# posting decoy condo listings to make yours look like a better deal



## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

A friend is selling his condo and mentioned this hypothetical situation as a way to sell above market value lol. Likely won't be involving realtors haha. Use old pictures of the empty unit from before moving-in, and create a fake listing that is way more than the fair price, with an address "typo" that implies the same unit layout on a lower floor. Then post your real listing at some less-inflated price. Ethnical, of course not. But can it actually be done? lol


----------



## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Could it work? Sure, there are people who still fall for the Nigerian mail scam all the time...

Is it likely to work? Not really. Any good realtor will do a search of all comparable properties to see if they selling price is in the range and usually advise the buyer thereof. Most buyers would also "shop around" a bit first to get a feel for how much things are going for. These comparables are usually based on the actual selling price, listing prices are fairly meaningless.

One overpriced place isn't going to influence he price in most cases, it would at best be seen as someone overpaying and not something to lend credence to.

Of course, if it was a place that didn't have a lot of comparables, it may influence the price, but there are few properties in the general market that are truely unique.


----------



## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Usually Realtors look at actual sales to do comparables. Any listings they look at would likely be on mls. How do you propose to get your fake listing on the mls system.
It may work if you have a buyer that is looking on Kijiji, welist or the like and it is a tight market without similiar real listings like your property.

Also ask yourself what happens if you get caught. While you likely wouldn't face jail time, you would likely have a record which could affect future employment etc.

This is similiar to how some of the real estate frauds were done few years ago in Alberta.
An investor would buy a dozen condo units in a small complex. He would flip the properties back and forth a few times between a few 'friends' or corps at ever increasing prices. No money actually changed hands. This affected the market values on the emili system.
He then did one last 'sale' on each property and mortgaged them to 95% cmhc and walked away and never made a payment. Of course the real value of the condos was way less when compared to other similiar complexes.


----------



## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

The phrase "fraudulent misrepresentation" comes to mind.


----------



## mark0f0 (Oct 1, 2016)

This sort of behavior has been par for the course amongst the "landlord families" in Vancouver and even Toronto for the past few years. Lots, and I mean, lots of "transactions" (sometimes disguised as "assignment flipping") have been reported to the databases despite being very clearly not arms length. Since prices haven't been moving upwards, and properties are in a 'negative carry' situation, these people who own 20-30 units have huge problems and high incentives to carry out such 'manipulations' simply to keep the credit against their units from escalating in cost significantly.

Any good buy-side Realtor will see through the ruse and will use a wide selection of comps and sales-mix adjusted macro stats to determine what might be an appropriate offer. Unfortunately those aren't all that common these days.


----------



## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

> Any good buy-side Realtor will see through the ruse and will use a wide selection of comps and sales-mix adjusted macro stats to determine what might be an appropriate offer. *Unfortunately those aren't all that common these days*.


Yeah, exactly. Realtors just want to make the sale. Before I bought my place a few months ago, my realtor kept trying to convince me that the seller won't negotiate, listing all the "worse" deals in my building. I showed him a "better" deal, which he "missed" in his research


----------



## Marty Gordon (Nov 5, 2016)

gentlepuppies said:


> A friend is selling his condo and mentioned this hypothetical situation as a way to sell above market value lol. Likely won't be involving realtors haha. Use old pictures of the empty unit from before moving-in, and create a fake listing that is way more than the fair price, with an address "typo" that implies the same unit layout on a lower floor. Then post your real listing at some less-inflated price. Ethnical, of course not. But can it actually be done? lol


Well it is neither "ethnical" or "ethical". lol. While I personally would never behave in such a fraudulent manner, I certainly wouldn't oppose someone doing so. There is no actual "market value". There is only a PERSON will pay for a given property, on a given date. So if someone is willing to pay more for your property, whether it's based on a "fake" comparable, or not, it's up to the buyer to decide. If an investor is intending to purchase your property, and intends to turn it in to an income property, he/she needs to run the numbers and see if they work. Many newbie investors get over-excited to buy a fixer upper regardless of the purchase price because it's in the right location or matches the description of the house they had in mind, and thus, will certainly fall for your scam. They'd buy the house without seeing ANY comparables at all, let alone a fake one that further confirms their shopping bias.


----------

