British Columbia's Real Estate System

Whether you are a potential immigrant or an ex-pat coming home, or simply moving to BC from out of province, if you’re planning on buying a home, you’ll need to know how British Columbia's real estate system works. It may be quite different from the system where you are currently living. The real estate system here is regulated by the Province of British Columbia. Although there are a small number of people who choose to buy or sell property privately, the vast majority of transactions occur using real estate agents or Realtors as they are known in BC. REALTORS® must have passed rigorous university courses before getting their licenses, and they must continually upgrade their knowledge and skills to maintain that license. To view any property (that is not being sold privately), you will need a REALTOR®.

It is best to have your own REALTOR® representing your interests as a buyer, rather than relying upon the REALTOR® who has listed the property and therefore essentially represents the seller. You can find a REALTOR® through word of mouth or through an Internet search. While you can switch your REALTOR® if you find that the two of you don’t work well together, it is best to decide on one person to work on your behalf (REALTORS® get paid only when a sale goes through, so it is unfair to expect someone to put in significant effort on your behalf if there is not a reasonable expectation that they are going to be paid for it eventually). It is becoming more common for a REALTOR® to ask you to sign a Buyer’s Agency Agreement so that he or she is your exclusive agent in a given area. All of our clients who have come to us through our website have remained as clients and become friends once they started working with Gary. We like to act as your “eyes and ears” in place, helping you to get here and settled in any way we can.

A huge plus of our real estate system is that we use MLS, or Multiple List Service. You can go online (click here) and, by entering the desired parameters for location and type of home, find virtually any property that is currently for sale, along with lots of information about that property. The listing will be shown with contact information for the listing agent, that is, the REALTOR who is acting for the seller. If you want additional information about the property, it is best to contact your own REALTOR® to get the information for you, as that person will be working with your interests, rather than the seller’s, in mind.

The process of buying involves negotiating with offers, counter offers, conditions or subjects as they are known in BC, and so on. The Real Estate Council of British Columbia provides an excellent reference for the nitty gritty on buying, including all the terminology involved at www.recbc.ca/pdf/Buyinghome.pdf. We highly recommend that you take the time to print this out, read through it, and keep it on hand.

 Another link that you may find helpful is at www.howrealtorshelp.ca. It provides info on both the buying and selling end of real estate transactions.