By the time you read this column it will be August. I’m writing on July 3, suffering with minor post-Canada Day consumption issues. To be fair, it was my birthday too and I was over served on several occasions. Heat and humidity complicated by power outages blanket the East while we in the West stroll blithely in the rain, contemplating Designated Agency.

So far my Designated Agency challenges include: “What? I can’t tell the listing Realtor what my buyer thought of his P.O.S listing? (REM, March 2012, Ronn James column) Next you’ll be telling me I can’t turn in an office or MLS tour average.” And my favourite, “Why didn’t you use the new designated agency listing contract?” and the reply, “Huh?”

Oh well, we’ll survive.

I attended the annual gathering of former members of the Real Estate Council of B.C., an event where the serious business is an update of health issues followed by a discussion of latest holidays, usually to take your mind off the health issues. I overheard one member speaking of a spa treatment for his wife: “I’m having barnacles scraped off her bottom as we speak.” Or was it his boat?

Another overheard, perhaps misheard, conversation involved a distaff member describing the daily activities of the bird life visible from her waterfront estate: “Those boy gulls! You’re all alike – hop on, finish and then squawk about how good you are!” A hush fell over the room.

I attended the Richard Robbins Ignite event in Vancouver in late June. (I highly recommend Richard’s programs.) Two days of hand clapping, self-starting Realtors thirsty for skill training in a marketplace that hasn’t seen a decline in more than a decade. Most of the audience of 700 became Realtors since the market started to rise, so you know what they’re in for one of these days.

Part way through Day One I heard the dreaded words: “Okay, split into small groups of five or six and elect a chairperson.” This was dreaded because eyes seem to swivel naturally towards me. When faced with such a dilemma you can (a) blame the Canadian education system for your lack of cursive writing skills; (b) take an imaginary call from an imaginary client until a volunteer emerges; or (c) ask if this is the group that will be fixing commissions.

Having previously experienced the natural reluctance of volunteers to engage, Richard gave directions as to who was to be the chair – either the person with the largest watch face or the least hair. Turns out that was me on both counts.

I met old friends and made new acquaintances and the old friends reminded me of old stories, normally reserved for later in the bar. I tend to retire earlier than the younger crowd in real estate today – I mean, I know what a Tweetup is, but to call one at 9 pm! I’m in my casual jammies by then.

I refer to these stories as tales from the crypt. Hardly original, I know, but they are mostly true. Sort of. Well, they are all true – with perhaps a modicum of embellishment, which is the right of the story teller.

Going the extra mile in client relationships, one of our Realtors was convinced his buyer was going to write an offer on a very expensive horse farm the next day. He offered to put the buyer up at his home overnight and when the client asked for an additional favour, he hesitated only briefly. “You lent him your underwear?”

One of the first lady Realtors in my experience as a manager was very practical and very close to a dollar. She bought several tins of smoked oysters on special for her husband’s lunches and then made him reimburse her when he pointed out he didn’t like smoked oysters. Faced with the dilemma of a buyer who not unreasonably wanted to know where the lot boundaries were on a five-acre parcel she had listed, she called a surveyor. Shocked at the price, she ‘borrowed’ several of those nice white posts. “You re-posted the lot?”

You read about it in discipline reports from time to time and I have to admit this next scenario came to me as hearsay. Seeing one of his staff, pen in hand, holding a contract to the window, a managing broker inquired as to the nature of the activity. “How would you suggest I trace the seller’s signature?”

At a disciplinary hearing, involving testimony from a witness about how they set their asking price, years of appraisal training went up in smoke. “You put a for sale by owner ad in the paper. If you get no calls, it’s overpriced. If you get lots of calls, it’s too cheap.”

In my first weeks as a manager, a brand new salesman – as they then were – rushed into the office waving a one-page contract – as they then were. Being an ex-life insurance salesman, he had applied his full knowledge of real estate contract law to his first deal. “You’ve got a blank contract except for the buyer’s and seller’s signature?”

A disciplinary hearing was adjourned after several days of testimony and set to continue some months in the future with the same panel in place. The first question put to the licensee who was the subject of the continued hearing made it obvious rather significant medical procedures had occurred in the interval. “You were a man at the last hearing?”

Enjoy your summer.

You can find Marty Douglas on Twitter – https://twitter.com/41yrsrealestate – Facebook and LinkedIn. He is a managing broker for Coast Realty Group, with offices on Vancouver Island, the Discovery and Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C. , the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. [email protected].