I Talk Frequently About Unethical Developers/Builders . . . Well Look How Our Major Institutions Are Doing What They Are Doing – THEY ARE GIVING SELLING A BAD NAME

I’ve never hidden the fact that I am not a highly educated person despite many people concluding that I’m “anything but uneducated“.

As I’ve often said, “I was born at night  . . . . but it wasn’t last night!

I said before that the fatal flaw in consumers buying condos in Condoland is the way our minds always “assume the best”.

People attend condo sales sites envisioning these dreaming palaces in the sky, and for some strange reason we always see only the high points.

Don’t think that this psychological reality has gone unnoticed by developers.  In the industry it’s called “selling the sizzle” and in the majority of instances that’s because they couldn’t “sell the steak” if the consumer actually could see it.

Developers hire the best ad agencies to write their promotional and corporate material.  There are no laws protecting consumers about the content therein.

In my case study that I’m doing on an Oakville development of million dollar homes near the lake I already posted the glorious vision of a proposed “super star developer” magnificently articulated in colourful adjectives, where in fact I’ve contrasted that with a sworn affidavit of one of this developer’s actual buyers that literally show at minimum “an intentional effort to mislead consumers”

Quite at the other end of the spectrum this developer has been caught in so many bold faced lies (set out in the affidavit) and unethical undertakings, that any rational assessment would lead any informed investor/consumer to stay away from this developer.

They have proven to be “fast buck artists” singularly focused on the massive amounts of money in this business.

This is a company that gives the industry a bad name and tragically they cannot even help themselves.

I’ve interacted with this guy for almost two years and he has proven to me to be one of the most unethical, unskilled and untrustworthy people that I’ve ever done business with.

I offered to help him numerous time before just taking over the management of the finishing of my home.

This company flies with minimal staff and apparently to get a job their one must be an accomplished liar as we received nothing less than bare faced lies from their COO, down to their replacement site supervisor (“Rick  ” – who has been unable and unwilling to meet with me face to face since walking away from 100% of the representations and assurances that he verbally bestowed upon us before walking away from every single promise) to their office manager who admitted when hired a few months back to having absolutely no industry experience but overnight had comments and commentary totally lacking in substance almost over night!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for everyone making as much money as they can.

But in Condoland you get unethical people like the directors of Sunrise Homes (the Oakville developer that I’ve been blogging about – search Oakville at simply charles.com and you’ll find my reporting on what anyone would have to agree is an outright exploitation of honest tax paying Ontario consumers who have relied on various levels of government (who have said they protect consumers) to simply do what they are in existence to do and actually start protecting consumers.

My upcoming book, “Crisis in Condoland” will prove an “eye-opener” for everyone owning, tanking of owning, living in, investing in a Condo in Ontario.

Crisis in Condoland chronicles every aspect of the exploitation of consumers from a seriously flawed Condo Act, to the Provinces’ “Tarion Warranty Program”, to an outdated Building Code (developers are allowed to build only to “the minimum standards – there are no “A”, or “B” grade residential condos.

At best developers are allowed to shoot to deliver the minimum standard.

Quality developers (yes there are a few) have been forced over the years of having every cowboy entrepreneur with lots of money jump but no knowledge skill or interest in delivering quality houses, to drop their standards simply to compete and in the end the consumer has suffered.

I’ve published about how absolutely untruthful Sunrise Homes’ actual brochure for this site was, including but not limited to publishing glamorous full colour photographs of spectacular kitchens that have absolutely nothing to do with the homes they were delivering.

And the homes they were aspiring to deliver proved so deficient that I literally took over site management of my home after some very tense and terse conversations.

I’m not the nicest guy in the world to deal with after I’ve caught you in repeated lies.

Lie to me once shame on you . . .  lie to me twice and shame on me”.

The one thing I was not prepared to do was “walk away” from the deal but I had to convince this inexperienced and fundamentally ill-equipped C.O.O. of Sunrise

I’m a real estate investor.

I’m an entrepreneur.

I’ve never had a “job“, always having been fundamentally a self-employed entrepreneur because I wasn’t really “employable”.

To be where I am today, in all modesty, must say something about my ability to be productive.

That ability is really a result of having been fortunate enough to have my unique skill (“selling“) called on back around 1980 when I was called in to turn around one of Toronto’s (still today) most prestigious condo developments the Queen’s Quay Residences.

As an entrepreneur you are frequently cast as a conn artist (justifiably in many cases) and no wonder when so many people are in the business with so little awareness of what selling actually is, in a time in our society where ethics seem to have become a thing of the past!

Selling only ever starts when the prospective buyer, given the opportunity to move forward with the purchase and says “no”.

Everything up to that point was “presenting”, but until your prospective buyer says “no” the selling has yet to begin.

I’v been disappointed with the mess I see our Province in with its deficits, despite being what most people in the world would suggest to be heavily taxed.

I’ve been disappointed with the mess our health care is in despite us being heavily taxed.

I don’t mind our taxes actually as we remain the land of opportunity at least for entrepreneurs like me (there are lots of us) and where else would people like me have the opportunities that we enjoy here.

But this doesn’t not excuse a system that fails us on pretty much every front!

Now I see how major institutional minds (those heading up our banks for example) distort “selling” through cultural ignorance (they don’t know anything about sales and are forcing their employees to “up-sell” their customers!) without even informing the customers.

Without “ethics” and/or “integrity“, selling is, in fact “conning”, but I don’t want to get too off-track here.

I’m glad that I’ve never been “employed” thus my “unemployable status” that led to my successes in a number of disciplines has proved to actually having been a good thing, but I would not advise it for the weak of heart!

I just read a CBC article (“We do it because our jobs are at stake’: TD bank employees admit to breaking the law for fear of being fired” and can tell you that this a clear indictment of one of the major institution in our land, conducting itself unethically.

I’ve been a longstanding TDBank investor in my self directed RSP and I will now sell my remaining stock in the bank.

I get incensed reading CBC’s statement:  “TD employees tell Go Public the pressure to deceive customers extends beyond front-line staff to workers handling wealth management“.

This is the type of thing that we honest sales professionals endure every day (don’t confuse selling with real estate as Realtors don’t “sell“) and it’s coming from one of our five major banks!

That’s just unacceptable to me.

Let’s see where this goes.

I’m Charles

 

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