As of this Friday, province-wide, licensed real estate agents and unlicensed sales agents (employees of builders and real estate developers) return to operating "By Appointment Only."

Most Realtors are already operating in this fashion throughout the pandemic as has been the recommendation of our national trade association, but as of the new restrictions, we are once again given clear direction from the provincial legislature to which we must comply.

What this means for real estate is pretty simple: Realtors can no longer use OPEN HOUSES as a prospecting method.

OPEN HOUSES had fallen out of favour a few decades ago, but with the advent of 3D virtual tours they are a rarity as there is no longer a need for sellers to vacate their properties for hours on end every weekend and for their agents (or a subcontractor) to sit in the homes to get prospects to view them. Open houses have been an extremely poor way of getting someone to buy a home: a recent real estate statistic is that less than...