Real estate consultant Ross Kay alleges that realtors in certain parts of the country — particularly in Greater Toronto and southern Ontario — are artificially inflating home sales by listing the same property twice, or sometimes even three times.
Kay says when a double- or triple-listed house like this sells, the additional listings are counted as a sale by every one of the real estate boards to which the house is assigned. That turns one sold house into two or three sales in the housing data.
The end result, Kay argues, is that reported home sales and house price numbers are higher than they really are.
“Statistically valid month-over-month comparisons on sales volumes are inflated as much as 15 per cent in some cities in 2013,” he told HuffPost in an email. “Average prices are skewed upward as much as 10 per cent some months.”
This screencap of homes for sale in Oakville, Ont., as of last Friday, shows a significant proportion of houses have “phantom listings.”
Ross Godsoe, CEO of the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington, said Kay is “probably correct” in his claim that houses are being double- and triple-counted.
He told HuffPost Canada that any house listed in his area — even if it is listed elsewhere — would count towards the monthly sales numbers.
Godsoe could not say whether other real estate boards operated the same way. Calls to several other real estate boards in southern Ontario were not returned as of press time.
Under Ontario’s realty rules, realtors can’t be prohibited from listing houses in areas other than their own, Godsoe said.
“If a sale occurs, we’re obligated to report that,” he said, adding he did not know what the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) does with the numbers once it receives them.
CREA’s monthly numbers are arguably the most closely watched indicator of housing market health.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Author: Daniel Tencer
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