105: Everything You Need to Know About Working with a Realtor in BC with Century 21's Dean Desrosiers

Taylor Atkinson: Welcome back to the Kelowna real estate podcast. I'm your mortgage broker host Taylor Atkinson.

Matt Glen: And I'm your real estate agent host, Matt Glen. What's happening Taylor? How is your summer?

Taylor Atkinson: Summer's been awesome, man. Yeah. It's been a ton of fun.

Matt Glen: I saw you land in the three sixty on the on the wake.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. It's been a long hard mission of trying to to get that. So hard work pays off. How's your summer? How's things going?

Matt Glen: I haven't landed any three sixties, but it's been a pretty awesome summer.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. You just finished up a hockey league in the summer and Yeah. What's going for us in the fall.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Got back in the hockey. Well, last year, within the summer took a real service. And now in the fall, it's all Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Our team's gonna win. We've kinda taking the last few weeks off, but we got a a bunch of shows lined up this fall, so we'll start to get back into things.

Matt Glen: Yep. Yep. We got more good shows coming.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Today's show was awesome. It was nice to kinda get back on the mic and start that real estate.

Matt Glen: Yep. Talking to Dean DeRoccia, who is the part owner associate broker at our broker's best broker in the interior, Century twenty one Assurance Realty. Dean has a ton of insight, ton of experience, kind of cut his teeth in real estate during the two thousand and eight. Fiasco and got started right when it was times were the toughest. Has worked through that, has been successful agents since, has moved to a managing broker and broker's owner.
It was awesome talking to him. He's always a ton of fun to talk to.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I didn't realize how many people he's trained throughout his career. But, yeah, that's kind of the big takeaway, I guess, if, you know, newer agents are looking to pick somebody's brain or just chat about how everything works. Yep. He's gotta reach out to you.

Matt Glen: Yeah. So this episode, we really took a focus on, like, the agents role, what consumers should expect from agents, how realtor dot c a works. Kinda just talked like a high level of what agents do and what to expect as a consumer and as an agent, what your duties are to consumers. Super insightful episode.

Taylor Atkinson: It's funny because that's such a, like, a low barrier of entry in terms of the industry to get into. There's really high expectations from the end consumer. So it's good. Right? Like, it kind of makes sure that people are doing what they need to do in terms of, like, real estate transaction side of things.
Yep. You gotta have somebody on your team that can help in the background on stuff like that.

Matt Glen: That's Yeah. Just simply. And also he goes into quite a bit of detail and the differences between the jurisdictions. Like, we're kind of in line of our own. Like, we're the only ones have a lot of these rules.
So, like, when people come from Alberta or the US to buy property here, it's nothing same. Right? There's obviously similarities, but, like, there's also a ton of differences, so it's good to go over them.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. It's a bit of a longer show, so we'll just dive straight into it. And hopefully, yeah, you guys enjoy it. Get some more shows going this fall.

Matt Glen: Absolutely. And this episode, like every other episode sponsored by Century twenty one Assurance Realty, Best Brokerage in the interior of BC. Head office, our main areas in Kelowna, but we are in Burnen, Cal Loop, seven arm, Preston, Kootenies, Kasliar, wherever we're in the interior and we're growing. So we're the brokers to be at if you're an agent looking for a new brokerage or if you're a buyer or someone looking for an agent, Century twenty one insurance royalties to place a call. Enjoy the show.
Alright. Dean Dorosi, welcome back to the pod, fan favorite. Is this your third or fourth?

Dean Desrosiers: It's the third, and I don't know if you guys get any fan feedback, but I probably don't want it because

Matt Glen: we always send you the good stuff. We just

Dean Desrosiers: send you

Matt Glen: the good

Taylor Atkinson: stuff. Okay. Good.

Matt Glen: Yeah. So you obviously, extensive history in the industry. You were started as an agent in kind of the two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine showdown, which is lots of similarities to now. You were an agent for a long time, then you've since became an associate broker, partner in our brokerage, the best brokerage in town if you've been listening to this part. Yeah.
The best brokerage in the interior.

Taylor Atkinson: We're allowed to

Dean Desrosiers: be biased on that one. But, you know, I should say though, however, the interior has a lot of really good brokers. We're pretty lucky here. And I'm not know, aren't good brokers in other areas. But Yeah.
You know, if I sat down at lunch with, like, five of the top brokerages in town, it would just be a great conversation and there's a lot of skill level here. So I'm always often humbled by that. So I do wanna start out with that sort of caveat. Right?

Matt Glen: Yep. Yeah. Very true. I'd agree with that too. Ours is the best, but Yeah.
Cool. So today, he wanted to talk about which I think is a great topic. Buy real estate in BC. What guidelines? Why realtors are asking what questions?
What to keep in mind for agents and consumers? Those lines?

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. Like, working with a realtor in BC.

Matt Glen: You

Dean Desrosiers: know, it's changed a lot since two thousand eighteen. And we used to have a brochure prior to your coming in that. It was called working with a real quick summary on, you know, what to expect. And back then, I think it was one page. Today, if you did work under the richer, it'd probably be, like, twenty pages.
Right? There's a lot more. And, you know, that creates a lot of confusion. And at the same time, you know, confusions are not good for clarity and for your overall public image and perception. Right?
So the more we talk about the changes in a positive way. Hopefully, consumers can learn, and you'll have a better experience with the realtor.

Matt Glen: I'd agree with that. That's a good idea. Yeah. It does seem like we have a lot of rules. Hey, like, a lot of guidelines.
A lot of things to keep in mind.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. Well, if you wanna ask me the rules, I think there's, like, twenty five, thirty pages pages. Yeah. So so, Matt, you're a realtor. So you're now sort of part of the, you know, you've been tarnished a little.
Right?

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: You know, you're pretty lucky because you still get to pretend to be a consumer a little bit, although you are licensed and the same regulator is us now.

Taylor Atkinson: I'm married to a real estate agent, so I hear a lot of that.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: That's an interesting one. I'm married to one now too, and

Taylor Atkinson: it's that season as well. So

Matt Glen: Yeah. You didn't realize how hard it was to be married to a realtor dude?

Dean Desrosiers: I'm always known I'm a very difficult person to win. Can I get that? Okay.

Matt Glen: Now you just figured out why.

Dean Desrosiers: Now I realized that, you know, working in real estate wasn't helping me. Right? So it wasn't made any favors. But I'm very lucky. I'm very patient wife.
And you know, when we look at real estate as a profession, as an independent contractor, when I started back in two thousand eight, they had this thing called real estate life or it was a focus on the quality of life that real estate agents had because it's a very different way of living. And I think that we sometimes forget that, you know, yes, it looks very exciting on social media and on TV and all these shows that have come out. But the reality is a lot of sleepless nights, it's a lot of late evenings, not seeing your family, being away from your kids. Controlling your life as a realtor. You really have to work hard at that and some agents never get there.
You know, it's a balancing life versus work thing because I don't know about you, Matt, but I just like, man, if you call me up today and said, let's go look at a house. I want you to write an offer. I would leave you guys right now and move

Taylor Atkinson: you up.

Dean Desrosiers: That would be so exciting to me because I like that part of it. Right?

Matt Glen: Yeah. No. Definitely. I just like that. So, yeah, just kinda drop it and go.
And if you gotta stick with the irons hot, like, if you have a listing and somebody gives you an offer, you can't tell the buyer, like, listen, can you just wait till tomorrow? Because, like, I really wanna enjoy this dinner. Like, the seller has their biggest possession they probably will ever have until their next house. And, like, they need you to be on it so they it's a big commitment. Right?

Dean Desrosiers: So And you have to be rested and you have to be, you know, ready to go. Your mindset has to be in the right place and Yeah. There's a broker that owns a brokerage, and I've been involved in leadership for a while. When we see problems in real estate, sometimes it comes down to the realtors or fatigue, they're tired, you know, they're kind of cranky, and you know, sometimes it can take one thing. And then people are, you know, maybe going at each other when they shouldn't.
And so, yeah, managing your lifestyles and important things. Hopefully, by the end of this podcast, I think, you know, consumers, realtors are listing are gonna say, oh, okay. I didn't know that or that's a great way of looking at things. And know, I wanted to start talking about, you know, how everything's licensed and all that, like, start at the high level and then work down a bit.

Matt Glen: Alright. First question, how is real estate organized in VC and why is it important to consumers?

Dean Desrosiers: I jokingly say that realtors are agents of capitalism. Them. Right? Like, we are agents of capitalism. You know, Canada is kind of a social democratic kind of, you know, constitutional monarchy kind of country.
But with British common law, property ownership is a huge component of that. Right? And it's capital. And so the ability to own land is super important. And if you think of Canada and the US and a lot of countries where people have come to from different countries, everybody wants to own real estate.
It's also controlled. Right? So the controls we have are the British Columbia Financial Services Authority, which is the regulator in BC. But we also have sort of the association, which is the British Columbia Real Estate Association. And then we have Korea, which is the Canadian Real Estate Association.
So there's a big difference between BC FSA and BCREA. You know, it's not that important that consumer knows it. But for example, in Canada, you need to have a license to sell real estate. In British Columbia, we call it trading services. And so that's important because Risa, which is the real estate services act, is kinda what governs licensees.
And it tries to govern everything we do with very broad terminology. Right? So you couldn't write a real estate act that says, this is what you need to do in social media. Right? It'll say something about advertising and misleading the public and things like that.
But it's a very good set of rules. It's based on British common law generally. And it governs the way the licensees have to conduct themselves, and that was changed in two thousand eighteen. So if you're from Alberta or you're from any other part of Canada or the world for that matter, primarily North America where real estate is very similar in terms of its structure, a licensee would hold their license at a brokerage. And so not to go on to California and you meet a, you know, a licensee, you see their advertising on their MLS.
And you call them up, they need to be the brokerage. So that's the one common denominator. But after that, British Columbia is a hundred percent unique compared to every other jurisdiction in the country.

Matt Glen: Are we the only one where you're not not to double end in North America?

Dean Desrosiers: Right. So double end is kind of that misconception word. You can double end anything, but you can't represent two parties in the same transaction. So that's called dual agency or in what many people call limited dual agency. So back in the day, in the early two thousands, it was very common for buyers to want their own representative.
So it kinda made sense. Right? But at the time, realtors kinda all worked for sellers because we put their listing on the MLS system. It was called MLS dot c a. And so the legal workings of that were quite different.
And today, the legal workings are, if you work with a buyer, that buyer has an agency relationship with you. And if you're working with a seller, that seller has an agency relationship with you. And only in very, very special circumstances and very remote areas of the province could the agent potentially represent both parties. And so, yeah, dual agency in BC was banned in two thousand eighteen. And this is very different.
So for example, if you sell your house in Alberta or you sell your house anywhere else, know, it's really common. The realtor calls you up and says, hey, I have an offer. You know, we had an open up on the weekend. Client came in. We wrote an offer.
That agent can bring you an offer, and they'll probably have you sign a limited dual agency form. And it's highly likely that, you know, your listing agent wrote the offer for the buyer. And you do the transaction and everything seems great. British Columbia, that's just really not possible anymore. It could happen.
Right? There's a provision in the rules for that to happen, but since two thousand eighteen, it's super rare to see that. So would happen is now there's a mechanism by which that listing agent needs to sort of either refer or direct the buyer to their own representative. And that's quite different. When I sold my house in Ontario back in two thousand and three when I left because I wasn't real estate agent then, And I didn't realize that it would be a conflict of interest for the realtor to not only represent the buyer and also the seller in the same transaction.
But I can tell you, like, when the transaction was over, I didn't feel great about it, but I didn't really know why I didn't feel great about it. Actually, until I became a real estate agent in two thousand and And I'm looking back on it, I was kinda like, oh, man. You know, I was happy. I told my house everything was great, but I was kinda left with a feeling like I could've got more money, I could've got better terms, you know, little things about the transaction that kinda bugged me. So I think the changes from two thousand eighteen, you know, sort of banning dual agency, I think, have been very good for consumers.
And I think it's a good change. Being the only jurisdiction in North America that does it, however, does put a burden on real estate agents, licensees, I should say, to kind of explain what's different here. So that's kind of a long limited explanation. But that's through BC FSA, the regulator for the province. And the other flip side of that is BCRA in Korea.
There are associations. So Matt and I are members of that association, and we have a set of rules we have to follow there, which are different from the regulator's rules. You know, they're sort of coherent. You know, they fit together, but they're different. And it allows Matt and I to put a property on realtor.
C a. It allows us to have a lockbox a key. It allows us to, you know, have access to software and technologies. It allows us to represent our seller and our buyer with sort of the latest tools in a sense. Right?
And then after that, we're at a brokerage, which is another level. Us, we're in Century twenty one, so we're in a brand. But that brokerage level is kind of a supervisory role that the broker has, the managing broker over Matt and I. Like, I'm not the managing broker. I own part of the brokerage, but I don't manage it.
So I do report to our managing broker, and I get voted down a lot.

Matt Glen: So so when she watches this, we're both getting whipped.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. I think we're in trouble already. So so there's lots of layers in real estate, which is interesting. It doesn't really matter that much to consumers. But what does matter is that they know who they're working with.
And I think that's the great part of our British Columbia in the last, you know, since two thousand eighteen. And it takes a collective effort to do that because not only are we explaining to them something that's completely new it's completely different than probably where they came from. You know, like thirty percent forty percent of the buyers could be from out of province, and now we're, you know, we're really fighting against their previous history that they would have had in the transaction. So It's been really interesting. I'm really proud of the profession.
I think we've done great. I still think there's lots of room to move on this to do better. But I think real estate in BC from that perspective is very good. You know, a buyer has their agent, a seller has their agent. I think that's a great start to a real estate transaction.

Taylor Atkinson: I guess kind of wearing, like, the consumer hat in this three way conversation here is, like, you do get people with a bit of a misconception of saying, well, if I'm not represented, maybe I can negotiate better because they're not gonna have to pay commission to the buy an agent. Right? Like, it doesn't cost you anything as the buyer to use an agent. But I guess, yeah, where do you guys come into play there and say, well, like, here are the benefits. Like, the small chance that you may get a discount?
Is it mostly well, you guys don't know the comparables in the area? You're not gonna have, like, you know, insurance if something goes sideways? Like, what are kind of the main takeaways there?

Dean Desrosiers: The entire conversation with the realtor actually starts with a disclosure form, and it's called the disclosure of representation and trading services form. We call it the Dorts. A lot of people you'll see, oh, you have to sign the Dorts. That form is kind of this consumer forward form. So every time a realtor has an interaction with a consumer, right, this form is to be shown to them when the consumer wants to talk more deeply about real estate.
So this is probably the most confusing part of the new rules. It's like, when do I pull out the disclosure? Because you start pulling out disclosures and you're having a conversation someone about real estate. The consumer is gonna look at you or, you know, that you're in an open house. They start to back up quite a bit.
Right? It's like, hey, wait a minute. I just wanna see what color the carpet is downstairs. Like, good. Why do drinks first?

Matt Glen: Do Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. I want drinks and cookies. Like, you can cook bread in the oven, you know, and the kids wanna

Matt Glen: go jump in the pool in the back of

Dean Desrosiers: the day. You know? And open house can be a pretty crazy thing. And when somebody walks in the open house, what's the first thing they do? Hi.
How you doing? My name's Son. Oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Son. What brings you here today?
Oh, my wife and I need to buy a house because we're homeless. If we don't get somebody in the next two months and, like, suddenly, now you're into personal information. So an open house is a fun place to meet people, but it's also with the rules in British Columbia, you know, the licensee has to handle in a certain way because If I'm at the open house and I'm the listing agent, one of the rules of agency is full disclosure to my client. And so if somebody comes into my open house and says that, you know, I'm gonna be homeless if I don't buy a house at two months and I can afford your house, why now do you need to share that with my seller? Because that's a hundred percent disclosure.
And interestingly, that buyer may not know that I'm going to be disclosing that to the seller. So there's always this kind of awkward point where I would have to say, hey, wait a minute. Before you tell me too much, just so you know, This is my role today at the open house. I work for the seller. Or in many situations, maybe the open house is being done by someone else at your brokerage, and they don't represent the seller.
And in that situation, it's probably a lot less consumer protection oriented. Right? We're trying to create informed consent. So this is funny little point where how much personal information is too much, you know. And and and I think that's always for me than a challenging one.
So I generally say to people, have this disclosure form right away and have it there. For example, in British Columbia, If you're my client, I give you a hundred percent loyalty. I give you a hundred percent full disclosure about any facts or any information about the property throughout our relationship. I have a duty to avoid any conflicts of interest. Right?
And a conflict of interest could be limited dual agency. Right? What if my best friend wants to buy your house after I list it? That's probably a conflict of interest. Right?
And what does that look like? Or what I tell people, hey, you might not think my best friend's a big deal. What if my mom wanted to buy your house? Right? There's a conflict of interest for sure.
And how do we handle those? And the last one for the agency relationship, which called a client relationship, is a hundred percent confidentiality. Right? So if you look at each one of those points, those are things that are now sacred. As a client relationship.
And what I found in two thousand and eight, when I started, those things weren't generally sacred in the industry. We would always hear somebody talk about somebody buying and selling a real estate person that they knew. And we heard their personal story when maybe we shouldn't have. Right? Do consumers know what loyalty means?
Like, what does it mean to be loyal in a real estate transaction? You know? What does full disclosure mean? So all these things have a lot of nuances to them? So the opposite of that, which consumers need to know, is that if they're standing in the open house and they start divulging a lot of their personal information, their financing, their stress and all the things they have to kind of accomplish, they're probably putting themselves in a weakened position if they do write an offer.
And so, you know, it's kind of the real estate licensee, the realtor's job to inform the consumer so the consumer can share things based on informed set. Right? So there's a balance there.

Matt Glen: So Alrighty. And how does realtor dot ca work?

Dean Desrosiers: Oh, realtor dot ca is very interesting. Canada started with MLS dot ca. So when I started it with MLS dot ca, we could put seven photos on the system. But there's a lot of data, so we were putting sales data in there. You could search sales for back to length of the nineties at the time in two thousand and eight when I started.
So realtor dot c a came about from MLS dot c a was a branding change. And I think primarily they did it because Cria, the Canadian real estate association, which you mentioned earlier, as our association, they own the name in realtor, and I love that because if you ever watch that to cover aita diet with who's the actress that does that one. She talks to real that tour. It's real tour. We have to say it the right way.
But controversial. Yeah. Megan at realtor dot c, I think it was good for Canada because in Canada, we have one realtor dot c a. In the US, there is over I mean, I'm sure they've consolidated, but the last time I saw a presentation on the US MLS system, there was over five hundred MLS systems in the US.

Matt Glen: A city will have, like, a bunch of different MLS systems, which is kinda hard to think about being from here.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. If you wanna buy a host in Seattle, you know, you go to m s dot com. You're not really sure you're seeing everything. But if you go to realtor dot c a and you start searching in Vancouver, you're gonna see every single listing there. That's a powerful thing that the realtor dot c does.
So number one, realtor dot c is probably in the world. The number one focus for consumers who wanna purchase real estate in Canada. So, like, we know consumer wise, you know, eighty five percent or more of the consumers start their search on realtor dot c in Canada. And it's completely opposite experience in the US.

Taylor Atkinson: Now do you guys have, like, a professional login for that so it opens up more information?

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. We can just see the back end. We call it the back end. Right? And there's interfaces and programs.
And so, yeah, there you know, we have access to the sole data, statistical data on every aspect of a real estate transaction that's in the system. The search capabilities are quite a bit more extensive than what you can do as a consumer on realtor. Ca. And it's not done that way because we don't want consumers to search. I think this isn't the challenge we have.
It's just that in Canada, you know, we have a lot of real estate boards that send the data up to realtor dot c a. And over the years, every board has a slightly different data feed. Right? So So, you know, in Mississauga, I might search for a two bedroom plus Dan house. Well, in our board, we don't mark off Dan's, so you can't search a Dan.
The realtor dot state system is a very good search. It's very good geographic as well. And the app is absolutely wonderful. And so Recently, realtor dot c a became a private entity owned by Korea. So it's owned by realtor, so we own it.
And that'll give us a little bit more flexibility to put more money into realtor dot c a to sort of expand the consumer search capabilities of that system. In the US, they don't have that restriction in their companies, but we do in Canada being a not for profit, Korea, and our associations are not for profits. We can't really bring on a ton of advertising, and we can't sell services as part of realtor dot c a. So now we can. I'm excited to see what's gonna happen in the next few years.
But, yeah, we're very fortunate to have realtor dossier in Canada.

Taylor Atkinson: You mentioned, you know, it started out MLS dossier or whatever it was, started out with, like, seven photos. Now, what are you guys up to, like, sixty you can go to or something? No.

Matt Glen: I think it's a hundred.

Dean Desrosiers: It's a hundred now. Yeah. I blame Spencer twenty one Assurance in Kelowna because and I think it was two thousand nine or something. And I wanna pay homage to him because he's just a great guy going through a tough time now, but Terry Peters was a photographer at our brokerage at the time. And I was looking online, I was at a different brokerage.
And the next thing you know, I see twenty one high definition photos and all the listings at Century twenty one, and they went, oh, man. That was way better than that.

Matt Glen: But that was not a normal thing. Now it's crazy if you don't.

Dean Desrosiers: I mean, no one did it back then and and there's listings look so good. I mean, I had to buy a DSO our camera, but I'm pretty good with electronics, but my tools never were half as good

Taylor Atkinson: as Terry's, you know, nice. I mean, since it's evolving, do you think you'll get to the point of, like, you just meet your clients and say, here's like a set of virtual three d goggles? And then they just sit at home and, like, walk through homes.

Dean Desrosiers: I would say no.

Matt Glen: Right. I don't think that's

Dean Desrosiers: yeah. I mean, one of the myths I hear all the time. And my wife and I even said this when we bought our house in Ontario because we had a real estate agent in Ontario help us look for a house. And even here in Kelowna, my wife fun day. We're talking to friends and she says, well, you know what?
I don't know what our realtor really does because you know what? We found our house.

Matt Glen: We found our own house sales.

Dean Desrosiers: We found it ourselves. Where did she find it? Well, she found it on realtor dot c a. And at the time, the realtor had shown us, you know, about six or seven houses. We've been out with them twice.
But the advice he was giving us about the knowledge in the area was the reason why we found that house. Yeah. We knew the area and everything else. But by the time we looked at eight houses, we knew what we didn't want, we knew what we kinda wanted. As a consumer, you look at these houses and they all look amazing.
But until you actually step foot inside of them, you really don't get a sense of what they are. And so after leaving looking at eight houses, you know, we were all ready to pick our own house. Yep. And I always remember that comment because, you know, you hear that a lot. Oh, I don't need a real drive on my own house.
Well, you know, it was the advice piece for us in those early days because we were new to Ontario and we were new to Kelowna.

Matt Glen: You think that had something to do with, like, the old mentality when the MLS was literally just like a book. Yeah. That would make more sense for a realtor to find your house. But now it's, like, when I'm looking for houses, I also use realtor dot c a. Like, I use, obviously, our MLS system too, but, like, Matt, realtor dot c a is a better program if that thing's just lost.

Dean Desrosiers: To your point, Matt, if we look at the three d walk throughs, which really started around two thousand eighteen prior to COVID. Right? Yep. I remember when we decided to have all of our listings at the brokerage, we're gonna have a matter for three d. Yeah.
That was pretty significant as well because there's a lot of programming that goes into that. It the photoshoot from an hour to about two and a half hours. Yep. There's a lot of uploading and programming time. But now you can walk through the house virtually in a sense.
And what's interesting about that is as a marketing guy, I looked at that as showing avoidance. So what that does is that creates showing avoidance for your listing because consumers walk through it and they think they know the house. But when you actually walk through the house, it feels different when you're in person versus the virtual. So so in my gut, I know that the virtual tours are super cool and they're really helpful. But they may harm some consumers in my opinion because somehow it's just feel really cool.
Like the construction and the build quality and the surfaces and the colors because you never really get the exact

Matt Glen: views and stuff like that. It's hard to see for photos. Right? Like No.

Dean Desrosiers: What does it feel like when you're sitting at the kitchen table with the side window? You'll see that in the matter port in the three d. I should just say three d. But you don't get a feeling for it. It's amazing because through COVID, you know, that was one of those things where the board, we had to make the decision.
If the listing can't be shown, it can't be on realtor dot c a. That's one of our rules. So when you list on realtor dot c a, you have to agree that your property can be viewed for sale, unless it's new construction, unless, you know, it's a lot, for example, or there's a real extenuating circumstance. So in COVID, all the listings that had three d matter ports were considered available to show, and it allowed us to keep them up. And we were encouraging agents who hadn't done that to do it so that we could maintain the system, the integrity of realtor.
C a, so was kind of a funny nuance.

Matt Glen: You said something funny there too that, like, walk through people to wanna see the house. So I know of agents that they put on limited photos, like, one or ten photos just so the consumer can't see, so they have to book a showing so it turns into, like, a lead generation situation for them. So having worse photos is actually better for the agent, which is super weird.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. And I think the jury's out whether that's bad for the consumer or not. You know, like, if somebody calls you and looks at the property and with all its warts and things, maybe less photos for some properties is the right strategy. Right? So, you know, when I first started, I already got mad.
I see one photo, and I was like, oh, come on. We're all the photos.

Matt Glen: You call him to bitch about it, and he's like, you called me, then you Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: You called me, and you booked a snowing, you know, and the first thing you do is when you get there is you start talking about the possibility exactly. Right? Where if you look at it online, the person goes. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's an interesting one. So lots of photos is really good. And one photo could be really good. It's interesting how real estate can be a ying and yang that way.

Matt Glen: So It's super counterintuitive, but it does make sense when you think about it. So kinda funny. Yeah. So, Dean, what's the difference between a realtor, a licensee, a salesperson, all those different titles that we hear?

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. That's a great question. As a licensee, your license is held at the regulator, BC FSA.

Matt Glen: Yep. So

Dean Desrosiers: you've passed a test, and you've taken a course, and you're licensed at a brokerage So as consumers are gonna interact with real estate, they're gonna maybe go to an open house. They're gonna call on a listing on realtor dot c a. There's a ninety five percent, ninety nine percent chance they're gonna communicate with a licensee. The licensee should be identifying who their principal client is. So, hey, thanks for calling.
Just so you know, I work for the seller. What questions you have about my listing today? Right? And that kinda roll it out. However, if you go into a show home for example, a new construction or you go to a development, Some of those agents, and in fact, most of them are not licensees.
They're representatives of the developers. So Yeah. In British Columbia, we have two sets of rules. We have one rule for real estate services act and the other rules called RedMA, which is the real estate development marketing act. And so that allows builders and developers to have their show home.
It allows them to, you know, export people through their different properties. It allows them to purchase a property presale. But there is a caveat because sometimes developers and builders would hire a licensee to conduct that business for them. So sometimes you might run into a licensee in that situation. And so then the rules of dual agency and disclosure all apply.
The Redma has a set of rules and disclosure But the biggest thing most people know is that if you buy a presale or you buy from a developer, you generally have an automatic seven day write of precision. If that's in the contract, you kinda know you're probably dealing with, you know, some that might not be licensed, they probably are an employee of the developer, and that's super common. And many employees of developers and builders who are ex real estate agents in the past, for example, a lot of experience. So that's kind of the two roles now. So as a consumer, when are you interacting with someone?
If it's a licensee, they're most likely gonna tell you right away in particular role. Know, I'm licensed at this brokerage. This is who I represent. The other thing that happens, which is quite interesting, is we're gonna ask you if you're working with a realtor or not. And we'll do an email, we'll do it on the telephone, we'll do it on text, and that will happen all the time.
And as a consumer, you might get annoyed by that.

Matt Glen: What would be the benefit of working with a realtor on a presale?

Dean Desrosiers: And that's probably one of the other myths. Right? Like, the developer will say, well, you don't need a realtor, we can help you with it. Yeah. Well, the challenge with that is the presale contract is written by the developer, often their lawyer, Yep.
It hundred percent benefits the developer and the lawyer. And there's a lot of paperwork in there that's necessary in order for Taylor to actually finance it because the contract's quite complex. Right? Because it hasn't been built yet. There's gonna be moving closing dates and there's gonna be contingencies and holdbacks and lots of things.
So it's quite a complex contract. A realtor, a licensee, can add a lot of value in that process because we can think clearly while you get excited about the house. Right? And, you know, you kinda get rose colored glasses and we can help you sort of look at the layout. We can help you choose not so much the colors, but we can help you look at the contract to make sure that it's gonna meet your needs.
Because it's one-sided contract. A lot of times, you see clauses in there that the developer and the builder may not too much about it. But it might put your client in a bit of a bind financing wise and things like that. So there's a lot of ways that a licensee can help in that situation. Some builders are really good.
You know, they want the licensee there. Some of them are a little bit more prickly about it. But I would say, I personally wouldn't buy in new development in the city other than Kelowna unless I hired a local real estate agent personally and I'm a real estate agent. So I know the value seeing it from having done it myself. It's a little bit more nuanced.
Though. So we don't write the contract

Matt Glen: when we help you review. Also, we can do things like a CMA, introduce you to people like inspectors and appraisers and lawyers.

Dean Desrosiers: Oh, yeah. The biggest one is the walk through. Like, you know, what do you do on a walk through? Who's qualified to do a walk through? Like, know about you, but I built a couple houses, but I'm still overwhelmed and I walk through because I'm looking at lots of stuff.
And, you know, as a consumer, you do have the right to have a representative there with you and a real estate agent can help you. And if it's quite complex, you know, the realtor might recommend that you hire a, like, a home inspector as well. Some of you go with you. Because new construction now, very expensive. Builders are amazing.
The quality homes are really good. But, I mean, it's always good to have a second set of eyes look at everything. So Yep.

Matt Glen: A hundred percent. As a consumer, Dean, should we just call a listing agent? Or should we call our realtor first? Or what do you think I'm left?

Dean Desrosiers: As a broker, I have two answers. One, as a real estate agent, I'd be like, yeah, call me. I'll answer any question you have. Right? Yeah.
So if you call the listing agent, the listing agent is allowed to give you factual information about the property. If you call the listing agent, say, hey, what's going on with the seller? I noticed you dropped the price. Are they desperate to sell? And then the listing agent is prohibited from telling you that.
So if your intention of calling the listing agent is you're looking for some secret weapon that you can use to benefit yourself, you know, it's probably not a great call. But if you intend to go into a transaction mode where you're thinking of screening this property and comparing it to others, I would hope that by that time you'd hired a buyer's agent to help you professionally, you know, tackle this in a professional way. But you can certainly call the listing agent anytime you like, listing agent would encourage you, but the listing agent also would have to be quite honest with you that if you wanted to write the offer, that that agent wouldn't be able to help you do it. And I think that in and of itself sort of says to me, well, you know, it'd be great then why don't you have your own representative, but we hear a lot that consumer says, oh, I don't wanna bother my agent. You know, I thought I would call a listing agent.
And then, really, a buyer's agent that's bothered because their client calls them. I don't know any of them that are like that. You know, they want to call them.

Matt Glen: So as a listing agent, I have quite a few listings going. I get those calls all the time. Yeah. I also got a call from other listening agents where my clients have called them so they don't wanna bother me. Right.
And I love getting those calls and I don't know any agents that wouldn't wanna get a call.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, part of this is consumer service. Right? So we look at what's customer service?
I think the primary duty of a listing agent is to sell the listing. So if a consumer calls me and they understand that I work for the seller, then I'm gonna give them customer service and, you know, try to sell the listing, do it the best I can. I also know that if the person on the phone starts divulging a lot of personal information, I kinda have to be a little bit careful.

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: I actually hope that they have an agent that they're working with because in that way, you know, I can extend the conversation further and I can do more follow-up. Right? And I think that's probably what the consumers don't under out. Like, a lot of times, we want the buyer to be working with another agent so we can be maybe a bit more aggressive with our sales pitch and, you know, and push them a little bit more because to see how serious they are. Because really as a listing agent, I mean, we don't get paid until those house sales.
Right? So know, we're not sitting back just waiting for the phone to ring. I mean, if somebody calls us, we're gonna grill them, but it's great when they have an agent because then we can grill them even more afterwards.

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Can we make take a step back and figure out, like, if I'm new to Kelona and I wanna buy a home or if I've lived in my home for thirty years and my last agent is well retired, where do you guys start to find an agent? Do you feel most consumers just Google it, ask a friend? Like, where do we start to find an agent?

Matt Glen: So, Taylor, what I do? Is I listened to my favorite podcast in Kelowna? I called that guy. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Exactly.

Dean Desrosiers: So there's a lot of research on this True. Glia and realtor dot k. Sixty seven percent, generally speaking, which we all know is two thirds. Right? It's kind of a standard deviation number.
Generally ask for a referral from someone. So, you know, most consumers ask a trusted friend who they might know, and that's how a lot of the introductions come from. And it really surprises people that, you know, if you see a billboard and you see a lot of advertising and see social media, that's generally not where people go. There's a large number of people who pick the local experts. So they look in the area and if they see an agent with a lot of signs, I think that's about ten, twelve percent do that.
There is a portion that meet people kind of randomly like open houses and things like that. So it's kind of an interesting balance of it, but the large portion of people generally go based on referral.

Matt Glen: I've audited my own business quite a bit, and I think it follows almost exactly these lines. Is that two thirds of people that I just know and, like, we have a good relationship with? This is why it's so important for an agent to be your social, have, like, a social life and lots of friends. But also, when you're social life, you're not just the guy that's having seventeen beers and, like, you get to be a little bit professional even in your personal life, you know? So that people wanna trust you to buy the house.
So I find that's a thing. But then also listings like, your listings, you get the calls. So if you're the local expert, if they just see your signs everywhere you get calls like that, I would agree with that by your math, that's, like, eighty percent of Yeah. Pretty good.

Dean Desrosiers: Yeah. There's probably five to eight percent that are sort of like a marketing driven kind of things. Like, if they're advertising or they're gonna click on an ad, then they get there eventually. And often, you know, what's interesting about a profession is, you know, when we look at inquiries from realtor dot c a, a very low proportion of them get answered. So you know, as a profession, as a broker, that's just intrinsically there's a lot of data that shows inquiries from realtor.
C are not answered very promptly sometimes. And so Sure. Talking to me because everyone that I know who are often full time realtor is working really hard. Yep. I don't see that.
But statistically, nationally, they see a lot of these inquiries not being responded to. And I think that's a missed opportunity for the profession. But I also think that, you know, everybody comes into the profession that at their own level. Right? Like, there's a lot of agents that maybe aren't full time.
There's a lot that are full time. Your phone could be ringing all the time. You wake up the next morning and you see a couple of emails. And, you know, by two or three o'clock in the afternoon, maybe you didn't answer those. That couldn't just happen.
That's part of life. There's no way I can tell you in the thirteen years that I was a salesperson that I got back to everybody in thirty minutes. That's just impossible. Yeah.

Matt Glen: If you're with your client, you guys sorry. I gotta talk to this other client. That's not the greatest look.

Taylor Atkinson: NBC so going on the sales side of things, if you're selling your home, is there just a standard commission everywhere. Like, I know, like, geographically, it changes a little bit with the big brokerages. Right? But then you have some of these low commission split brokerages. I guess, what's the difference there?

Dean Desrosiers: This is a one of those conversations that if you have a hundred realtors in a room and you wanna talk about commission, ninety nine of them will run out of the room because, you know, we're not allowed to talk about commission, but commission's a super important topic for consumers. And I think that, you know, how we learn to talk about money as a real estate agent is generally how we develop as a person when I started in real estate, I wasn't very good at talking about people's finances. But I got really good quickly because we were negotiating for millions of dollars.

Matt Glen: I think that's a very important point because, like, when I started as an agent, you know, like, I probably shouldn't know this. But now it's like, I need to know. Like, you don't need to tell me all the details, but, like, If you have a nine hundred thousand dollar mortgage and you wanna sell your house for nine hundred thousand, but it's only worth eight hundred thousand. Like, I need to know that. So I feel like in my own business, I have become a little bit more potty with that.
You have to remember that you're the professional. Right? So, like, you have to know what you're doing here. Like, not everyone comes like that, but a lot of them do. Like, obviously, I lead a lot of the mortgage broker like Taylor to kind of tell me what's up, but I have to know the broad strokes myself for sure.

Dean Desrosiers: And if we go back to where we started, if you look at the disclosure representation and trading services form, If you're my client, I owe you a hundred percent confidentiality. Right? So as a real estate professional today, we're a lot like a lawyer, we're a lot like a doctor, and I think that if we emphasize that with clients, they should know that their private information is protected. And even if they fire me or they stop using you and they work with someone else, the confidentiality stays forever. So I had a lot of experiences early on where I saw other agents divulging people's personal information.
And it would maybe feel really uncomfortable because I came to the medical profession, which confidentiality is super important. And I think that, yeah, when we talk about these things, consumers need to know that they have a lot of protections when they hire an agent that represents them as a client. And I think confidentiality is a huge, huge not only comfort, but it's a professionalism statement that they can divulge personal things to us. We can serve them better when we know everything. Then you should have the confidence that it's just it dies with us.
Right? It's not our story to tell. It's theirs in a sense. Right?

Matt Glen: Absolutely. I agree with that hundred percent.

Dean Desrosiers: So, yeah, commissions aren't set anywhere. However, there's no such thing as a standard commission. Commissions are always negotiable too. For example, if you agree to sign an MLS contract and pay a certain amount, you know, when the offer comes in, the commissions are still negotiable. Right?
Like, they're always negotiable. We need to have a preset agreement, of course, because that's kind of a promise. When I look at the MLS contract, which is the realtor dossier contract, to me, it's kind of a promise to market because no one gets paid unless you accept an offer. So there's kind of a disconnect there. And if you're not happy with the commission you're paying, you're not gonna accept the offer.
So the seller does have a lot of control. You know, it's important for real estate professionals to let consumers know that the commissions are always negotiable. However, brokerages can set commissions. So for example, you might have a brokerage that sets a commission And the policy of that brokerage may prevent the agent from modifying the commission. That's for possibility.
Because, yeah, there are different brokerage models out there. And there's some brokerages that don't charge a commission that may be charged a flat fee. So So, yeah, the consumers in VC have a huge amount of choice. And the advantage today is that most of those choices would result in their listing showing up on realtor dot c a. I remember when I started, there was for sale by owner websites that were coming up.
And, you know, but if you had it for sale at the owner home, it would never show up on realtor dot c a. That's a good change these days, and that helps realtor dot c a become more powerful because then you as a buyer can say, well, if it's not on realtor dot c a, you know, there's probably isn't any other houses. Now you can drive to the neighborhood, you can maybe look at new developments, but you'd be hard pressed if you're buying a resale home to accidentally find something that's not on realtor dot c a if you had to search properly. I don't

Taylor Atkinson: know much about this. I've seen it a few times, but there is, like, a ghost listing type thing. Right? Where you can pay someone to put a listing on realtor guys.

Matt Glen: And we are posting

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. And it you what? You just paid somebody like a thousand bucks to do that, and then it's it's out there, but there's no correspondence on it.

Dean Desrosiers: I don't know what they charge, but they charge quite a bit, you know, so it's not necessarily a low cost.

Matt Glen: And they still have to pay the buyer's agent.

Taylor Atkinson: It's a weird story.

Dean Desrosiers: They don't have to pay the buyer's agent. This is where the mirror posting thing comes in. So what ends up happening is they contract a brokerage to put their listing on realtor dot c a. Yeah.

Matt Glen: But

Dean Desrosiers: then as a consumer, they take the responsibility for answering the inquiries. Right? So so a realtor or a consumer could call them directly. So, you know, as a buyer's agent, I would call up a seller and I would book an appointment and meet with them. It's a little bit like a regular listing, but a lot of times, the disclosures are not really there.
You know, the photography is not great. You know, there isn't a floor plan. And, you know, communicating on behalf of your own house or your own, like, trying to sell your own car, you know, you're you're a little bit biased sometimes. Right? So it's sometimes gonna be very difficult communicating with them, your coaching client.
It could be a little bit challenging, but they're definitely there and that's good. So, yeah, it's generally like a flat fee of some kind, which I've learned is not that inexpensive, but it's an option for consumers. And I think that as realtors, we're positive about it. But that goes into the next question is is working with a buyer's agent free or not. Right?
That's kind of the thing that comes up, you know, and you can work with a buyer, say gen n b c for free. That's probably one of the bigger myths out there because it's not free. But there's no charge in a sense. Right?

Matt Glen: It's not free, but the price is included in real estate listings.

Dean Desrosiers: It can be, but often it's not. Like, let's just say twenty five percent of the listings don't offer a buyer agency fee, for example. And then, you know, how do you, as a buyer's agent, communicate with your buyer, what you expect to be paid, remunerated if you create a transaction for them? So now there's a conversation about how do we speak to buyers early on in the process about how the real estate professional gets paid, which is remuneration, which is a difficult word to say sometimes. And I think that's a good conversation to have early.
Like, if I show you these ten houses, I'm not gonna send you a bill or if I help you analyze this investment property, I'm not gonna send you a bill for my time. However, when I write an offer and we create a sale, I'll disclose you the amount of money I'll be getting. And if it closes, then I will get that money. I call it super contingency. It's a very interesting way of getting paid, but, yeah, it can be based on percentage.
It can be based on flat fee, but with the disclosures today in British Columbia, it really benefits a licensee to have that conversation when you first meet them. And I'm a big fan of that because with loyalty, full disclosure, avoiding conflicts, and confidentiality, you know, you're gonna get that from a buyer's agent for free, but what's the buyer's agent gonna get? Like, how does it all land? Right?

Taylor Atkinson: So Like, I know you guys can't sell your own house for E and O. Right? Like, you wouldn't have insurance coverage.

Matt Glen: As a realtor's gonna sell their own house?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. But, like, Matt, Dean, specific to you guys, if you could sell your own house, would you sell it yourself or would you pay the commission to another agent to sell it? Like, would you just feel somebody else could handle that transaction better, like being separated?

Dean Desrosiers: This

Matt Glen: is actually a funny one. Realtors a lot of times will say, like, listen, office realtor be. Do you resell my house, but can you do it for half a percent or so

Taylor Atkinson: scratch my back. I scratch your back.

Matt Glen: I always laugh at this because I'm like, well, they're still doing everything. Right? It's a ton of work. Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: I still need to do everything. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: But oh, no. No. I'll do everything for you. Right? Yeah.

Matt Glen: It's actually I'll tell you all for you. Say, well, like, what? So when I sold my own house with other agents, I just paid a pull up. I know some people don't. If you're gonna do one for the other, if you're gonna share, that makes sense.
Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: I told my wife when I became a licensed realtor that, oh, don't worry, honey. I'll save enough money on our first house sale.

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: By not having to pay commission to all this income and then, Chris, I never did. But we should be careful though. You can sell your own house as a licensee. You totally can do that. Yep.
If you do, however, your E and O coverage doesn't cover you. Yeah. And so I know many licensees that do sell their own houses, for example, in what situation would you wanna sell your own house, you know, without any risk? Well, what if it was a brand new home? And if it was under warranty with a new home warranty, like, resell homes are difficult.
Right? Because there's a lot of moving components. You maybe only hone the home for three or four years. Right? And so, you know, sometimes you only disclose what you know.
There's a number of licensees I know who are comfortable selling their own house, and the brokerage lets them do that. We shy against that because of the risk to the licensee, but then also to match point. The freeness of communication is so much better and it's not biased. Right? Because if I'm selling a own house, I'm a sales guy, like, I'm selling hard.
Right? And and it's probably better to take me out of that environment and let somebody else handle it more professionally. So yeah, no, you can tell your own house. It's generally not recommended, but you do see it quite a bit. And to me, the risk is, you know, can I disclose everything about this house that I know?
And for example, on a brand new house, which is, you know, maybe I wanna only limit it for a few months, and it's a brand new neighborhood and there's lots of disclosures, I might feel very comfortable about that. But if I'm in an older property, maybe it's an acreage, maybe there's a well, maybe there's zoning issues, you know, maybe there's lots of history to the property that I'm not party to, I would probably hire an agent and pay them as much as I could. I did sell one of my own houses a number of years ago, and I made a deal with the agent where I would help her with hers, and that never manifests itself. But, yeah, I'm kind of more leaning down mass philosophy on that.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Yeah.

Dean Desrosiers: I think the biggest thing that it's gonna help consumers understand is that right now, the regulators got a lot of projects on the go. And the one thing that I really wanna say is that if you look at statistically the number of complaints versus number of transactions in British Columbia, the complaint rate per transaction per side is less than point zero five percent. So unbeknownst to the public perception or the government's perception, the politicians perception, when we look at it from the regulator's perspective and from organized real estate, which are leaders in real estate, there isn't a lot of problems per se. Like, if a consumer has a bad experience in a real estate transaction, it doesn't mean that there was misconduct. I mean, you know, if you're trying to get a good price for your property and you don't like the other agent, well, that doesn't mean they did anything wrong.
You just weren't happy that you didn't get the price you want. And I think that's sort of part of working with consumers. But I think the profession is very healthy. I think we offer very good service. When you sit down with a licensee and you sit down talking about buying or selling your property, I would encourage in both situations, interviewing the realtor for an hour.
You know, I've been a big proponent with this with the new licensees and saying, if you're gonna buy a house in British Columbia and spend three, four, five million, two million, three million dollars that agent and you should sit down for one hour in your office and go through how you're gonna work together. And go through these forms. I mean, it does take actually about forty five minutes to sign all the preamble paperwork, the disclosures, the privacy documents, and that's the one step that I'm not seeing happen enough. And I think that that's too bad because I think realtors and consumers miss an opportunity to really get aligned on their values. Because when you explain the duties that we owe a client, I've never seen a client say, no, I don't want that.
I don't want you to be loyal. I don't want you to give me full disclosure. I don't want you to give them both confidence and I don't want confidentiality. Nobody says that. They want those things.
But what does that look like when we go show houses? What does that look like if I walk into a show home by myself? And, you know, what does this look like as we work together? So I would encourage consumers and realtors to sit down with their client for an hour and go through a paperwork and really talk about what it means as you're gonna work together. And then the same thing on the listing side, I mean, one of the biggest myths that I see from the listing side is I'm gonna take professional photos of the listing and I'm gonna do three d and everything else.
When the reality is that's not a reason to choose a listing agent. Because first of all, real estate photos kinda look good, but they're not technically good photos. But we know that a good realtor who's a good negotiator does get better results from their clients. Am I good at negotiating with you as a seller? Or am I good at negotiating on your behalf?
Right? For your million dollars? Or am I good at convincing you to sign the contract? And, you know, there's a disconnect sometimes with that. And then as a buyer's agent, the buyer's agent writes the contract.
And so to me negotiation is important too. So and I think a new agent that's supported by their brokerage and an experienced agent that has that same support, you know, they can do amazing things for their clients. And so, hopefully, we've shed a little bit of light on some of the miss the nuances, but that's kinda my last little soapbox. I'm excited about the profession in the next few years. And I do think that the regulator might come out with a framework to make buyer agreements mandatory at some level Yeah.
From a consumer protection side, I don't think that they can force, you know, everyone to do that, but I do think it's a really good recommendation mostly because you wanna front end the conversation. Right?

Matt Glen: Yeah. I like it. Alright, James. That was an awesome conversation. I think it was super helpful for consumers, realtors.