Cliff Barron here with my weekly update for Milton, Glen Williams and Georgetown areas for the week of August 16-22nd, 2020. 

Before we get into that, I have a little bit of information for you. I get this all the time and there are so many gray areas involved in this topic. It's to do with the holdover clause on a contract. When you sign a listing agreement with an agent, about 3/4 away down the first page, there's a holdover clause.  We usually put 90 days, which is just standard. But what does that mean? That's the question. People always ask, "What the heck does that mean?" Technically, it means that if I list your home and it's seen by hundreds of people and then I have, say, 15 or 20 people come in to visit the home through an open house or with their agent, but they don't put an offer in on the house and  then, a couple of months later, the house still hasn't sold - it expires, that basically, the hold-over clause kicks in as soon as it expires. So, technically anybody that came into that open house, if they come back after the expiry, knock on the door and try and deal directly with you, or with their agent, you're still entitled to commission. The agent is still entitled to the commission. So, you still have to pay the commission. 

But the question is, when does this come into play? I've been in this business for 15 years and done over 500 deals and zero times this has come into play.  I don't know anybody who's ever had it come into play, but there is one scenario. When people come into an open house, they look at the house, and then they call their agent. They come in again to look at the house, but they don't put an offer in. And then the house expires and then they come back when it's relisted again and put in an offer. There's absolutely no way to cross-reference who that agent came in with. So, that's why it all just doesn't make sense. But, here's one scenario where it does take place. Say Agent Smith has a house listed. I bring in an offer on Agent Smith's house and they decline the offer.  Then the listing expires. And then my clients say to me, "Hey, I noticed it's off the market. Can you knock on the door and see if you can make a deal with them?" Basically, they have a complete paper trail of that offer that came in. They know exactly the name of the people that came in. So, if I tried to do that offer after it's expired, I can't. It's against my code of ethics for one thing. Secondly, the original agent is still entitled to commission because that holdover clause absolutely does apply. So, that's the only case -it is so incredibly rare that I've never seen it happen. When it comes to the holdover clause, an agent comes in and says the holdover is 90 days, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. You could put zero days, it really doesn't matter. You could put 90 days, you could put 180 days. It rarely really matters. 60 or 90 is standard.  

There's only one way to technically check if someone went through for a viewing before expiry and put in an offer after - the agent would have to somehow go on to land registry, check out who the actual buyer is, and then go back to their notes and see if they actually came to the open house. And then if they did, they would have to somehow pursue this in court, which is just not worth it. It's really not worth it. There's not enough of a paper trail to get anywhere. And agents know that, so we never pursue it. It's completely useless. 

Okay, getting to the sales for Milton, Georgetown and Glen Williams for August 16-22. It's been very busy in Milton and in Georgetown. Very very busy. In 2020 we did 53 deals last week as opposed to the last year 34. So, you can see sales are still going pretty steady. And I check the stats three, four times a day. I'm always on the system checking things and I see over asking on so many deals right now. It's pretty surprising. Let's see, 34 detached, the average sale was $1.043 and 8 days on the market. So, 8 days to sell a million-dollar home. 5 semis sold at $823k, 9 days on the market.  And 14 towns sold at $720k, 5 days on the market. Condos are little bit slower. I think the theory is, people are working from home.  So, they're kinda migrating out of the city into the suburbs a little bit more to get a little bit more land.  So, that's why they're going for town or semi-detached, even though the detached are really taking off. 

And then we get to Georgetown, Glen Williams. There's been a couple of really big sales in Georgetown, Glen Williams. So, that's why it's skewed the numbers up. A few of them, in the $1.8m, $1.4m, $1.6m range in the past week. In 2020, this week, we had 27 sales as opposed to 17 last year at the same time. So, things are really moving and if you look compared to the week before, we had 15. So, we almost doubled in the past week. So, Georgetown has really taken off.  22 detached sold. $1.106m is the average. And like I said, there's a bigger sale in that one. But 7 days on the market. 7 days is, that's incredible. Two semis sold, $699k on average, 6 days on the market and 3 towns sold, $725k on average, 6 days on the market. So, things are moving really well. If you're thinking of selling , now is a primo time. Usually, it starts to slow this time of year and then September, it kinda starts to pick up again. When the kids get back to school in October, November, we had that fall season when things really get busy again, but it just hasn't stopped.  So, anyways, any questions let me know. If you have any questions about that holdover clause, let me know and I'll explain it more in detail. And send me a DM, PM, phone call, whatever. Email is good too, and I'll be sure to help you. Thanks again. Take care