Posted Apr 9, 2016, 4:07 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 3,341
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How could we ever worry about the housing bubble bursting with such noble real estate tactics? 
Quote:
It is Wednesday night in Burnaby. Real-estate agents and sales teams are gathered in a well-lit office training room. The group, some of them young and hungry to make their mark in the bracing property trade on the Lower Mainland, is there to learn a thing or two from the boss.
The boss is Ze Yu Wu, owner of one of the fastest-growing new brokerages in the Vancouver area, New Coast Realty, which boasts 445 agents and hundreds of millions in sales. It is an informal training session to give some of his new and top performers an edge. He suggests his sales teams listen up, take notes: These tips will help them, and the firm, make more money.
In this October session, one main theme is straightforward: How to move properties briskly by talking clients into selling their houses for less than they want.
“We should sell the house fast and buy the house fast,” Mr. Wu tells them at one point during the evening, underscoring the lucrative nature of speed in a commission-driven business. They joke and chat with him on how to do that.
Mr. Wu offers this advice: “You must consider your own interests.”
Some of his suggestions in the course of the night, however, tread the razor-edge between shrewd salesmanship and deception. One tip he drops casually is how to persuade clients – by lying to them – that the best offer they will get is the first one.
“It is only a saying to the homeowner, but actually, it’s not true,” Mr. Wu says. “The first offer will never be the best offer, I am sure about this. But you have to say the first offer is the best offer.”
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Real Estate Board figures show New Coast bought and sold more than a billion dollars in property last year – and that does not include private and pre-sale deals outside the Multiple Listings Service.
A 2014 article in New Coast’s bilingual publication talks about selling to Chinese citizens who want a “safe house for their wealth.”
“The already lively real estate market in Vancouver is further taking giant leaps forward as a result of the Chinese anti-corruption policies,” the article says.
“Experts predict that with the increasing strictness of the anti-corruption policies in China it will continue to cause cash flow into the Vancouver housing market. Tapping into the patterns of these trends will help both buyers and sellers make the right and easy choice.”
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Back at Mr. Wu’s fall training session, he offers agents suggestions on how to persuade homeowners their house is worth less than they think it is.
For a home in Richmond, for instance, he suggests agents warn sellers that wealthy buyers are afraid of earthquakes and tsunamis. “This reason is very powerful,” he says.
(On its website, the City of Richmond advises that the risk of tsunamis is not significant, despite myths to the contrary.)
Mr. Wu also offers a tip for selling in Vancouver’s west side: “Say that the houses in this area are too expensive, so you can suppress the seller’s bottom price. ...
“If it’s a house by the road, say don’t buy a house by the road next time; if there is a ditch in front of the house, say don’t buy a house behind a ditch or electricity pole next time; if the house is quite narrow, say don’t buy a narrow house next time, it doesn’t look grand.”
He also suggests clients be led to believe that Chinese buyers’ sources of money are drying up, for various reasons – all of them plausible and intended to instill a sense of urgency to the transaction.
The Chinese stock market is down: “How do people have the money to buy the house?”
China is tightening its controls on outflows of cash: “People want to buy the house, but they can’t transfer the money to Canada.”
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/inve...ome-sellers-crying-foul/article29578417/
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