Dear editor:

I have been a real estate broker for over 40 years and have witnessed the change from the occasional blind auction to it being the predominant way realtors operate today.

To suggest in any way that an open auction conducted by an auctioneer is less ethical or supportable than the current blind auction system of the real estate industry is simply ludicrous.

The current system, wherein buyers are encouraged to bid blindly against others and overpay to inflate the market even further beyond the current hyperinflated and unsupportable values, is bad for everyone involved.

It's also a large part of the reason why the market is, simply put, constipated.

Until we get back to treating real estate as a home to live in and a reasonable investment for the future for Canadian families instead of a commodity for speculators (foreign and domestic), or for companies and investors to trade in like cryptocurrency or tulips, we will continue to have the social upheaval of homelessness, poverty and lack of affordable accomodation for young families.

The real estate industry should ban blind bidding.

Robert Bader

NOTL