High gas prices forcing Manitoba realtors to change how they do business

A man pumps gas in Montreal, Friday, March 4, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Many Manitobans are feeling the strain of the climbing gas prices. However, for those whose jobs require them to travel large distances, the climbing prices can be an even greater stress.

Claudette Griffin, owner and broker at L.J. Baron Realty, said her realtors cover a large area of the province, including listings in Winnipeg and rural areas.

She noted her business is located in Teulon, but her colleagues will travel to other communities such as Lundar and Ashern. Griffin said the rising gas prices are having an impact.

“We want to be competitive with each other, but when it comes to the gas prices, yikes, it’s awful,” she said in an interview on Wednesday.

“We don’t want to put the brokerage fees higher so we just have to be very open to doing some other ways of conducting business.”

Griffin said thanks to the pandemic she has learned about new tools, such as 3D tours and Zoom meetings, which allow her to do her job without having to travel.

“It really is a huge boost to both buyers and sellers to be able to incorporate these new tools that we have,” she said.

“As realtors we have a smorgasbord of tools that we use to market properties and so on, but the gas prices being the way they are – it’s yikes.”

However, in rural areas, cell and internet service are not always strong enough for these types of online services. Griffin said that because of high gas prices she is more cautious about driving to someone’s property to do a free evaluation.

“Before I used to say, ‘Yep, what works?’ And away I went,” Griffin said. “But at this point I like to do a lot of preliminary work before spending the time and the gas money, going an hour away to hopefully get the listing.”

Griffin noted that working in Winnipeg is a simpler process, because buyers are usually interested in a particular area of the city.

“You’ve got a buyer, for example, who wants to be in a specific area so we’re looking at properties that are within blocks of one another, right? So it’s not like you’re taking an hour to go and look at a property and then an hour back, plus all the properties that a buyer may want to see in that particular municipality,” she said.

Earlier in the month, CTV News reported that Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy who also runs Gas Wizard, said Russia accounts for about 10 per cent of the global demand for oil, and prices may continue to rise as the conflict continues.

-With files from CTV’s Charles Lefebvre and Danton Unger.