Do I have to sign a contract with a REALTOR® in BC?

To list a property, yes. A listing contract sets out the term, the compensation and what the brokerage will do. Before that, a real estate professional must present you with the Disclosure of Representation in Trading Services form, which explains the difference between being a client and being an unrepresented party. That form is a disclosure, not a contract, and signing it does not commit you to anything.

How long should a listing agreement be?

The term is negotiable, and it is one of the things worth negotiating. Long enough to give the marketing a fair run, short enough that you are not stuck for a year with someone you have lost confidence in. Ask what term is being proposed and why, and ask what happens if you want out early. The answer tells you something about the person.

Can one REALTOR® handle both my sale and my purchase?

Yes. Those are two separate transactions and having one person coordinate both is usually an advantage when you are downsizing, because the dates have to line up. What is not allowed in BC is one person representing both the buyer and the seller in the same transaction. Dual agency was prohibited in 2018, with a narrow exception for remote areas underserved by licensees.

What should I ask a REALTOR® before listing?

How did you arrive at that price and what sales support it. What would you do to this house before we list. What is the term of the agreement and how do I end it early. Who actually does the work. You or a team. And the one most people skip: what is wrong with my house. An agent who cannot answer that last one has not really looked.

How to choose a REALTOR® in the South Okanagan

Q: What is the difference between a REALTOR® and a real estate agent?

All licensees in BC are regulated by the BC Financial Services Authority. REALTOR® is a trademark identifying those who are also members of the Canadian Real Estate Association and bound by its Code of Ethics. In practice most people use the words interchangeably, but the trademark has a specific meaning.

By Dan Jones · September 12, 2026

Bottom line: interview more than one, and ask each of them what is wrong with your house rather than what is good about it. Anyone can tell you the good part. An agent who has genuinely looked can name which room shows worst, what an inspector will write up, and which of your improvements will not return what you spent. Ask how they arrived at their price and what sales support it, and be careful of the highest number in the room. The listing term, the early exit and the compensation are all negotiable, and there is no standard commission rate in this business.

I am Dan Jones, a REALTOR with Royal LePage Locations West in Penticton, licence number 1118346, licensed since 2004. I am obviously not a neutral party in a post about choosing an agent, so treat the rest of this as what I would ask if I were hiring someone, and check it against whoever else you interview.

I am obviously not a neutral party here. So rather than tell you what to look for in the abstract, here is what I would ask if I were hiring someone for this, and the parts of the process in BC that are worth understanding before you sit down with anyone.

Interview more than one. It is your largest asset and an hour each is not much to spend.

The question most people do not ask

Every agent who walks through your house will tell you what is good about it. That is easy and it is what you want to hear.

Ask what is wrong with it.

An agent who has genuinely looked can tell you which room shows worst and why, what a buyer’s inspector is likely to write up, and which of your improvements will not return what you spent. One who cannot has been thinking about the listing appointment rather than the house.

You do not have to act on the answer. You do learn whether they were paying attention.

How they arrived at the price

Anyone can produce a number. Ask how.

You want to hear about recent comparable sales. Actual sold prices of genuinely similar properties nearby, and about what is currently listed, because that is what a buyer is choosing between. Then you want to hear the adjustments for how your house differs, and specifically what condition does to the number.

Be careful of the highest number in the room. Quoting a price you do not believe in order to win a listing is a known tactic, it works in the short term, and it ends with a price reduction in sixty days and a stale listing that buyers have learned to skip. If one valuation is well above the others, ask what sales support it.

What your home is actually worth covers how the number gets built, including why your BC Assessment is not it.

The contract, and what is negotiable

Before anything is signed, a real estate professional in BC has to present you with the Disclosure of Representation in Trading Services. It explains the difference between being a client, with a duty of loyalty owed to you, and being an unrepresented party. It is a disclosure, not a contract. Signing it commits you to nothing.

To list, you sign a listing contract. It sets the term, the compensation, and what the brokerage is going to do. Things worth discussing rather than accepting:

The term. Negotiable. Long enough for the marketing to get a fair run, short enough that you are not trapped for a year if it goes wrong.
How you end it early, and what happens if you do. Ask before you sign, not after.
Compensation, including how it is split and what is included. There is no standard rate in this business. It is negotiated between you and the brokerage, and anyone who tells you the rate is fixed is wrong.
Who does the work. If you are hiring a team, ask who will actually be at your showings and who answers when you call.

One agent, two transactions

If you are downsizing you have a sale and a purchase, and the dates have to line up. Having one person coordinate both is usually an advantage. They know your timeline on both sides, and making the dates work is most of the difficulty in a downsizing move.

What is not permitted in BC is one person representing both the buyer and the seller in the same transaction. Dual agency was prohibited in 2018, with a narrow exception for remote areas that are underserved by licensees. So if a buyer comes to your listing agent directly, that agent cannot act for both of you. They will have to explain your options, and you should expect that conversation to happen properly rather than be glossed over.

What “REALTOR®” actually means

Everyone selling real estate in BC is licensed and regulated by the BC Financial Services Authority. That is the baseline, and it is the same for everyone.

REALTOR® is a trademark identifying licensees who are also members of the Canadian Real Estate Association and bound by its Code of Ethics. Most people use the terms interchangeably in conversation. The distinction is real but it is not the thing that separates a good agent from a poor one.

What separates them is whether they will tell you something you do not want to hear.

Do they do anything beyond the transaction

For a straightforward sale, maybe that does not matter. For a downsizing move it matters a great deal, because the transaction is genuinely the easy part.

Worth asking whether they will help with the sequencing decision, whether they know people locally for the parts that are not real estate, decluttering, movers, trades, environmental contractors, and whether they will still be answering the phone after completion.

I ask my clients what their week actually looks like, because the answer changes which properties are worth seeing.

How to check someone out

Ask for references and actually call one. Ask what went wrong during the transaction and how it was handled, because something always does.
Read reviews, including the mediocre ones. A pattern matters more than any single review.
Look at their listings. Are the photos good. Do the descriptions say anything, or are they adjectives. That is what your house will get.
Ask how many transactions they do and what kind. Someone who mostly sells condos downtown may be the wrong fit for an acreage, and the other way round.

Where I stand

I have been licensed since 2004. Before that I was a Red Seal journeyman carpenter from 1980, building custom homes and commercial projects. That order is the whole of my pitch: most agents can describe a house, and I can read one.

It shows up in specific places, what I look at first on a walkthrough, the older-house list, what to fix before listing and what to leave alone. Read those and you will know how I think before you ever call me, which is a fairer basis for a decision than a listing presentation.

Most of my work comes from referrals and past clients, which means I would rather lose a transaction than sell someone a problem. That is not principle for its own sake. It is how the next client arrives.

If you are working out whether it is time, or which of these decisions comes first, email me and say what you are considering. Straight answer back, including when the answer is to wait.