Canadian REAL ESTATE is Hanging on BY A THREAD! #news #canada #realestate

Hello again, welcome back. Thanks for tuning in this week. So it seems like lately real estate is hanging on by a thread. I'm going to look at the national statistics in a minute from Korea and show you what I mean with those numbers. But we have other things happening too and I'm sure you may have heard about the real estate brokerage in Ontario. Really big independent real estate brokerage just got shut down by Ricoh because they were in arrears or they had a bunch of missing money like millions of dollars. And again, this is just a sign of the times, but I'm going to get into that. There's a lot of people talking about it and I'm not going to really play on the Ricoh, the real estate council part of it too much or comment on it, I should say they are my regulator. So I got to watch what I say, but I don't think this is not a them issue. This is the brokerage issue and Ricoh is just the big bad wolf that came and figured it all out. But yeah, let's check this out first and you'll see what I'm talking about. So here is the Ricoh notice. Now this was sent to all like brokers of records. I got it. I think all agents would get this too. So when stuff like this happens, they have to notify a lot of people because a lot of deals go through this place. A lot of agents would have deals. A lot of their clients would have deals with them. So is their money protected? But anyway, let's just go over the brief details and I'm going to show some other people what they have to say about it. So IPRO Realty Limited closure effective August 19th, 2025, which is the day I'm recording or releasing this video. I'm actually recording the video a day early this week. But yeah, so this will be the day it is closed. And yeah, let's see why here. Information and support for those affected. So those could be anybody. It could be consumers, could be other agents. For pending transactions, these will continue to close in the normal course of business. Well, that's nice. For buyers and sellers. First and foremost, please contact the real estate agent you have been working with. If you need more assistance than your agent is able to provide, ask to speak to the management of IPRO. And lastly, for agents. Agents with outstanding commissions should file an insurance claim under the Commission Protection Insurance Program using the required forms. Forms are available on the RICO website. So this is the important one here. Not to say this is more important than the consumers, but because there's other information that came out after. So they're telling you, file a thing. They're not saying if you don't get your commission, file it. They're just telling you, file a commission claim. Like, don't wait. Maybe you will get paid from IPRO, maybe you won't, but you should start with a claim. So here's the long and short of what happened at IPRO Realty. Again, this is pretty important stuff here. Background at IPRO Realty Limited. At the time of a scheduled inspection, a significant shortfall was identified in IPRO's accounts. This is a serious breach of IPRO's responsibilities under the law and to its consumers and agents. Any further updates will be posted on RICO's website. So what happened is they had an upcoming inspection. Now I know, I'm a broker of record. I just went through one of these inspections. And the way it works is every four years, now it's been five years because of COVID, but I just did one. It was five years from my last one. The last one was a lot easier. They were in and out in like an hour and a half. This time, they were here all day. And I work from home, mind you. So the inspector was here all day and they went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. It was pretty intense compared with the last one. Now, what they did this time, which they didn't do last time, was they requested all my statements from all my bank accounts related to Flynn Real Estate. I don't know if they requested my visa, but anyway, the general account, the commission account that we pay agents from and the real estate trust account where I hold funds for people's houses that are waiting to close or trust funds for the consumers. Now, this is what they focus on. They tell you, oh, you missed a signature here and you missed a signature there and do this and use this paperwork. But their main focus is the accounting and your bank accounts to make sure there's no funny business. And they ask a lot of questions and they ask for a lot of evidence and just everything, statements and all kinds of ledgers they want. It's really intense. It sucks for people like me because I'm just a small guy. My wife helps do the books. For us, it's like it kills us, the amount of work. And I always complain like, you're going to put me out of business because I can't compete with a big brokerage that has a support staff that does all this. Anyway, this is what they're looking at. And what they do prior is a month before, a few weeks before they say, send us all your statements and send us all your stuff. So like I pro would have known a month in advance, like this is happening. And anyway, so they would have been able to make some arrangements, which we'll get into in a little bit. So of course they got closed down because it was such a mess. I heard it was millions, like 10 million or something. I don't know the exact number, but there's a lot of rumors out there. But again, I could understand it would be millions of dollars. Rico and the owners of I pro limited have completed an agreement to facilitate the windup and closure of the brokerage to permit the conclusion of current transactions. This will be overseen by Rico and two individuals approved by Rico. And it goes on to say what they're going to do. Just a couple of short paragraphs. Not really that important for what I'm talking about today. There are approximately 2,400 agents employed by I pro realty limited operating out of 17 locations, Mississauga, two locations, Toronto, three locations, Orangeville, Georgetown, LA, all the rest of them. So they have 17 locations, pretty big independent brokerage. Okay. Now I'm going to get into some comments from X on this. Now, again, these are people that are not overseen by Rico that can speak their mind. I may or may not agree with them, but again, these are not my comments. These are just what people are saying. And they're, you know, they may or may not be spot on. But again, this first one here from Donna backer, she's been, she was in the business, not in the business anymore. So she can say whatever the hell she wants about a regulator. So anyway, this is, and there's some truth to these. Again, I don't agree with every little thing they say, cause they might be missing some things, but there's a lot of truth to what these people say. And again, that's all I can say, whether I agree or don't agree. Okay. So from Donna here, the real estate council of Ontario Rico has a lot of explaining to do. How can a brokerage with 2,400 agents and holding tens of millions in trust funds where the broker of record has a CPA and was a Rico director from 2019 to 2023, not have an inspection for five years. She goes on. I can't remember if this post was before or after her last one, but anyway, so the real Ontario real estate industry is buzzing with the closure of Ipro realty and millions missing from their real estate trust account. Ru Alvez broker of record for Ipro was not only CPA. Anyway, she's going on. She's yeah. She keeps bringing this up, right? He was on the Rico thing. Now I haven't verified this, but I'll take her word for it. This is where it gets interesting. And Rico has allowed a new unrelated company cough cough called iCloud realty to take over all 17 of the Ipro locations and assist in transferring their 2,400 agents. No one has to even clear off their desks. Consumers can rest easy knowing that in Ontario Rico is there. So what's happened is Ipro got shut down, but in the meantime, they set up a new brokerage that has bought out Ipro and made a deal with Rico. And I'm guessing the deal was something like, Hey, if we can buy this for a few million dollars, we can use that money to subsidize the losses in those commission trust accounts and the real estate trust accounts. I don't know. There's two accounts. There's the commission trust and there's a real estate trust. That is the money. So they allowed this in that thing, which I understand because look, you're going to be say $10 million shortfall and close this thing down and you have to pay all this insurance money from our insurer or someone buys it. And of course you have a few million extra now that you can pay out and use that. So there was some sort of deal with, Hey, we got someone with a bunch of money, which of course unrelated, I've heard they are related or they of course are business dealings together in the past. So yeah. So what they've done is they've negotiated. And again, it is the same iCloud. I looked up the address. If you look it up, it's the same address as on Don Mills or somewhere, same address as Ipro. So it's, they just did the old switcheroo, right? All right. Let's see what Ron Butler has to say. And I'm sure he's making a video as we speak about this and we'll tell you what he thinks. I have a little bit of a different perspective because I'm again, I have to deal with this directly. I'm a broker of record. I have to deal with these inspections and so yeah, I kind of, I can kind of figure out a little bit of what's going on in the background, but yeah, Ron, of course, who doesn't love what Ron has to say about stuff like this. Where the hell did Ipro Realty $10 million go? Who is Rico trying to protect here? Somebody illegally removed the money from the trust account. Who the hell was it? There's only a tiny number of people who have access. And WTF is this iCloud Realty all about? It's magical. Ipro isn't audited by Rico for years, but when Ipro is advised of the upcoming audit, they magically arranged for an existing senior manager from iCloud Realty. And by a wild coincidence, the new guy is ready to take on all 2,400 agents. Screw that bullshit. Where is the OPP? Where are the Peel police? Why aren't the cops all over this? It's $10 million for Christ's sake. Once again, Canadian officials do not take financial crime seriously. And it looks like some regulators don't want to call the cops. So of course, just like everything else these days with social media, everything is amplified, but we got a lot more information too. And the last bit I want to share with you now is from Shazzy. So now Shazzy got this info. I believe it's legit. I haven't verified that it is legit, but again, this looks like an email that was sent to one of the real estate agents or within that brokerage. And yeah, so this is where it gets really interesting. So Shazzy shares, based on this bulletin, Ipro leadership knew what was going on and didn't give its realtors any notice that it was under investigation or that there were talks to have the brokerage sold or that the commissions were in jeopardy. The settlement and plans were finalized the week before the Ricoh announcement. And it was only until Ricoh made the announcement that Ipro was forced to make a statement. Now here is the statement. So yeah, let's read it. And then of course you'll see what happened. So of course, confidential, not for public distribution, dear agents. Well, I think it's public knowledge now. It's right out there. Hey, this is not my email, but anyway, let's see what this says. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for sharing this. They have bigger fish to fry right now. Dear agents, yesterday was a difficult day for all of us. For those who attended the meeting, you know we shared the financial challenges facing the brokerage and the necessity to sell. We negotiated at length with Ricoh and secured an agreement with Ricoh. As part of that agreement, Ricoh would approve a bulk transfer of all Ipro agents to iCloud Realty on August 18th. That's today when I'm recording the video, the day before you're watching this video, so that no agent would lose registration. So they did this. They negotiated this bulk transfer of all these agents so no agent would lose registration. Now the reality is you don't lose your registration. You can be terminated. So you get terminated from real estate. You either quit or you get fired. It's a termination. You don't lose. You have 60 days to find a new brokerage and let me tell you, about 90% of the brokerages in Ontario will hire you. It's not like you're applying for a job and you have to get the position. You're paying them, right? You're making the money and paying them to be part of their brokerage, so you will get hired. So you won't lose your registration. So that was a little misleading if this is a legit email or bulletin from Ipro Realty here. You're not going to lose it, but they want to retain their agents, of course. This is a business model. They made a lot of money, obviously, and they're trying to retain as many agents as they can. Anyway, however, Ricoh only approved iCloud's brokerage on Friday, August 8th, once our agreement with Ricoh was finalized, which is why the meeting and timelines have been so rushed. So of course, yeah, they didn't say anything and like, no way. They just did this on Friday, so we're brushing everything. But of course, they knew what was going on for months and months when they had lack of or shortfalls in their commission trust and their real estate trust accounts. The sale brought in millions in restitution, but we anticipated a commission shortfall. Agents were advised that they may have to rely on the commission protection insurance fund at the meeting. And in our follow-up notice, we explained that Ipro currently holds millions of dollars in its trust accounts with millions more in receivables. That meant it would likely be quite some time before anyone would need to file a claim. And there was zero chance of consumers losing money, even if some may have to file a claim eventually. So they're saying, yeah, you're not going to have to file a claim yet to the agents. So come with us to our new brokerage. We have massive amounts of shortfall, even though we just sold it and we have a lot of money in restitution from the sale of it. But it's going to be a long time before you're going to file a claim. And there is zero chance of consumers losing money, even if some have to file a claim. So they still like consumers may have to file a claim also, but there's zero chance they're going to lose money because all their commission or all their funds, the consumer funds is protected while the realtors commission, only a certain part of that commission is protected. And here's where they say Rico pulled the wool over their eyes. Rico had assured us that they would not send an email blast announcing IPRO's closure or detailing claim instructions. Instead, they would post the information on their website to direct inquiries if and when they came. As you know, Rico sent that email blast during our meeting. They blindsided all of us. So I don't know. They thought Rico was going to do this. Rico has to do this. They are a consumer protection agency and this is what they have to do. They have to make everyone aware. Just think of Rico didn't do this, how much crap they would be in, which would be insane. And this is going to get out sooner or later. After reading all this, we had a real estate brokerage that was not financially responsible and did not provide the correct fiduciary duty to their clients or their agents, and they got shut down. And then they tried to keep or save what they could by renaming it, getting a new broker of record, a new manager, whatever it may be, and switch everyone over hoping they would go. If I was an agent, whether it was IPRO or any other company, and there was stuff like this going on, there is no way in hell I would be transferring to that new brokerage. And I'll be surprised if there's more than 400 agents there when this is all done. I've heard, I got an email from somebody else confidentially, they told me like they are flooding out by the hundreds, which would be expected. Why would you go after a brokerage, whether it was intentional or not, they could have fell upon hard times. There's a lot of things with those pre-construction condos. So when you buy a pre-construction condo and it's a five-year closing, the agent gets a bunch of commission once you're done paying your deposits. So in the first few months, they'll get a check. But if you don't close on that, that brokerage and that agent is responsible to pay that developer or builder back. So I heard there's a lot of that, that they pay back a lot of commissions from places they've been closed. I don't know if it's true or not, but I, again, I wouldn't put it past them, especially given what happened in the real estate market. But yeah, I would not in any way be following this brokerage to their new location, well, the same location, but through their new name and a consumer too. Like once consumers see this, like would you be listing your house with a brokerage that was just reckless when it came to the funds and didn't have all the money in their accounts? Yeah. Let me list my house with iPro Realty or iCloud Realty now, which again, I don't know how they got around that with Apple and stuff, but it's a trademark, not a copyright. I've already looked into that. So they have iCloud Realty. Yeah. Let me go list with these guys right now. Like when they take the trust funds in, is that going to be safe or should I have to file a claim right away once I sell my house? Like, yeah, no thanks. I'm going to go to a respectable brokerage that doesn't have any of this funny business going on. And who is that? Who knows these days? It could be anybody. So you better know who you're dealing with when you are listing your house. There is insurance out there, but still it's a hassle and it could really jeopardize your deal. All right. Enough of that stuff. That was a long talk, but anyway, it was interesting. Let's get into the July statistics from the Canadian Real Estate Association. We're going from the provincial to the national level here. And here we go. Look at the sales. They're great. You hear people talking about the sales. They're, you know, maybe a little bit average, around average. I think they're a little bit below average given the big picture, but yeah, just under, just over 40,000 sales for July, which again, they're happy about. And again, prices are going down. So more people are buying into the market at this point. And I guess it's what kind of people are buying in. They're end users from what I see. I don't see many investors out there buying properties. So we're seeing the end users, again, taking advantage of these lower prices, not significantly lower, but they are getting deals and whatnot. So here is the all months. That was the July was the last one, but this is all months of sales. And you can see it's almost just to the long-term average there for back to what, 2005 or 2007 or something. So not bad for sales. And we've kind of peaked up. We peaked actually higher last year, but we have seen it seasonally trend up every year since 2022, regardless. So not a, nothing out of the blue here. All right. Now we're looking at the months of supply. This is the important stuff here. So we are higher again for July this year. These are all the Julys. 2025 is higher than the last, what, one, two, three, four, five, almost again, up to 2019 levels. So again, we're seeing that supply increase consistently here. Now, looking at this next chart here, I drew a trend line for the peaks of each year and look at the peaks for every year, previous 2022, 23, 24, I believe there those three peaks to just before our current one. And yeah, so our, their peaks are like at 4.2, 4.3 months and where our lows this year are at their peaks. So that kind of puts it in a perspective where inventory is going. Now our lows are for like a five-year peak, which is crazy. So this inventory again, is doing the right thing. And we're going to see a lot more inventory, especially with all these purpose-built rentals. People aren't going to have to rent these other houses. It's going to be tough for owners to rent in the next few years with all these purpose-built rentals coming online. All right. Sales to new listings ratio here. It was a 52% balanced market, very similar to a couple of the other years, 2022 and 2024, 2023 was higher. So we're worse than that, but yeah, very similar numbers when you compare it to previous July's. Here is the national average price. It's sitting at $672,784 right now. And yeah, look at that. We have this pennant here. Anyway, we'll look at that in just a second. So down 2.7% month over month or $19,000. A lot of seasonality in that, but again, it is down. It's up 0.6% year over year. So I think every month, almost this year, I think besides January, but every month saw year over year declines. July was the first up to just over half a percent, but a $4,000 increase year over year. So yeah, that kind of bucks that trend. But again, most months this year have seen year over year declines and down 17.5% from the peak. And that's $142,000 the average loss in Canada is right now. All right, here is that bearish pennant. Look, we're still in there. It's almost broken to the downside. We'll see how September or August or August will most likely break to the downside. Although I've seen a lot of increased activity in August now, again, because prices are dropping. Where's the supply and demand folks out there? Demand is picking up as prices go down. Here's the national average price versus the month of inventory, months of supply. So yeah, we're still seeing it's pretty close. Again, once we see that cross, so it gets up over five months and the prices come down, it's again, this is not directly related, but this chart seems to work out well, but it's pretty close and we're seeing that it's becoming more affordable, but affordability still way off. We're going to look at that now. Here it is. The average mortgage payment, 10% down at regular rates here, probably minus 1% or whatever, $31.79, but you can rent for $21.21. Now rent is down year over year also. So that's a thousand dollars difference, more than a thousand dollar difference just for your rent versus your principal and interest for your mortgage. Add in all your rest of your costs, maintenance and upgrades to your home. So it's a lot more costly to own a home still than it is to rent. And yeah, you're going to see a lot more people rent in the short term, medium term, maybe also. Okay. So that's it for this week. Thanks for tuning in. Let me know in the comments, what you think about that iPro realty thing closing down. And would you consider it's something you think about when you're buying or selling a house, where those trust funds will be kept. And if the brokerage is a concern to you, sometimes you get some little brokers like me, you're like, who is this guy? Like, is my money safe with them? Now we all are insured, but yeah, is it something you think about or not? And are you going to think about it from now on? Anyway, that's it for this week and I'll see you next time.