Breaking The Rules
Real estate without the history? That’s not my style.
One of the advantages of Covid is the work-at-home trend that has skyrocketed. This has given some people the freedom to not only stay home and get rid of the commute, but also to relocate to the burbs. Or even better, to rural living.
Many articles have been written over the past few months of the mass exodus out of the city centres. Traditionally living in or close to city centres has been a necessary evil to making the big coin. Not any longer. Now one can actually make good money and not leave the comfort of their home. Hence the trend to get out of Dodge.
This recent surge in relocation has driven up house prices and made tighter rules even tighter. Purchasing real estate in recent years had already been tight lipped and shrouded in secrecy, but now that is at all all time high. Whether it is the frustrating bidding game, or the absence of contact with sellers, the end result is the same: go in blind and hope for the best.
A while back in the Globe and Mail there was a great spread on the crazy market we find ourselves in. One of the points that was made was how terrible it is for the buyer when you have no idea what the other offers look like, forcing you to put in above-ask offers to try and secure your bid. In some cases, hundreds of thousands over ask. Crazy times.
When we decided ourselves to leave Vancouver’s Lower Mainland rat race, I was looking forward to relocating to a quieter lifestyle. I naively thought that house hunting would be fun. My husband and I had secured a lovely rental for three months near the area we wanted to relocate to, giving us ample time to explore and look at homes and dream of our next stage. What a fallacy that was!! It was extremely stressful, high pressure, and not enjoyable in the least. I cried on more than one occasion on a missed opportunity for what I thought would be the perfect home. Not fun.
Now we could say that this is possibly because of my personality and that I’m not really cut out for the detachment required when house hunting. However I must say that this new system of (1) put home on the market, (2) show it for seven days, and then (3) take all offers by Saturday at 4:00 pm — sucks!! High pressure sales at its finest.
Now let’s get to the real rub and my rule breaking. The realtors firmly instruct sellers not to talk to buyers, and buyers not to talk to sellers. Ever. The house we just sold in the Vancouver area— I never met the new owners. What a tragedy!! I lived in that house for fifteen years. I had wisdom I could have imparted, little tricks and gems that I knew that would possibly take the new owners ages to figure out on their own. But nope, don’t talk to each other — at all, ever, before or after. Might screw up that real estate deal.
By happenstance, this purchase was different. As noted in my Sliding Doors blogpost, we met the owner of the property that we just purchased. He was standing in his yard when we drove by to take a look at this new listing, and waved to us. That was all it took for me to jump out of the truck! After an offer was accepted and we scheduled an “inspection” — but not the normal type. The owner gave us a two hour tour of his 8 acres that he had lived on for 20 years. He told us all about the ins-and-outs, what he had done to the property, and what he had still hoped to do if he hadn’t run out of steam. I loved this introduction to our new home and new life.
Those who know me well know that I am a rule breaker at heart, so this scenario isn’t much different for me. I wish that the real estate industry at large could change their rules to make way for more of these interactions. If you have lived anywhere for any significant amount of time, you have probably put some love into your property and have some stories to share. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear them?
