Stay in your Lane?
Stay in your Lane?
As a licensed rental property manager I am allowed to provide our client information on the rental market. What we are not allowed to do is provide clients information on selling their property. If you are licensed as a Sales Agent you are able to provide information and advice on the selling of a property, but they are not supposed to provide information on renting a property if they are not licensed as a rental agent.
This begs the question, why do I often run into Sales Agents referring their clients to me about renting their property with preconceived notions of what the rental rates they can achieve are. When a client contacts us about managing the property we review the current market conditions to see what the advertised rates are. The current market is changing monthly. Many times we make suggestions of $3000 is the estimated price the potential client’s property could rent for. On many occasions the prospect will respond, our sales agent suggested we could rent it for $3500.
BCFSA licenses both Sales Agents and Rental Agents and both are trained regularly to not provide advice outside our level of expertise. This is why Cartref Propeties who is not licensed to sell properties never provides market expectations for our clients who elect to sell their properties. We refer them to people who are experts in the selling of properties.
I would like to see more sales agents not provide their clients with unrealistic expectations of what they may be able to rent their property for. This creates distrust in the rental market for potential landlords wanting to rent their property. We have taken on these properties and when we advertise them for the rate suggested by the Sales agent and we are not receiving any inquiries the new landlord begins to understand where the advice was incorrect.
I am asking sales Agents to please stay in their lane and not provide client with in accurate information about renting their property.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
Vacancy Rates and Speculation taxes?
Vacancy Rates and Speculation taxes?
With the current rental market conditions what happens if landlords are unable to locate tenants? Current market conditions are resulting in lengthy vacancy times.
The Province has the speculation tax and the City of Vancouver has the empty homes tax. Both of these have stipulations that the property must be rented for a period of time equal to six months during the year or the unit becomes subject to these taxes.
The speculation tax for 2026 is a sfollows:
For 2026 and subsequent years, the tax rate is:
3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners
1% for Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada who are not untaxed worldwide earners
The Vancouver empty homes tax is as follows:
“Properties deemed, determined, or declared empty in the 2025 reference year will be subject to a tax of 3% of the property’s 2025 assessed taxable value.”
How will this affect landlords?.
We are experiencing longer time frames to find tenants for our vacant properties. If it is taking longer than six months to find a tenant, will landlords make poor decisions on renting their properties to avoid these two taxes. Tenant selection is a very important part of selecting tenants and failing to perform your due diligence often results in a negative tenancy. In slower economic times we see more questionable tenants try to move and find a landlord who doesn’t want their unit to be vacant for multiple months. In these times it is extra important for landlords to ensure they are not missing any steps in the selection process.
Another key part of tenant selection is pricing the product correctly. In the rental market tenants want to pay a little as possible and landlords want to earn as much rent as they can. In today’s market it is imperative to ensure your product is priced at a level that will attract potential tenants. This is not the time to hold out for the highest price because you think your property is worth that amount. A unit can become vacant for six months really quickly. Today most tenants are in a tenancy where they must give notice to move. This means in the month they come to view your property they are not looking to move in the next month but the one after that. It only takes a three month vacancy to see the property approaching the six month time frame of the vacancy taxes.
If a large number of landlords find themselves needing to pay these taxes will they choose to sell their property removing these products from the rental market. Is it time the BC Government and City of Vancouver review the need for these taxes if landlords are being forced to pay the taxes because they are not able to rent or sell the property.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
Does a tenant failing to attend move out mean you get to keep the deposit?
Does a tenant failing to attend move out mean you get to keep the deposit?
When a tenant moves in to the property both parties, the tenant and the landlord are to meet at the property and identify the condition of the property when they move in. This information is indicated on the move-in inspection report. When the tenant moves out both parties are expected to meet at the property to review the original inspection report and compare the condition of the property after the tenant has vacated the unit.
During the move out meeting the two parties are expected to agree to any deductions from the deposit fund and indicate this on the move out inspection report. If the parties are not in agreement of the deductions there is a section on the report where this can be indicated and the tenant signs saying they disagree with the deductions. By doing this it requires the landlord to file a claim to keep those deductions. There are only two ways the landlord can keep deposit funds: one is with the tenant’s permission in writing and or by an order from the RTB.
What happens when the tenant fails to attend the move out inspection? Does the landlord automatically get to keep the funds?. The anwer is no but a bit more details are needed to understand what happens in this case. Deposit funds are held for specific reasons, security and pet damage. The landlord has a requirement to refund these funds within 15 days or file a claim to keep the fund if the parties are not in agreement. One factor that landlords misunderstand is that the 15 day window starts when the tenant provides their forwading address. If a tenant fails to attend the move out inspection they have two years to provide their forwarding address. If a year later they provide their forwarding address the landlord must return the funds or file a claim to keep the funds.
Without the tenant signature to keep the funds are an RTB order a landlord is in violation of their responsibilities to handle the deposits.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
When one tenant wants to leave and the other tenant wants to stay, what do I do?
The other day I was reading apost on line about one tenant was going to move out and the other tenant wanted to stay. The landlord was asking what they can do here?. The one tenant who wants to stay can afford the rent alone but they don’t want to give notice causing the tenancy to end which could allow the landlord to evict them. How can a landlord handle this issue?.
Our awnser to clients is to follow the law. What does the tenancy law say in this situation?.
When a tenancy starts the tenants sign a tenancy agreement. If you have used the BC standard agreement there is a requirement for the tenant to end a periodic tenancy by giving the landlord one month’s notice to end the tenancy.
There is one small factor many tenants who want to do this miss understand. If a tenant moves out without giving notice they have not relinquished their responsibility for that tenancy. A tenant’s responsibility only ends after they give notice and complete the move out process to end the tenancy.
How do we handle this situation?. First we ask a few questions.
One, is the tenant who wants to stay a good tenant?
Two, can they afford the unit on their own?
If these questions are positive then we work with the tenants to remove the one from their responsibility and to keep the one who wants to stay. We always ask for something in return, in these cases we ask the tenant who is staying to sign a term lease preferably for another year. In today’s market we are probably not going to get an increase in the rent though in other market times we would also ask for that.
We also talk to the tenant who is moving out to explain to them that if they leave without completing the notice to move out they are still responsible for the unit incluidig damage and unpaid rent. Most people have good friends though are not willing to take that risk of the tenant paying the rent or not cuainsg damage they could be held responsible for. When you explain this we often receive notice from the one tenant to vacate the unit.
One other factor is how you return the damage deposit to the tenant that is vacating. If they contributed they are entitled to the deposit funds. We will draft a letter to indicate that the tenant staying in the property will refund the moving out tenant their portion of the security deposit and send the copy to the tenant moving out preferably have them sign it.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
Does more rentals lead to less ownership?
The other day I was listening to a BC developer talk about the cost of developing housing and how more rental property housing has been built over the past few years. In fact rental housing starts outpaced new home starts in BC. The developer said this will lead to less home ownership. This will be true in the short term though it will change in the long term.
More purpose built rental housing has been needed in BC and particularly in the lower mainland for many years. How is this going to make more people home owners?
For many years the market has used individual landlords as the majority of rental properties in BC. These properties are condo’s purchased for the intent of renting them. With the slow down in the rental market many of these landlords will not be able to sustain long term vacancies and will eventually put the properties up for sale. The increase in sales supply will eventually push down the prices and that will increase the number of people purchasing properties. The renters will still be there, they will just move into the purpose built rental properties. We are seeing rental units vacant for multiple months and rental buildings will also eventually decrease the rental prices they are already offering incentives to move into their building that small landlords can’t provide.
There will still be a need for small landlords to fill the needs of the rental market. They have always existed and will always be needed. For too many years the small landlord has been the majority of the rental market growth. The problem with using this market is that it is volatile when the owners decide to leave the market. Purpose built rental properties stabalize the rental and housing market as these products never leave the rental market.
What would be a better process is if the market builds purpose built properties annually alongside of the market condos rental investors purchase. This would reduce the possibilty of the rental market fluctuating too much in either direction.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com