Joanne Blain
Sun
Think you’ll get the jump on other home buyers by checking the Internet for new listings a couple of times a day?
Not likely.
In the Lower Mainland’s overheated real-estate market, it’s not unheard-of for choice properties to be snapped up even before they hit public real-estate search sites.
But a new web-based service lets buyers get detailed information on new listings at the same time agents see it — up to two days before it shows up on other search sites.
For prospective buyers like Elizabeth Armour, that’s an “exponential” advantage. She was frustrated in her search for a condo because “every time I found something suitable, there were three or four offers on it.”
But she now has a deal pending on a Whalley condo she found through the service, called Virtual Office Websites or VOW.
The service is free to browsers, but they have to sign up for it through one of the more than 200 real-estate agents in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley who currently subscribe to it.
“It basically allows the public access to market information that traditionally only realtors have had access to,” says Ray Giesbrecht of MyRealPage.com, which markets the service. “This is democratizing the process, for lack of a better word.”
Before it was introduced in the Lower Mainland about six months ago, buyers who were not working with an agent were limited to surfing on mls.ca or realtylink.org, the public sites run by the Canadian Real Estate Association and the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
Both those sites post new listings about 48 hours after agents see them — a time lag created to give buyers an incentive to work with an agent, which varies in length from one real-estate board to another. And the information they provide is far more limited than agents receive — it doesn’t list things like room dimensions, for example, or the number of days the home has been on the market.
But buyers who sign up on a Virtual Office Website — which they will find on an individual agent’s site by clicking on a “for clients only” or “become a new client” tab — can get virtually all the information that an agent sees on a new listing, with no built-in delay. And they don’t even have to directly contact the agent to use the service.
Of course, that’s not the goal for agents, who pay a $145 set-up fee for the service, plus $45 a month. They hope browsers who sign up for the service will eventually become clients.
Leslie Titus of HomeLife Benchmark Titus Realty in Cloverdale has been using the service for about two months and says she has already signed up new clients as a direct result.
Armour is one of them. She wasn’t quite sure what the service was when she stumbled across it on Titus’s website, but she was pleased to discover it would let her search for very specific things — only top-floor condos with a master bedroom large enough to accommodate her furniture.
She was happy to be able to shop for prospects on her own and called Titus only when she found what she was looking for. “I found it, I called her and I said ‘I want to see it ASAP.’ “
Marion Patrick of Re/Max Crest Realty Westside says it’s particularly useful for people “who are just putting their toe in the water” of the real-estate market and aren’t yet ready to contact an agent.
Signing up for the service does give agents a prospective buyer’s contact information. But both Patrick and Titus say they’re happy to let lookie-loos browse away, with the hope that would-be buyers will turn to them when they get serious about finding a property.
But aren’t some real-estate agents worried that buyers won’t even need an agent if they can get immediate access to virtually all relevant information on a new listing?
Titus says she didn’t have qualms about that. Most buyers still want an agent to represent them when they are negotiating a home purchase. “They still need us to set up appointments and take them around.”
Rick Valouche, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, agrees that most buyers will at some point want to work directly with an agent. “Nothing is ever going to replace that face-to-face interaction.”
Valouche also points out that buyers who work directly with a real-estate agent have long been able to get many of the advantages the Virtual Office Website offers.
Agents have the option of registering their clients on the realtor-only MLS website, so that prospective buyers can receive immediate notification of properties that meet their search criteria, and with the same detailed information agents receive. They cannot, however, search the site on their own.
Giesbrecht says Virtual Office Websites have been somewhat controversial because they give buyers information they used to be able to get only from agents.
But agents like Patrick say fears about the new service are just as unwarranted as initial concerns about public search sites like mls.ca and realtylink.org.
“I remember when properties were first available online, some agents said ‘oh, they’ll never use us now,’ ” she says. “They use us more now.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006