TORONTO – Amidst an increasingly tough real estate market for sellers fraught with increased listings and buyers sidelined by interest rates, the Canadian Real Estate Association has reported that a number of their members have increasingly been forced to actually do their job.
“Wow so I really have to like… SELL this thing,” said Toronto Real Estate Agent Jenny Feroz, speaking about the 1-bedroom condo she just listed for 900k, for which there are at least 200 similar units in the same area.
“Usually I just hire someone to take a few pics, pop it on MLS, and then sit back and wait for the money to roll in – but that’s not working this time,” explains Feroz. “Are you telling me I need to like… speak to people? Return phone calls? No offence, but that sounds like a lot of work.”
In other parts of the GTA’s formerly hot market, fellow realtors expressed similar difficulty with the adjustment.
“It’s exhausting,” says Oakville Real Estate Agent Trevor Michaels. “On this one recent listing I used all my old tricks. I printed the MLS listing on slightly above average card stock, I filmed myself doing a 6-month old TikTok dance in the kitchen, I made an Instagram post AND story. I even put balloons on the for sale sign, and nothing,” explains Michaels.
“The other day I hosted a two-day open house. What is this, the nineties? And what do I even say to people? Here’s the bedroom. It’s the room for the bed. Talk about dancing for your dinner. It was embarrassing.”
In light of the job’s new realities forcing realtors to work as many as 2, or sometimes even 4 hours a week per property in order to make tens of thousands of dollars of commission, the CREA said that realtors are fleeing the profession in record numbers.
“If I wanted to work to make a sale I would’ve become a car salesman,” said one disgruntled realtor who asked not to be named.
“Every sale is like a game of 20 questions,” added another. “’How old is the house? Why is it on a slant? Why is there black mold everywhere? Why is there no front door? What does a termite nest look like?’ What the hell do I look like, Mike Holmes? I miss the old days when I could just throw a key behind me like a bride throwing a bouquet and watch 30 families fight it out right there on the lawn for first dibs on who gets to bid 200k over asking.”
Realtors have also reported that as the market has become more competitive, so too have the demands clients are putting on their realtors.
“You give these clients an inch and they take a mile,” says one realtor currently transitioning out of the profession. “The other day I had a client ask me to do a title search. Um hello, I became a realtor because I DIDN’T get into law school. And what the fuck is an agreement of Purchase and Sale anyway? I had another client talking ‘escrow this, escrow that’. Do they expect me to know French now?”
Realtors are just one of many professions forced to adjust to the new reality. At press time, The Ontario Real Estate Lawyers Association announced it was dissolving, with record numbers of its members returning to their prior practice of notarizing documents in a strip mall.
