Realtor Marina Yue opened the door of a fourth floor condo to a Star reporter in Toronto’s Regent Park where she was holding an open house on Saturday.

A bottle of hand sanitizer sat on a shelf near the door.

Only moments before Yue received an email from the Ontario Real Estate Association with an urgent message to stop holding open houses for the duration of the emergency declared by the province on March 17.

“We can’t hold any more open houses,” said Yue, showing the reporter the email. “Every day the situation is different. It’s hard to tell,” Yue said, adding she would cancel the open house she had scheduled for Sunday.

The association sent the email to realtors across the province on Saturday asking them to stop the practice and instead use technology that facilitates remote interactions, even showings.

While the association represents agents and brokers, it doesn’t have the power to stop the practice.

“Only the Ontario Government or the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) has the ability to mandate an end to open houses,” said Jean-Adrien Delicano, a spokesperson for the provincial real estate association, in an email.

A notice about COVID-19 posted on RECO’s web site for agents and brokers says “you decide which services you are prepared to offer. If you decide to offer services involving open houses and showings, it is your duty to support your clients in making an informed choice about hosting or attending open houses and showings.”

It goes on to say that clients should know the risks and benefits, as well as the health advice of the area they live in and that everyone should practice social distancing. The council also pointed out alternative online and virtual marketing opportunities for sellers.

Yue was one of about 60 agents who posted open houses in Toronto this weekend, according to a search of the Realtor.ca site on Saturday morning.

By the afternoon, the function to list open houses had been removed by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.

The board also issued a “strong recommendation” to its 56,000 realtors members to stop conducting in-person open houses and said that while the current government health advisories are in effect, it will not suspend listings if a property is not available for showings or inspections.

“While we appreciate that this is the brokerage’s decision in consultation with your clients, we are recommending that this practice (of open houses) stop until further notice,” said TRREB president Michael Collins in an email.

The Oakville, Milton and District Real Estate Board was the first board to announce that is was suspending open houses on Friday night by eliminating the open house feature on listings.

“This has been an unprecedented time, and no one has ever had to suspend open houses before,” said board communication officer John Rich in an email.“There was no real protocol in place. Somebody just had to pull the trigger eventually and so that’s what we decided to do.”

“As of right now the function is still available but has not been used by any members, which shows they are complying with our suspension of open houses,” said Rich. “We expect it to be temporarily turned off soon by our service provider.”

The board isn’t in a position to police realtors however, said Rich. If realtors do hold open houses in the future they are “more likely to receive repercussions from their brokerage.”

They could also face public disdain.

Real estate agent Kendra Connelly posted a question to a Toronto community Facebook group on March 20 asking people how they felt about an agent hosting an open house during the pandemic and if it would change their mind about using agents in the future.

There were more than 250 comments and nearly all of them were opposed to open houses and had negative things to say about any agent who held one.

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“I rarely post,” said Connelly. “I really wanted the public’s opinion because we are in such unchartered territory. We are being pulled in so many directions — buyers needs, sellers needs, TRREB,” she says.

She was surprised to see new listings come on the market last week, with agents scheduling open houses and holding back offers until a certain date, a strategy used to elicit multiple offers.

“I want to know what the public thinks and think about agents,” said Connelly. “And I thought to myself, personally, we shouldn’t be doing open houses.”

Connelly has put them on hold and says most realtors she is in contact with feel the same way.

At the small studio condo shown by Yue on Saturday, three people came through before she got the email.

She said they wore protection, although she didn’t say what, and she provided hand sanitizer and cleaned the surfaces after people left.

At another open house on Carlaw St., the agent who opened the door to a Star reporter said that no one had come through and they would be closing early. She says her company called her that afternoon to say future open houses would be cancelled.

Tenants who are renting homes on the market are concerns about showings.

Rob Colquhoun said a realtor came to the house he rents in the Cliffcrest neighbourhood, in the area of Kingston Rd. on Friday. His two kids were sick and he and his wife, Liz, didn’t let the realtor in.

“We’re not letting people in our house at this time, as per WHO,” says Colquhoun, referring to the World Health Organization.

Colquhoun searched online for information about what his rights are as a tenant but couldn’t find any information that addressed the current situation.

“I assume I’m obligated to help facilitate the sale, or not get in the way in normal circumstances and normally, I’m quite happy to do that,” said Colquhoun. “But I also think I have the right to keep my family safe. I’d be blown away if that wasn’t a thing.”