Agents duel over condo sale lines
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/730576--agents-duel-over-condo-sale-lines?bn=1
November 25, 2009
Jesse McLean
Edit , as headline is now
"Shouts, threats as agents vie for new condos"
Competing lines of real estate agents waiting to buy new luxury condos turned ugly on Bloor St. this morning with jabbing, shouts, threats and accusations of queue-jumping
Some of the agents, who lined both sides of Bloor at Bedford Ave., had been waiting for more than a week to buy units in the X2 development at Jarvis and Charles Sts. Others arrived last night.
By this morning, there were three separate lines of potential buyers, each claiming the right to have first crack at the condos.
Around 8 a.m., a representative for builder Great Gulf Homes threw two of the three warring lineups into a fury by declaring their long waits and place-holding invalid.
Chanting "X2 is unfair," shouting and holding up freshly-made signs with the words "fair" or "unfair" on them, the agents who had waited the longest protested the decision.
Across the street, agents who had arrived just last night were rejoicing.
Sonny Shang said he was the first to line up on Nov. 15. He was outraged that other people who "just showed up at 11 last night" were going to get the first chance to buy the units. "We're very upset. This is very unfair," he said. "They knew about our list and ignored it."
Art Toulami with Top Canadian Realty Inc., gave a thumbs up to cameras after he received a No. 6 on the priority list after a night of waiting across the street from Shang's group.
"It was a fair game we played. They are the ones who decided to go to the other side."
"It's our job with a hot market nowadays," broker Amir Geran said before dawn as he stood in the north-side lineup, the one that ended up getting priority. "You have to line up for condos like this."
The agents are vying for the chance to snap up condos in the 40-plus storey building.
The 30 north side real estate agents started arriving Tuesday night around 11, according to accounts from both sides, usurping the priority once held by another 40 agents who turned up 10 days ago and stretched along the south side of Bloor St. As dawn broke over Bloor, the two outside lines started to realize there was another group of realtors inside the Intercontinental Hotel on the north side, who had been there since Nov. 22, with instructions that "first come, first served" sales would begin in the second-floor Willard Room.
Bell Lan from Homelife Landmark Realty Inc. was part of the original group of agents who have been staking out their claim since Nov. 15. They had started outside the Intercontinental, creating a rotation system, Lan said, but police moved them Sunday afternoon to the other side of Bloor. Last night, the newcomers turned up in their original spots on the north side.
"We didn't agree with the police arrangements," Lan said amid a group of fellow agents bundled into winter coats and sitting in lawn chairs with umbrellas. "There are no rules, no policy. If it's not fair, we don't want to buy anymore."
Kevin Killackey, a Remax agent on the north side, said, "There was no actual procedure set up. Those people over there figured they'd start their own system and go across the street."
Last night, he said, "people were jabbing each other. Police had to break it up."
Inside the hotel, Bing Wang from Sutton Realty Inc. was part of the group he said were promised priority and registration for the VIP sale in the Willard Room.
"We really wanted to be the first ones here," he said. Agents have been calling, faxing and emailing the builder to stay in touch since Nov. 22. What about the other lines? "If you leave, nobody knows you were here."
Wang produced what he called evidence of the inside lineups claim to have been first by showing a video of a deserted Bloor St. time-stamped Nov. 23, when he said he and others checked into the Intercontinental to await the sale.
