautiful area,
Jackman School District, northof Danforth, 235 list, seven
offers, sells for 275, 400,000over list.
And that thing was a gut.
There's a beautiful house up theroad on Browning.
(24:46):
Now it's a three-story, it'sonly a semi, but it's gorgeous.
I think it was listed at 2526,sold for just shy of 3 million.
And then I mentioned the one onBastido.
There are always going to bethose houses.
But in a pocket, as I mentioned,the 1-1 to 1-4 entry level, in a
pocket that's saturated withinventory, buyers are taking
this wait and see approach.
(25:08):
So for us as listing agents touse metrics like the number of
showings and the number of homeinspection requests as any sort
of indication as the amount ofinterest, unfortunately, we're
not able to do that anymore.
Now, those showings are down.
The engagement with the buyerpool has changed substantially.
The listing agents need tochange with it.
They need to explain thedifference in the market
(25:29):
condition to the seller, notjust during the course of the
listing, but in advance.
And then they have to be able toadjust on the fly.
The agent that I mentioned inthe story that called me, made
some small talk, told me tobring an offer, rolled out the
red carpet, that's how you'regetting deals done.
The agent that I mentioned thatsat back, waited for offer
night, was arrogant, annoying,rude, and then clueless and
(25:51):
careless and...
mired in confusion uncertaintyinexperience and fear not how
you get deals done but the buyerpool the buyer pool this is why
i'm trying to talk to you abouttoday and i keep going back to
the agents the buyer pool arebeing patient the wait and see
strategy five houses come out ina week and you're looking at all
(26:11):
five and you're like geez icould buy any of these now i
would say probably want to pickthe one that you love the most
and if you got to pay a littlebit more for it fine but there
are buyers that are beingopportunistic this wait and see
approach take out the platersand the brownings what was the
other one and the bastidos fivehouses go to offer night one of
themselves four of them aresitting thereafter that is the
(26:35):
opportunity for the buyer poolnow as i mentioned and i'm going
to keep hitting this point overand over is this based on
Patience, is this based oninaction?
These particular buyers, this isbased on patience.
These buyers are strategicallysaying, we like these houses,
let's see what happens afteroffer date.
Because if 80% of houses in thatprice point on the east side of
(26:56):
Toronto, let's say, are failingtheir offer nights, then those
buyers are able to go in afterthe fact and sort of pick and
choose.
For the folks where inaction isthe reason they're not doing
something right, it's acompletely different
conversation.
And I don't want to sound like asalesperson here and say that 18
months from now, those folks aregoing to wish that they had
acted.
(27:16):
But I will say that there are alot of reasons for that
inaction.
Now let's call thesecontributing factors.
The first one I would say isinformation saturation.
The buyers are absorbing moreupfront and they're feeling less
need to interact with thelisting agents, have their
agents interact with the listingagents.
The listing agents aresoliciting feedback.
(27:37):
The buyer agents aren'tnecessarily getting it because
these buyers are slow rollingand they are slow playing.
There's a decision fatigue.
So with more listings toprocess, a lot more buyers
hesitate to emotionally commit.
And I can tell you, I've toldthis story before.
The first time my wife and I bidon a house, This is
gut-wrenching.
I can actually remember it.
(27:57):
I called my wife and said, wedidn't get it.
And she was crying.
And she said, get it back.
I told this story in a podcastonce before.
And I said, I felt like less ofa man because she was telling me
to do something I couldn't do.
She said, I'd already picturedour daughter's bedroom and how I
would decorate it.
I mean, the emotion within thatand the fact that she was
rocking our baby girl as I wastelling her we didn't get the
(28:19):
house.
I don't know that that isexisting as much in today's
market.
Buyers...
are emotionally withdrawn, andthere are exceptions to the
rule, as I continue to mentionover and over like a broken
record, but I would say thatsome buyers are unable to
emotionally commit, and thensome buyers are strategically
avoiding emotionally committing.
(28:40):
Now, more to the point, thebuyers are protecting themselves
against the crazy sellers thatwant too much.
So when you go into that 999list and you know it's worth
125, it's not to say that sellerisn't gonna relist at 14.
I'm seeing this over and over.
I don't want to tell tales outof school, but I talked to an
agent that told me the othernight he got four offers on his
(29:02):
listing and the target was 1.6million.
They had an offer of a million580.
Four offers.
This one was listed at a million369.
The seller turned it down.
The risk reward scenario there,I just don't know that it works
in that seller's favor.
But there are some buyers outthere that are protecting
(29:22):
themselves against that.
Now you didn't necessarily havethat luxury when the market was
red hot.
You would protect yourselfagainst the market.
If you could, you might look ata house listed at a million 399
and think, wow, this is probablya one six house.
And you know what?
If someone pays one eight forit, there's nothing you could
do.
That emotional roller coasterwas something that a lot of
(29:43):
buyers went through and theyjust threw their hands up and
said, I can't, I can't competewith this.
That makes no sense.
Those prices aren't based oncomps.
They're not based on any sort ofvaluation.
You can't protect yourself fromthat.
In this market today, there area lot of sellers who that just
will not accept marketconditions, not accept price.
And I've told the same storiesover and over in the last few
(30:03):
weeks, I feel like to death, butI've seen listings that I have,
I don't wanna sound rude, turneddown, or let's say listings
where the potential client and Ihave not connected that are
sitting on the market at pricesthat make absolutely no sense.
And it's not to say I don'twanna work for them to get top
dollar, but when I tell someonetheir house is worth 135 and
they say, I need 16, and it'snow listed at 1679, and it's
(30:26):
been in the market for twomonths, Again, I mean, that
doesn't make any sense.
It's not rooted in reality.
On the buy side, those buyersare trying to protect themselves
against that when the propertyis underlisted for, say,
$1,199,000, and it's worth$135,000, but the seller's going
to want$16,000,$17,000.
(30:47):
This is why so many buyers arejust refusing to go to offer
nights.
This is why so many buyers aresaying, here are the houses I
like, let me know which onesdon't sell on the offer night.
Now, again, you do not have thatluxury with a lot of houses, a
lot of houses in a lot of areas.
And I can tell you storiesabout, you know, one in Leaside
listed for two, four.
We thought, geez, that's kind ofoptimistic.
(31:08):
It's got an offer date.
They got a bully offer two, six,five.
Depends on the type of property,depends on the amount of
inventory that's out there.
But if you're looking at a threebed, two bath semi in an area,
where there's 50 of those andthere used to only be six of
those, that's where the buyersare afforded this opportunity to
sit back, be strategic, andwait.
(31:29):
So last point I want to make,and I keep going back to
communication, communicationbetween buyers and sellers via
buyer agent and seller agent.
Nobody did feedback calls whenthe market was hot.
You just didn't.
You had a listing.
You had your 70 showings.
You didn't get your 14 offers.
As a listing agent, you don'tneed to call for feedback.
(31:49):
What's the feedback?
Sorry, I can't hear.
It's so loud in here becausethere's 15 showings going on.
You know what I mean.
Now everyone's doing feedbackcalls.
And as I said from thebeginning, they're the agents
that genuinely understand theobjective of the feedback call.
And there are those that juststart barking down your throat
for their property that's beenon market for five weeks.
It's overpriced.
And they're going to tell youabout comps and why you should
(32:11):
pay 120% of fair market value.
But the agents that are callingnow to ask about price
expectations, good for them andgood for the agents on the list
side that will entertain it.
So let me give you an example.
It's 2022.
I have a property listed at,we'll continue with the same
numbers.
I have a property listed at 999.
(32:32):
I think I'm getting one four.
An agent calls me and says,what's your client's
expectation?
There's absolutely positively noA, reason for me to answer that
and B, way I'm going to do so.
What do I say?
I'm going to lose some of youhere because I'm so dishonest
and immoral.
I'm going to say, well, youknow, we'll see what we get on
the offer night.
(32:53):
I'm not answering the question.
Well, what does your clientexpect?
My client, they expect to sell.
But what kind of price do theyexpect?
God, I don't know, 10 million?
I'm not answering the questionbecause I don't have to.
Because I am going to get what Iget on the offer night.
And the thing that you don'twant me to say is that if that
(33:17):
person wants to offer a dollar,fine, I need their offer.
I need as many offers as I canget.
So if that person were to say,would they consider taking$999?
I'm not going to say no.
It's not my job to educate thatparticular buyer about the price
point in the market.
And I need their offer on offernight.
So how this has changed today isthat I received a phone call the
(33:38):
other day on a listing that Ihave.
And the agent said to me, wheredo you think this price lands?
So first thing I said was, Idon't know, it's such a hard
market.
And I'll see if they'll come tome with the price.
And they're like, yeah, I knowit's tough out there, but like,
do you have an idea?
I'm still not gonna answer itdirectly, but I'll say, you
know, in 2022, this thing was aone, four house.
(34:00):
I don't know, maybe one, five.
And they're like, yeah.
So what do you think?
At this point, I'm faced with achoice.
I can continue to do what Iwould have done in 2022 and
offer them absolutely zeroinsight and risk having them go
call one of the many otheragents that are out there, or I
can work with them.
And in that case, I said,listen, I think it's a one-three
(34:21):
house.
If we got a bully today atone-three, yeah, we would
probably take that.
If we got a one-two-five, Idon't think they would, but on
an offer night, yeah, they'regonna have to.
So what have I done there?
Have I just cost my client$50,000 by telling them it's a
one-three house, we would takeone-two-five on an offer night
but not today?
No, I'm trying to engage thatagent.
(34:43):
At the end of the day, it's theseller's decision to sign an
offer or not, but I'm trying toengage that agent.
the feedback loop has changedsubstantially.
And there are still sellers, orsorry, seller agents out there
that when you call them, and I'mnot talking about the red hot
listing.
I'm talking about the one whereI know it's likely not gonna
sell on the offer date.
(35:04):
There are those agents that whenyou call them, they're like,
listen, I can't help you.
And when the market was rippingin 2022, it did bother me when
agents would call and say, whatcomparables have you used to
price this?
It's a 1-4 house and I'm pricedat$9.99.
I clearly haven't used anycomparables because it's not
worth$9.99.
The question was sort of theirway of digging and trying to ask
(35:25):
and find.
And like you might saycynically, comparables, I don't
know, you have access to MLS.
What comparables did you find?
So not trying to contradictmyself or sound hypocritical.
I hope that this made sense.
But there's this very, verysmall difference between what we
did then and what we need to donow.
(35:45):
And the difference is made in 10seconds or less on that phone
call.
And that's the differencebetween getting a deal done or
not.
It's all about this feedbackloop.
So whereas the buyer agents usedto call the seller agents to ask
them, what's gonna happen on theoffer night?
What's your expectation?
Now it's the seller agents thatare calling the buyer agents.
I see your book to showing,would you like to work with me?
(36:06):
My sellers are eager to sell andso on and so forth.
But when you do have a buyeragent that calls you and wants
to engage, Are you going to actlike it's 2022 and kick them in
the teeth?
Are you going to recognize it's2025 and roll out the red carpet
to work with them?
So that's a lot guys.
(36:26):
I think it's a lot of the innerworkings of what's happening
right now in the market.
And I do like to tell storiesand go off on what you might
call tangents, but I think itadds color and everything that I
tell you here is what'shappening out there.
I want to give you stories fromthe trenches.
What is actually happening?
(36:47):
What are the conversations thatwe're having?
What do the statistics looklike?
What are the pain points?
Where are the wins?
Where are the losses?
Where are the successes andwhere are the failures?
Because the margin betweensuccess and failure is so small.
It's one phone call.
It's one conversation.
It's one mistake or it's oneopportunity.
So folks, thank you so much forwatching.
(37:08):
As always, if you're on YouTube,feel free to drop me a comment.
If you're listening on Spotify,Apple Music, or wherever you get
your podcasts, please rememberto like, comment, or subscribe.
And we'll see you here next timeon The Last Honest Realtor.
You haven't even locked the front door and put
the key back in the lockboxbefore the listing agent calls
you to ask how your showingwent.
Hello everybody and welcome backto the Last Honest Realtor
podcast.
I'm your host David Fleming.
Thank you so much for joining metoday and yes that is a true
story.
That happened to me last week.
I was standing on the frontporch of a property literally
(00:20):
locking the front door when thelisting agent called.
I answered it of course becauseI was at her property and I
thought maybe she was going toremind me to set the alarm or
tell me that the back door hadone of those hockey sticks that
you put down in the track tomake sure no one breaks in or I
don't know maybe ask me to feedthe cat but no.
She was calling to ask how theshowing went.
Now I said, we're actually stillhere.
(00:41):
And I thought she would say, ohmy gosh, I'm so sorry.
I thought your showing wasyesterday, let alone three, four
hours ago.
But no, she said, well, while Igot you, how is it going?
How is it going present tense?
If you need to know anythingabout the 2025 market, there is
a microcosm, the showingfeedback, not after the fact,
(01:02):
but live and on the spot.
Folks, the feedback loop haschanged significantly as the
market has changed in 2025.
And today we're going to talkabout how this feedback loop has
provided both an opportunity forsuccess and failure between
listing agents and buyer agents,buyers and sellers, as I always
say, the four parties to thetransaction.
(01:22):
Now, this is, of course, areaction to the market and as i
said an opportunity for successthose agents the listing agents
who i always talk about i holdmyself and my team to a very
high standard when we areworking in this changing market
but i also talk a lot on torontorealty blog and within this
podcast about how these listingagents have an opportunity for
success if they can adapt tothis market and unfortunately
(01:44):
failure if they don't recognizehow it has changed now there's
sort of this blind inexperiencethis wistful optimism in the
voices of many of these listingagents and it's very interesting
because not only will they callyou for feedback during a
showing or after which issomething they never did when
the market was hot but i'mgetting this sort of are you
(02:05):
bringing us an offer for yourproperty that's been on the
market for 46 days i just showedit 15 minutes ago to use an
analogy it's kind of like if youmeet somebody and you say do you
want to get married beforeyou've even gone out on a date.
Now I know the analogy doesn'thold perfectly true because of
(02:27):
course we're showing theproperty, but this is yet
another example.
Property's been on the marketfor 40, 50 days, I go do a
showing, I'm in the car, thephone rings, it's the agent,
hey, it's so-and-so, are youbringing us an offer?
Not even how did your showinggo?
So as I said, this is anopportunity for success or
failure.
And what I would say is that thelisting agent should start with
(02:49):
small talk.
How's it going?
How are you finding the market?
How did your showing go?
Ask questions.
Then try to offer some value,not selling me.
Well, this sold for this andthey want that.
No, no, no, don't make it aboutyou.
Tell me about the property.
What are some of the things thatI might not know about it?
Well, did you notice that thewindows were all replaced last
(03:10):
year?
Great.
There's some value.
Tell me that there's a pre-homeinspection.
Ask me if I've got a copy of it.
Tell me that you just did asurvey from last year.
But a lot of the times we're notgetting this.
We're getting, are you bringingme an offer?
And a lot of the times, even ifthey're not being so direct, the
listing agents, instead of sortof extending the hand and
offering the olive branch, so tospeak, they can't help
(03:32):
themselves.
You say, well, I'm not sure.
And God forbid you say, I mean,listen, it's been on the market
for two months and the price.
And then they jump right downyour throat and they bark at you
about the price.
They bark at you about what'shappening in the area and what
the comps were and what this wasworth.
And I think that that is atremendous mistake.
Now, the market is mixed, so tospeak, but it's not all of the
(03:55):
market.
I'll give you an example.
I brought a listing outyesterday.
And it's a decent listing.
It's a B, maybe a B minus.
We're underlisted as everythingis with an offer date as people
do.
The only difference betweenmyself and I think most listing
agents out there is I haveprepared my seller clients by
telling them we have maybe a 25%chance of selling this on offer
(04:16):
night.
Offer nights just aren'tworking.
Now I get a phone call from anagent and she says to me that
her clients are really tired andworn out.
That's kind of news because it'sa buyer's market, but go on.
And she said, you know what?
They were going to rent, butthey saw your listing and
they're just kind of curious.
So great example right now thatunderscores this dichotomy
between what I'm seeing outthere, which is opportunity for
(04:39):
buyers, and what she tells me,hey, there were 16 offers on a
house on Bastido the other day.
Right.
That's one house.
And I'm not trying to benegative about the market.
I'm trying to be realistic aboutthe market.
Is it yes or no?
There were 16 offers on thathouse.
And yes, the house on Riverdalegot multiples and the house on
Sparkle got multiples, but thoseare in prime Riverdale.
My listing is further east,further north, different
(05:02):
locations.
So the market is mixed, butyou're still seeing examples of
these particular buyers that aretired and worn out because
they've seen properties thathave been in multiples or
they've lost on offer nights.
But that leads to kind of theantithesis of today's podcast.
which is the way that the buyermentality has changed.
(05:22):
Buyers are operating slower.
The feedback loop is differentbetween agents on the buy side
and the sell side.
And I have this idea, thisconcept of patience versus
inaction.
So buyers go and look atproperties.
If this was 2022, here's how itwould be.
(05:43):
Your agent emails you at 9 a.m.
This property just came out.
Can you meet me at lunch?
You have a meeting.
Can you cancel it?
You need to get in there atlunch because they do have an
offer date, but it could get abully offer.
You rush over.
You've got to go get a check.
You've got to look at the homeinspection.
You've got to be ready to go.
And if there's a bully offer,you've got to compete.
(06:04):
And if there isn't, you're onoffer night and there's 14
offers and you know how thatworks.
The market has changed now andbuyers are taking their time.
But why are buyers taking theirtime?
I have a theory on this.
There is patience and there isinaction.
Now, patience is a function ofcontrol.
Inaction is a function of lackof control.
(06:28):
And what I mean by this is thatpatience among the buyer pool,
that is strategic, it isdeliberate, and it is
information-based.
That is an informed consumerthat is deliberately and
strategically taking their timeand looking at the market and
seeing opportunity.
(06:50):
The flip side is an action,which is a function of fear,
inexperience, and confusion.
Now, let me segue for a moment.
I'm going to talk about a storyI told on Toronto Realty blog
last week, which underscoresfear, inexperience, and
confusion.
And so this is more on the sellside, which kind of goes into
this whole feedback loop ideathat we're talking about today.
(07:12):
And while the idea for thispodcast is obviously from the
buyer's eyes, I want to give youan idea of how this fear and
this inexperience and thisconfusion on the sell side, on
the listing agent side, cancause a reaction in the buyer
pool.
There is a property, it's listedfor 999.
(07:33):
Once upon a time, 1.4, maybeeven 1.5.
Now we're looking at 1.3, maybe1.25.
So we go and view this property,me and the buyer clients.
We like it, we get to the offerdate, we get our bank draft, And
away we go.
We draft the offer, we registerthe offer, and we wait.
We wait all day.
We wait to get that email thatsays second offer registered,
(07:56):
third offer registered, fourthoffer registered, but nothing
ever comes.
We have the only offer on theproperty.
So it's 999 list.
We think it's a 125 house.
Now it could be 13.
I don't think so.
It could be 12.
Depends on what the seller willsell for and what the buyer will
pay.
That's how the market works.
So what do we do being the onlyoffer?
(08:18):
Some of you are gonna say, offer9.99.
Some of you are gonna say, offer9.50.
I work in reality.
We offered 1.1 million.
Right off the bat, I'm gonnalose a bunch of you.
How could you offer 1.1 millionon a 9.99 list?
You're the only offer.
Because they're not gonna take9.99.
They're just not.
In fact, they're not gonna take1.1.
They're not going to take 1.1.
(08:40):
Complain if you want.
Tell me the market shouldn'twork that way and people should
be forced to accept and all thatnonsense I disagree with.
But we offer 1.1 million.
The listing agent comes back.
Hey, thanks so much for youroffer.
Can they come up?
What do I say?
Well, my clients have told methey can come up.
They fully intend to come up.
Our offer of 1.1 million iscompletely exploratory.
(09:02):
And I say, yeah, they can comeup.
So what does the listing agentdo?
He says, great.
Why don't you do that and get abetter offer on paper and send
it back to us?
No.
It's not 2022 anymore.
Now, let's say it was 2022.
I mean, listen, let's say it was2024 because we're not that far
removed from situations wherethis house would have got 12
offers.
When you have 12 offers in ahouse listed at$9.99, you can
(09:26):
bulk email all 12 agents andsay, improve your offers.
It's a mistake.
I think personalization andcommunication is important.
You can call all 12 agents andsend them all back to improve,
or you can do what I do.
Start from the bottom.
Call the agent with the worstoffer.
Thanks so much.
We're going in anotherdirection.
If they say, can I improve myoffer?
You say, yeah, if you want to.
I really don't think you should.
There's a pretty big gap.
(09:48):
But that's how I do things.
I start from the bottom.
I go up to the top.
And that is what we do.
And you offer people anopportunity to improve.
Some of you watching it arelike, I don't like this.
You should just be forced totake the highest offer.
Listen, it is what it is.
I work for my seller.
I work within the rules that areprescribed to me.
Today, we have the only offer inthis example.
And the listing agent says, Iinvite you to improve your
(10:09):
offer.
I say to that agent, No, we'renot going to do that.
The agent says, why not?
I said, we have submitted anoffer to you.
If you would like more money,we're happy to discuss.
Sign our offer back.
The agent then gives me anexplanation on how offer dates
work.
This is our offer date.
We're not signing it back toyou.
Why not?
Because we're not.
(10:31):
Okay, I mean, my eight-year-olddaughter could have come up with
a better justification, but whynot?
Because we're not, becausethat's not how offer dates work.
Enlighten me, tell me how offerdates work.
The agent takes the bait andsays, we review all the offers,
and then we make a decision.
We invite people to come back,and I'm like, uh-huh.
And I said, okay, yeah, but yousaid offers, plural.
(10:53):
You have one offer.
You have one buyer in the cityof Toronto who wants to
potentially purchase your home.
We have made you an offer.
We have even told you that wewould consider paying more for
it.
You're listed at 999.
We've offered you 1.1 million.
We invite you to sign it back.
This agent would not listen.
This agent said, no, we're notsigning back.
(11:13):
Fear, inexperience, confusion.
That's what this is.
And this isn't arrogance.
This isn't greed.
This isn't stubbornness.
This is fear, inexperience, andconfusion.
This agent has never worked in amarket where he has to
communicate with all parties tothe transaction.
(11:34):
This agent doesn't know how tobe courteous, professional,
respectful.
This agent barks orders.
You improve your offer or we'redone here.
Okay, I can go and buy one ofmany other houses on the market.
That's changed.
If this was 2022, I would laydown in the street and let this
(11:54):
agent run me over with his car,metaphorically, literally.
Times have changed.
So I explained to the agentagain, if you are not interested
in accepting an offer of$1.1million, you can take the offer
and sign it back, change theprice.
And I said to him, the price isnot going to change itself.
(12:15):
Sign it back at 10 million ifyou want to, but sign it back.
There's an expression in ourbusiness, never let a deal die.
Agents say things like, listen,I'm not gonna let it die on my
operating table.
Agents say things like, in orderto get a deal done, I need to
have something for my clients tosign.
If you would like for my clientsto sign an offer, I have to have
(12:39):
one to give them.
I explained this to the agentand the agent was so dug in.
No, it's our offer night.
No one signs back on an offernight.
We have leverage.
He lost me at leverage.
I said, what leverage do youhave?
We have leverage.
We have a listing.
We have an offer date.
And you can see how this is kindof circular, so I'll sum it up.
(13:01):
But it went on until eventuallyhe said, we're done here and
hung up on me.
The next day, he called me threeo'clock.
Are your clients stillinterested in the house?
Hey, he's doing the right thing.
Some contrition.
Yes.
Not much has changed since lastnight.
And he said, well, the door'sstill open if they want to
resubmit.
(13:23):
Oh, man.
I thought he was going to comeback to me and say, hey, listen,
cooler heads have prevailed.
We're giving you a sign back of$1,250,000.
See what you can do.
We're giving you a sign back of$1,300,000.
See what you can do.
Hey, we're giving you a signback of$1,220,000.
It's our absolute rock bottom.
If you like it, take it.
(13:43):
If you don't, send it back.
None of that happened.
Fear, inexperience, confusion,those three things.
So I said, okay, yeah, great,thanks very much.
And guess what I did?
I asked my clients if they'restill interested and they said,
yeah, we are, but there's theseother properties out there that
we wanna see.
So that night I went and Ishowed them two other houses,
(14:03):
very comparable, both of themlisted low with offer dates.
And then an agent called me andhere's where we return to the
feedback loop.
This is a very experienced realestate agent, a lady that I have
known my whole career.
I would say I've probably done10 to 12 transactions with this
agent.
There's a mutual respect.
(14:23):
She called me.
How's it going?
How are you finding the market?
She asked me about my kids.
Now say what you want.
Call her a schmooze.
She's doing her job.
We probably talked for 10minutes before she said, so how
was the showing?
And I said, you know what?
They like it.
It's a great house.
Last night, you wouldn't believethe situation I had.
(14:44):
And then I told her the storythat I just told you guys.
And she said, well, listen,David, I understand what the
market is and we're certainlynot there.
I'm happy to work with you.
And I said, yeah.
I mean, do you have an idea onprice?
There.
Right there.
There's where deals are made andthere's where deals were lost.
And I will come back to this ina moment.
(15:06):
Do you have an idea on price?
Fear, inexperience, confusion.
Those three things are makingmost real estate agents right
there just stop in their tracks.
Or if it's 2022, which I'llexplain in a few moments, you're
taking a different strategy.
She said to me, well, listen, Ithink my clients would love
(15:27):
$1,250,000.
Their floor is$1,200,000.
I don't know, David, somethingin between.
Boom.
There.
There, that's how you get dealsdone.
So some of the people watchingthis on both sides of the
argument are gonna say, I can'tbelieve she sold out her
clients.
Why would she give you thatinformation?
Some of the other ones are gonnasay, it's so nice to finally see
(15:48):
agents being honest and open andnone of this under list with
offer date nonsense.
I took this back to my clientsand I said, guys, they have told
me what they're expecting.
They would be open to apreemptive offer.
Now, could they get a millionthree on offer night?
Maybe.
Probably not.
Would they sell for less than1.2?
They absolutely don't have to.
(16:08):
My client said, you know what?
We like that other house, theone on which they bid 1.1
million, and we probably wouldhave gone to 1,250,000 for that.
What if we could get this housefor 1,220,000?
I said, yeah, listen, they saidthey're rock bottoms 1-2.
They'd really like 1-2-5.
Would you guys pay 1-2-2?
(16:28):
Yeah, we would.
We could offer one, two and seewhat they do with it.
No, you know what?
For 20 grand, this is a waybetter house.
The next morning they went andthey got a deposit check.
They drafted an offer.
They submitted it for one, two,two.
The listing agent said, thankyou so much.
You rock.
This is great.
I'll see what I can do.
The page through broker bay wentout and it says one offer
(16:50):
registered preemptive becausetechnically they have an offer
date.
That's how you know you're inbusiness and the property sold.
My clients bought a property.
That agent got that deal done.
Three days later, I get a callfrom the other agent.
Mr.
This is how an offer nightworks.
And he said to me, we're goingto be relisting, but I wanted to
(17:12):
see if your people want to takeanother run at it.
So I didn't tell him that I hadalready sold my clients a
property.
I said, what are you relistingat?
Do you think he told me?
He said, well, that's between meand the seller.
I said, would you like to giveme a range so that I can discuss
it with my clients?
He said, no, if you know whatproperties are worth in this
(17:32):
area, I wouldn't have to tellyou.
I said, so you're calling me,you're asking me to bring an
offer.
I brought you an offer already.
I've given you opportunity tosign it back to me.
You haven't done that.
And now you're calling me andasking me to bring you an offer,
not just moving the goalposts,but changing the complete game
here, whatever analogy you want.
And he said, listen, you haveone more chance at this before
(17:53):
we relist.
And I said, okay, I'll talk tomy clients.
I hung up and I never called himback because my clients already
bought a property.
And if you're asking me, whydidn't I feel the need to tell
him that?
Because I don't care.
The minute I feel the need toshow somebody, I know better
than they are.
And that property is relistedfor a million 299 and it's still
(18:14):
on the market.
So that was a long story.
That was a long tangent.
I told you I was going to go offon a tangent.
But the point to this story isthat that was based in fear,
inexperience, and confusionamong that listing agent.
That listing agent didn't signmy offer back.
Not because he's a jerk.
I mean, he was a jerk.
Not because he's greedy or hasan ego.
(18:35):
Probably both those things.
But because of the fear.
That agent's afraid of doingsomething he's never done
before.
That agent doesn't want to signit back because it might be too
low, it might be too high.
Never having done it, not havingworked in the market, doesn't
understand.
That is how so many deals arebeing lost in this market, is
this fear and this inexperienceand this confusion.
(18:57):
So that story is based on thesell side.
I want to return back to the buyside.
where I mentioned the concept ofpatience versus inaction.
Buyers out there right now aredividing themselves into these
two camps.
There are those that arestrategically waiting because
they are patient, and there arethose that are waiting because
(19:19):
of inaction, and that is basedin fear, confusion, and
inexperience.
Now, I'll tell you another storyhere, because I seem to be full
of them, which underscores themarket that we are in.
We have a development site.
Absolutely gorgeous.
17 luxury townhouses and everyweekend we're there and we see
(19:40):
buyers come through.
The buyers are so excited andthe feedback is incredible.
Unbelievable finishes, nothinglike this in the area, no
objections to the price.
It's condominium, but the feesare only$300 a month for two and
a half million dollartownhouses, two underground
parking spaces, direct access tothe unit.
(20:00):
All the feedback is amazing.
Every weekend, there's an agentthat comes through with a buyer
and says, I'm going to call youon Monday.
This is great.
Every weekend, there's a randombuyer that says, well, and this
is verbatim last weekend, wewill be in touch this week.
We want to decide which unit wewant, and then we'll move
forward.
(20:22):
This isn't like when you go outon a date with somebody and
you're like, I'll call you andyou don't mean it.
These are people that arelegitimately telling me, we're
going to let you know which one.
We're going to sit down andwe're going to decide.
I don't think that they need tolie to me as my analogy of going
on a date.
They just turn around and saythank you and walk out.
(20:44):
But every weekend, it's followedup with an action.
So why?
Is it based on fear andexperience and confusion, or is
it based on this informational,strategic desire among the buyer
pool to wait?
I would say once again, buyersfall into two different buckets.
Now, I continue to get emailsfrom people that have come
(21:07):
through once, twice, or threetimes that say things like, hi,
David, do you have an updatedavailability list?
They're just keeping an eye.
Now, if I send them a list andunit nine sold and unit two
sold, they write back, they'relike, okay, appreciate it,
thanks.
(21:27):
What is it that they're tryingto do there?
They're keeping an eye on it.
They're interested, but theyjust can't move right now.
Can't or won't and why?
And that's what I want to getinto next.
Now, I'm a numbers guy.
I'm a data nerd.
When I look at our listings,there are a couple of different
measures and I track these andshare them with the sellers.
(21:50):
The first is the overall numberof showings.
The second is requests for thehome inspection.
So the first is an indicator ofinterest, just basically how
many people have come through.
The second is an indicator offurther interest or next step,
if you will, which is to reachout and ask for a copy of the
home inspection.
So as I've mentioned on, I thinkit was a few podcasts ago, it's
(22:12):
getting a lot harder to predict.
I wrote a blog post once yearsago where i looked at and there
were condos in this example tooso as opposed to asking for a
copy of the home inspection itwill be asking for a copy of the
condominium status certificateremember when we used to list
condos low set offer dates andget 10 offers so in this blog
post i looked at the number ofshowings the number of requests
(22:34):
then the number of offers andlooked for a correlation and
what i found in that market waswe were getting 60 showings And
then we get 10 offers.
Okay, so what's that as apercent?
One sixth, what is that, 18%?
So then I would say, all right,of those 60 showings, we got 15
requests for a home inspectionor a status certificate.
(22:56):
And you know, half of thosepeople ended up making offers.
So what's that, six, seven,eight?
This is what the blog post wasabout.
And there wasn't the biggestcorrelation in there, but it was
enough to suggest that these arereasonable measures of the
market.
Number of showings is downsubstantially.
So I once had over 100 showingsin a week on a condo at 311
(23:19):
Richmond Street East.
It was absolutely ridiculous,100 showings.
When the market was really busyon a freehold, you would expect
to have 50, 60, 70, maybe even80 showings.
In 2024, when things sloweddown, you would expect to have
40 showings.
With what I've seen so far thisyear in this sort of million one
(23:41):
to million four entry levelfreehold, we're seeing 25
showings.
There's a measure of the market.
You're sharing that with theseller and you're using that to
adjust expectations accordingly.
Request for a home inspection,25 showings, five requests for
the inspection.
Then along comes the offer,Nate, and what?
indeterminate you can have zerooffers one offer or two offers
(24:05):
an example i told you earlierguy was priced at 9.99 for one
two five one three house we havethe only offer doesn't mean it's
worth 9.99 let alone one one asi explained it's just me kind of
introducing this concept of whybuyers are employing this wait
and see strategy there are a lotof buyers now that are targeting
(24:25):
houses that don't sell on offerdates now there's always
exceptions to the rule A houseon Plater, beautiful area,
Jackman School District, northof Danforth, 235 list, seven
offers, sells for 275, 400,000over list.
And that thing was a gut.
There's a beautiful house up theroad on Browning.
(24:46):
Now it's a three-story, it'sonly a semi, but it's gorgeous.
I think it was listed at 2526,sold for just shy of 3 million.
And then I mentioned the one onBastido.
There are always going to bethose houses.
But in a pocket, as I mentioned,the 1-1 to 1-4 entry level, in a
pocket that's saturated withinventory, buyers are taking
this wait and see approach.
(25:08):
So for us as listing agents touse metrics like the number of
showings and the number of homeinspection requests as any sort
of indication as the amount ofinterest, unfortunately, we're
not able to do that anymore.
Now, those showings are down.
The engagement with the buyerpool has changed substantially.
The listing agents need tochange with it.
They need to explain thedifference in the market
(25:29):
condition to the seller, notjust during the course of the
listing, but in advance.
And then they have to be able toadjust on the fly.
The agent that I mentioned inthe story that called me, made
some small talk, told me tobring an offer, rolled out the
red carpet, that's how you'regetting deals done.
The agent that I mentioned thatsat back, waited for offer
night, was arrogant, annoying,rude, and then clueless and
(25:51):
careless and...
mired in confusion uncertaintyinexperience and fear not how
you get deals done but the buyerpool the buyer pool this is why
i'm trying to talk to you abouttoday and i keep going back to
the agents the buyer pool arebeing patient the wait and see
strategy five houses come out ina week and you're looking at all
(26:11):
five and you're like geez icould buy any of these now i
would say probably want to pickthe one that you love the most
and if you got to pay a littlebit more for it fine but there
are buyers that are beingopportunistic this wait and see
approach take out the platersand the brownings what was the
other one and the bastidos fivehouses go to offer night one of
themselves four of them aresitting thereafter that is the
(26:35):
opportunity for the buyer poolnow as i mentioned and i'm going
to keep hitting this point overand over is this based on
Patience, is this based oninaction?
These particular buyers, this isbased on patience.
These buyers are strategicallysaying, we like these houses,
let's see what happens afteroffer date.
Because if 80% of houses in thatprice point on the east side of
(26:56):
Toronto, let's say, are failingtheir offer nights, then those
buyers are able to go in afterthe fact and sort of pick and
choose.
For the folks where inaction isthe reason they're not doing
something right, it's acompletely different
conversation.
And I don't want to sound like asalesperson here and say that 18
months from now, those folks aregoing to wish that they had
acted.
(27:16):
But I will say that there are alot of reasons for that
inaction.
Now let's call thesecontributing factors.
The first one I would say isinformation saturation.
The buyers are absorbing moreupfront and they're feeling less
need to interact with thelisting agents, have their
agents interact with the listingagents.
The listing agents aresoliciting feedback.
(27:37):
The buyer agents aren'tnecessarily getting it because
these buyers are slow rollingand they are slow playing.
There's a decision fatigue.
So with more listings toprocess, a lot more buyers
hesitate to emotionally commit.
And I can tell you, I've toldthis story before.
The first time my wife and I bidon a house, This is
gut-wrenching.
I can actually remember it.
(27:57):
I called my wife and said, wedidn't get it.
And she was crying.
And she said, get it back.
I told this story in a podcastonce before.
And I said, I felt like less ofa man because she was telling me
to do something I couldn't do.
She said, I'd already picturedour daughter's bedroom and how I
would decorate it.
I mean, the emotion within thatand the fact that she was
rocking our baby girl as I wastelling her we didn't get the
(28:19):
house.
I don't know that that isexisting as much in today's
market.
Buyers...
are emotionally withdrawn, andthere are exceptions to the
rule, as I continue to mentionover and over like a broken
record, but I would say thatsome buyers are unable to
emotionally commit, and thensome buyers are strategically
avoiding emotionally committing.
(28:40):
Now, more to the point, thebuyers are protecting themselves
against the crazy sellers thatwant too much.
So when you go into that 999list and you know it's worth
125, it's not to say that sellerisn't gonna relist at 14.
I'm seeing this over and over.
I don't want to tell tales outof school, but I talked to an
agent that told me the othernight he got four offers on his
(29:02):
listing and the target was 1.6million.
They had an offer of a million580.
Four offers.
This one was listed at a million369.
The seller turned it down.
The risk reward scenario there,I just don't know that it works
in that seller's favor.
But there are some buyers outthere that are protecting
(29:22):
themselves against that.
Now you didn't necessarily havethat luxury when the market was
red hot.
You would protect yourselfagainst the market.
If you could, you might look ata house listed at a million 399
and think, wow, this is probablya one six house.
And you know what?
If someone pays one eight forit, there's nothing you could
do.
That emotional roller coasterwas something that a lot of
(29:43):
buyers went through and theyjust threw their hands up and
said, I can't, I can't competewith this.
That makes no sense.
Those prices aren't based oncomps.
They're not based on any sort ofvaluation.
You can't protect yourself fromthat.
In this market today, there area lot of sellers who that just
will not accept marketconditions, not accept price.
And I've told the same storiesover and over in the last few
(30:03):
weeks, I feel like to death, butI've seen listings that I have,
I don't wanna sound rude, turneddown, or let's say listings
where the potential client and Ihave not connected that are
sitting on the market at pricesthat make absolutely no sense.
And it's not to say I don'twanna work for them to get top
dollar, but when I tell someonetheir house is worth 135 and
they say, I need 16, and it'snow listed at 1679, and it's
(30:26):
been in the market for twomonths, Again, I mean, that
doesn't make any sense.
It's not rooted in reality.
On the buy side, those buyersare trying to protect themselves
against that when the propertyis underlisted for, say,
$1,199,000, and it's worth$135,000, but the seller's going
to want$16,000,$17,000.
(30:47):
This is why so many buyers arejust refusing to go to offer
nights.
This is why so many buyers aresaying, here are the houses I
like, let me know which onesdon't sell on the offer night.
Now, again, you do not have thatluxury with a lot of houses, a
lot of houses in a lot of areas.
And I can tell you storiesabout, you know, one in Leaside
listed for two, four.
We thought, geez, that's kind ofoptimistic.
(31:08):
It's got an offer date.
They got a bully offer two, six,five.
Depends on the type of property,depends on the amount of
inventory that's out there.
But if you're looking at a threebed, two bath semi in an area,
where there's 50 of those andthere used to only be six of
those, that's where the buyersare afforded this opportunity to
sit back, be strategic, andwait.
(31:29):
So last point I want to make,and I keep going back to
communication, communicationbetween buyers and sellers via
buyer agent and seller agent.
Nobody did feedback calls whenthe market was hot.
You just didn't.
You had a listing.
You had your 70 showings.
You didn't get your 14 offers.
As a listing agent, you don'tneed to call for feedback.
(31:49):
What's the feedback?
Sorry, I can't hear.
It's so loud in here becausethere's 15 showings going on.
You know what I mean.
Now everyone's doing feedbackcalls.
And as I said from thebeginning, they're the agents
that genuinely understand theobjective of the feedback call.
And there are those that juststart barking down your throat
for their property that's beenon market for five weeks.
It's overpriced.
And they're going to tell youabout comps and why you should
(32:11):
pay 120% of fair market value.
But the agents that are callingnow to ask about price
expectations, good for them andgood for the agents on the list
side that will entertain it.
So let me give you an example.
It's 2022.
I have a property listed at,we'll continue with the same
numbers.
I have a property listed at 999.
(32:32):
I think I'm getting one four.
An agent calls me and says,what's your client's
expectation?
There's absolutely positively noA, reason for me to answer that
and B, way I'm going to do so.
What do I say?
I'm going to lose some of youhere because I'm so dishonest
and immoral.
I'm going to say, well, youknow, we'll see what we get on
the offer night.
(32:53):
I'm not answering the question.
Well, what does your clientexpect?
My client, they expect to sell.
But what kind of price do theyexpect?
God, I don't know, 10 million?
I'm not answering the questionbecause I don't have to.
Because I am going to get what Iget on the offer night.
And the thing that you don'twant me to say is that if that
(33:17):
person wants to offer a dollar,fine, I need their offer.
I need as many offers as I canget.
So if that person were to say,would they consider taking$999?
I'm not going to say no.
It's not my job to educate thatparticular buyer about the price
point in the market.
And I need their offer on offernight.
So how this has changed today isthat I received a phone call the
(33:38):
other day on a listing that Ihave.
And the agent said to me, wheredo you think this price lands?
So first thing I said was, Idon't know, it's such a hard
market.
And I'll see if they'll come tome with the price.
And they're like, yeah, I knowit's tough out there, but like,
do you have an idea?
I'm still not gonna answer itdirectly, but I'll say, you
know, in 2022, this thing was aone, four house.
(34:00):
I don't know, maybe one, five.
And they're like, yeah.
So what do you think?
At this point, I'm faced with achoice.
I can continue to do what Iwould have done in 2022 and
offer them absolutely zeroinsight and risk having them go
call one of the many otheragents that are out there, or I
can work with them.
And in that case, I said,listen, I think it's a one-three
(34:21):
house.
If we got a bully today atone-three, yeah, we would
probably take that.
If we got a one-two-five, Idon't think they would, but on
an offer night, yeah, they'regonna have to.
So what have I done there?
Have I just cost my client$50,000 by telling them it's a
one-three house, we would takeone-two-five on an offer night
but not today?
No, I'm trying to engage thatagent.
(34:43):
At the end of the day, it's theseller's decision to sign an
offer or not, but I'm trying toengage that agent.
the feedback loop has changedsubstantially.
And there are still sellers, orsorry, seller agents out there
that when you call them, and I'mnot talking about the red hot
listing.
I'm talking about the one whereI know it's likely not gonna
sell on the offer date.
(35:04):
There are those agents that whenyou call them, they're like,
listen, I can't help you.
And when the market was rippingin 2022, it did bother me when
agents would call and say, whatcomparables have you used to
price this?
It's a 1-4 house and I'm pricedat$9.99.
I clearly haven't used anycomparables because it's not
worth$9.99.
The question was sort of theirway of digging and trying to ask
(35:25):
and find.
And like you might saycynically, comparables, I don't
know, you have access to MLS.
What comparables did you find?
So not trying to contradictmyself or sound hypocritical.
I hope that this made sense.
But there's this very, verysmall difference between what we
did then and what we need to donow.
(35:45):
And the difference is made in 10seconds or less on that phone
call.
And that's the differencebetween getting a deal done or
not.
It's all about this feedbackloop.
So whereas the buyer agents usedto call the seller agents to ask
them, what's gonna happen on theoffer night?
What's your expectation?
Now it's the seller agents thatare calling the buyer agents.
I see your book to showing,would you like to work with me?
(36:06):
My sellers are eager to sell andso on and so forth.
But when you do have a buyeragent that calls you and wants
to engage, Are you going to actlike it's 2022 and kick them in
the teeth?
Are you going to recognize it's2025 and roll out the red carpet
to work with them?
So that's a lot guys.
(36:26):
I think it's a lot of the innerworkings of what's happening
right now in the market.
And I do like to tell storiesand go off on what you might
call tangents, but I think itadds color and everything that I
tell you here is what'shappening out there.
I want to give you stories fromthe trenches.
What is actually happening?
(36:47):
What are the conversations thatwe're having?
What do the statistics looklike?
What are the pain points?
Where are the wins?
Where are the losses?
Where are the successes andwhere are the failures?
Because the margin betweensuccess and failure is so small.
It's one phone call.
It's one conversation.
It's one mistake or it's oneopportunity.
So folks, thank you so much forwatching.
(37:08):
As always, if you're on YouTube,feel free to drop me a comment.
If you're listening on Spotify,Apple Music, or wherever you get
your podcasts, please rememberto like, comment, or subscribe.
And we'll see you here next timeon The Last Honest Realtor.
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