Toronto Real Estate Board in 2007

Phantom bidding ignites firestorm

It was the summer of the “wars” in Toronto ““ the real estate bidding wars, that is. The battlefield? A practice called phantom bidding, in which a seller’s realtor concocts bogus offers to help boost a property’s selling price or spook buyers into rushing their offers.

The issue hit the headlines after Michael Manley, owner of Prudential Properties in the Beach, ran for head of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) promising to stamp out the practice.

Maureen O’Neill, who refused to acknowledge the practice even existed, eventually won the election. But within months she had to reverse her stand when the Toronto Star reported proof unethical bidding practices have indeed been occurring.

Several realtors also told us about phantom bids, saying that they’re not only unfair to buyers, but they’re a threat to the whole industry’s reputation.

O’Neill has since established a blue-ribbon task force of industry insiders to investigate ways to put an end to unethical practices, likely by implementing a system to formally register bids.

“I have hand-picked these people and they are the best in the industry. They have no bias,” O’Neill said recently.

Manley said he’s happy the industry’s professional association is finally looking at some form of offer registration system. “What TREB is doing is exactly what they should be doing,” he said.

Source: As reported by Gail Swainson in the Toronto Star: