Q: We’re selling our large single-family home in Dunbar, which I know from seeing what’s happening around here is very likely to attract interest from Chinese buyers. Should we appoint a Chinese listing agent to tap into that market?
A: This is an intriguing question, not one that you would be asked in many real estate markets around the country. The statistics don’t lie. Macdonald Realty stated earlier this year that 70 per cent of their single family home, condo and townhome sales in 2014 over $3 million dollars were bought with mainland Chinese money. A fact so telling they have decided to take the unprecedented step of opening up an office in Shanghai. And urban planner Andy Yan’s recent study focused on the last names of real estate buyers on the West Side and found a similar proportion of Chinese buyers of $3 million-plus properties. It also discovered that there were more students buying houses on the West Side than doctors. That in itself is a pretty significant statistic, even if it’s only anecdotal. Maybe it’s time to go back to UBC and get another degree? I have a funny feeling these students are not the ones paying the mortgage. Both studies didn’t clarify residency or occupancy which, in my opinion, are the two main issues facing the affordability of the Vancouver market.
So knowing these factors, is it a good idea to hire an agent who has the ability to communicate in the various Chinese dialects? Personally I don’t think this is really a relevant factor when you are listing on the West Side of Vancouver currently. Every home that’s being listed is being presented with multiple offers so whether or not your listing agent speaks a Chinese dialect is a non-factor in the current state of the market. Sellers are in a glorious position these days in the West Side, there is really no need to focus on the race of the buyer. Buyers are tripping over themselves to get in with the best offer – you could require the offer to be written in Afrikaans and they would do it. Quite simply, the West Side of Vancouver is about as far from a normal market as the world has seen in some time.
But, in a normal real estate market with a high percentage of buyers from a particular country can it make you, the seller, more money if your agent has the ability to communicate directly with the buyer? Yes, it very well could be a distinct advantage. Add to this the desperate nature of China’s capital wanting to flee its country of origin, plus the buyer engaging you without an agent to represent them, and you could be looking at a potential lottery windfall in the right situation.
For many the thought process behind engaging in a real estate transaction without an agent to represent them is that it will be attractive to save the commission they would have to pay their agent. But why would an agent who has entered a legally binding contract to represent the person selling the home be concerned with saving the buyer money? Simply put, they are not, nor should they be. They are professionally and ethically bound to make their seller the most amount of money possible, not save the buyer money. So if you hire an agent able to speak the various Chinese dialects and they can connect with someone desperate to get their money out of China, this could very well be a benefit if the stars aligned. As the old saying goes, buyer beware!
But in general, ability to speak a specific language isn’t a relevant factor when hiring an agent in the current state of the Vancouver real estate market. However, if the Vancouver market were to do a complete 180-degree turn and favour buyers overnight, then we would definitely have something to talk about.
