HOUSING
Real-estate board cancels reporter’s Zealty access
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by Charlie Smith
or many years, B.C.’s attorney general has been touting the benefits of greater transparency in real-estate transactions. For example, in unveiling the Land Owner Transparency Registry, David Eby said that information in this database “is essential to empowering authorities to help us level the playing field between those who prefer to cheat, and those hard-working British Columbians playing by the rules, paying their taxes, and following the law”. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and making it harder for people to hide dirty money in the shadows of our real estate market will benefit British Columbians,” Eby, also the minister responsible for housing, declared. But the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver is not keen to allow data from individual transactions in the Multiple Listing Service to end up in the hands of the media. It recently ordered Holywell Properties to deactivate any accounts linked to the Georgia Straight or reporter Carlito Pablo from its Zealty.ca virtual office website (VOW). In addition, the REBGV demanded that the Sunshine Coast company turn over a list of all registered users to the board by December 7. Moreover, the REBGV ordered Holywell Properties to turn over “the log of activity on the VOW (search history, saved searches, saved properties,
It’s a huge undertaking for anybody to do—a huge investment. – Adam Major
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver halted Carlito Pablo’s use of an MLS database.
etc...) for the identified users”. “If Zealty does not have the means to track and log user activity, this needs to be implemented as soon as possible as it is a requirement of all VOWs,” wrote REBGV third-party contract and compliance administrator Timothy Yee in an email to Holywell’s managing broker, Adam Major. Yee’s email cited the following REBGV rule regarding MLS data: “Except as provided in the Rules of Cooperation, no Member, or their unlicensed assistants or administrators where permitted by the
Board, except in the ordinary course of their business, shall make available to any unlicensed person, firm or corporation information distributed by the MLS® System. The Member will be held responsible for any misuse by non-Members of MLS® information supplied by the Member.” Major told the Straight by phone that his company is complying with the REBGV order and has forwarded a list to the REBGV of about 40,000 people who have used his company’s Zealty.ca website. He noted that the REBGV has made it easier in recent years to download data by making pictures available through links rather than via downloading. However, Major also said that his company launched its Zealty.ca website in the wake of a Competition Bureau legal victory over the Toronto Real Estate Board. Prior to this ruling, the TREB was preventing brokers from providing customers and clients with access to historical home-sales data. In 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada’s
refusal to grant the TREB leave to appeal cleared the way for real-estate agencies to create virtual office websites. Zealty.ca has online tools enabling clients to compare the market history of properties listed in the same area. “There’s definitely years of programming on our site,” Major said. “It’s a huge undertaking for anybody to do it—a huge investment.” A Competition Bureau spokesperson, Jayme Albert, declined a request for an interview, telling the Straight that it would be inappropriate to comment on whether the REBGV’s decision to cancel Pablo’s account with Zealty.ca contravened the Competition Act. Meanwhile, REBGV spokesperson Craig Munn said that his organization worries about “sensitive information” being released that could hurt sellers, such as details about a deal that hasn’t closed even after the subjects preventing a sale have been removed. He also claimed that Pablo acknowledged and accepted that he would abide to terms of service upon entry to the site, including not using the data for “commercial purposes”, something that Pablo said he doesn’t recall doing. Munn would not answer the Straight’s question about whether his organization takes a position that it owns MLS data, saying he would have to get back to the newspaper in the future on that issue. g
So-called “haunted house” back on the market
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by Carlito Pablo
Vancouver property with a spooky reputation has returned to the market in search of a new owner. This comes less than a year after city council approved—on March 9, 2021—a rezoning application for a six-storey rental building at the 4118-4138 Cambie Street site. The asking price for the prime location across from King Edward Station on the Canada Line is $26 million. Pennyfarthing Properties Grayson North Ltd. acquired 4118 Cambie Street, which has a reputed haunted house, and the adjoining 4138 Cambie Street site between 2017 and 2018. The development company paid a total of $16,150,000 for the two properties. At the new asking price of $26 million, Pennyfarthing is looking at a 60.9 percent gross profit. That’s a positive return of $9,850,000 for its investment three to four years ago. The property now carries the consolidated address of 4118 Cambie Street and has a 2021 assessment of $24,138,000. For many years, ghostly tales abounded regarding the home at 4118 Cambie Street. “The story goes that it was either an ancient burial ground or there was a man who murdered his elderly mother there,” blogger Michael Kwan wrote back in 2011. Kwan wrote that “everyone who inhabited the home since then has experienced strange occurrences”. 6
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
DECEMBER 9 – 16 / 2021
Ghostly tales regarding 4118 Cambie Street have been floating around Vancouver for many years. Photo by Google Images.
“We’ve heard stories of luggage being left out on the lawn, baby cribs pushed precariously to the edge of windows, shadowy footsteps walking up the exterior walls, families sleeping only to wake up on the lawn, and more,” the writer behind the Beyond the Rhetoric site noted at the time. “I hear that Buddhist monks live there and the house is ‘clean’ of spirits, but I still get chills,” Kwan added. Earlier, in 2010, Mary Sheridan of the Mary in Vancity blog wrote about haunted places in the city. Commenting on that post, a reader by the name of Alice suggested: “You should check up on that creepy haunted house on Cambie St
and King Ed…supposedly now owned by Buddhist monks!” Records show that in 2016, Pennyfarthing filed a rezoning application for 4138 Cambie Street on behalf of its owner, Yuk Ying Ng. The plan for the property at the time was for a six-storey condo building and two-storey townhouses, for a total of 22 strata homes. The developer purchased the same property at 4138 Cambie Street from Ng in 2017 for $4,150,000. City council approved the rezoning application in 2019. However, the approved application was later withdrawn. Then in 2018, Pennyfarthing bought the neighbouring property at 4118 Cambie Street, home to the supposed haunted house. The company purchased the site from the Canada Shin Yat Tong Moral Society, a religious charity and home of the Buddhist monks who reportedly lived in the property. The purchase price was $12 million. In 2020, Pennyfarthing filed a new rezoning application for the consolidated property. This time, it was for a rental development with 90 units. As of December 5, the listing made by agent Avison Young has been on the realtor.ca site for 38 days. The listing highlighted the “development opportunity” for the combined properties with the single 4118 Cambie Street address. g
