In an attempt to cool the province’s relentlessly hot real estate market, British Columbia (BC) just announced the introduction of a cooling-off period come spring 2022 for home purchases in the notoriously pricey province.

https://storeys.com/british-columbia-housing-market-cooling-off-period-work/

October 2021 - GTA market update:

GTA statistics:
There were 9,783 sales in October 2021 – down by 6.9 percent compared to October 2020.
The October 2021 average selling price for all homes combined was up by 19.3 percent year-over-year to $1,155,345.
Trend:

Asif Khan took a hard look into CBC’s hidden camera investigative report about “law-breaking” Canadian real estate agents. It’s a deep dive into the issues presented on the program and the specific listing that the story was based on. Where are the real estate associations on this? Crickets! It’s time for OREA, CREA, and TRREB to step up and join the conversation.

The Liberals were elected federally and one of their platforms was a change to real estate transactions eliminating “blind bidding”. This means that every Buyer would know what the competing Buyers have bid.
Constitutionally, there is a question as to whether the federal government has any jurisdiction to legislate in this area. Property and civil rights fall within provincial jurisdiction.

There’s a new home inspection trend emerging that could be a great solution for the buyers when it comes to buying/selling properties – and, in particular, during a sellers’ market. By changing the offer language to an “informational inspection” from a traditional “inspection contingency” condition, the deal is firm – the buyer is waiving their right to cancel the transaction based on the outcome of the informational inspection.

In Tsui v. Zhuoqi, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice addressed two complex issues. First, what duties do sellers owe purchasers when damage to a property may be substantial, and second, what constitutes substantial damage to property?

The Vatican released information on its real estate holdings for the first time on Saturday, revealing it owns more than 5,000 properties as part of its most detailed financial disclosures ever.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/vatican-owns-over-5k-properties-worldwide-in-real-estate-holdings-revealed-to-public-for-the-first-time

When entering into an Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) for a property, buyers and sellers must remain cognizant of the precise language used and conditions they need to follow for an offer to be binding. If they neglect to do so, they run the risk of seeing their purchase or sale voided because they failed to meet certain obligations.

Apartment rents increased for the first time in a year and a half in Toronto during the second quarter and also rose in Calgary as the impact of the pandemic receded, new studies show.

https://financialpost.com/real-estate/toronto-condo-rents-rise-for-first-time-in-18-months-as-impact-of-pandemic-recedes

In the real estate industry, relationships between buyers and their real estate agent are often governed by a written Buyers Representation Agreement (BRA). A BRA usually contains a series of standard form terms, including a term that the buyers will not use the services of any other real estate agent during the time period that the BRA is in effect. The specific time period that a BRA is in effect can be negotiated by the parties.