15 | durhamregion.com | This Week | Thursday, October 27, 2022 | Below are the unofficial election results from the Oct. 24 municipal election. For more election-night coverage, go to durhamregion.com. AJAX Mayor: Shaun Collier Ward 1 Regional Councillor: Marilyn Crawford Ward 1 Local Councillor: Rob Tyler-Morin Ward 2 Regional Councillor: Sterling Lee Ward 2 Local Councillor: Nancy Henry Ward 3 Regional Councillor: Joanne Dies Ward 3 Local Councillor: Lisa Bowers CLARINGTON Mayor: Adrian Foster Wards 1 and 2 Regional: Granville Anderson Wards 3 and 4 Regional: Willie Woo (acclaimed) Ward 1 Councillor: SamiElhajjeh Ward 2 Councillor:Lloyd Rang Ward 3 Councillor: Corinna Traill Ward 4 Councillor: Margaret Zwart DURHAM REGION Chair: John Henry OSHAWA Mayor: Dan Carter Ward 1 Regional Councillor: John Neal Ward 1 City Councillor: Rosemary McConkey Ward 2 Regional Councillor: Tito-Dante Marimpietri Ward 2 City Councillor: Jim Lee Ward 3 Regional Councillor: Bob Chapman Ward 3 City Councillor:Bradley Marks Ward 4 Regional Councillor: Rick Kerr Ward 4 City Councillor: Derek Giberson Ward 5 Regional Councillor: Brian Charles Nicholson Ward 5 City Councillor: John Gray PICKERING Mayor: Kevin Ashe Ward 1 Regional Councillor: Maurice Brenner Ward 1 City Councillor: Lisa Robinson Ward 2 Regional Councillor: Linda Cook Ward 2 City Councillor: Mara Nagy Ward 3 Regional Councillor: David Pickles Ward 3 City Councillor: Shaheen Butt WHITBY Mayor: Elizabeth Roy North Ward 1: Steve Lee (acclaimed) West Ward 2: Matt Cardwell Centre Ward 3: Niki Lundquist East Ward: 4 Victoria Bozinovski Regional Councillor: Rhonda Mulcahy Regional Councillor: Chris Leahy Regional Councillor: Steve Yamada Regional Councillor: Maleeha Shahid ELECTION NIGHT RESULTS FROM ACROSS DURHAM MUNICIPAL ELECTION Left: Elizabeth Roy, right, hugs a supporter after she was elected the new Whitby mayor. Right: Ajax Ward 1 Local Councillor Rob Tyler-Morin and Ward 1 Regional Councillor Marilyn Crawford were jubilant as they were re-elected. Jason Liebregts/Metroland Susie Kockerscheidt/Metroland I received a message through my office a few months ago about a woman who was touring open houses and was caught stealing. What she did was mentioned she had been through an open house where the showing agent acted in a "creepy" way and asked the agent if she could tour on her own. Are open houses a good marketing tool to help sell a home? Are they safe for either the agent or the homeowners' belongings? These questions get asked regularly when I am chatting with sellers looking to sell their properties. Let's first look at open houses as a marketing tool. The statistic that was around for decades was that homes sold to a buyer who was introduced through an open house was around one per cent. This meant, the answer was they were not a good technique. Then we entered a market with low inventory and an influx of buyers coming from the west side of Toronto. Open houses started to become a very effective technique in introducing buyers to properties. I have found in many cases a buyer will make their way out of Mississauga or Brampton on the weekend, tour an open house and then return with their agent to book a personal showing before buying the home. On a side note, I have met the same people touring open houses year after year who tour them as a hobby and are not really looking to move. In the end, you get a combination of "tire kickers," people starting their home search and qualified buyers looking to move in the next few months. My experience is that in today's market, they are an effective tool. On the topic of safety, I can say that in the past 37 years of selling homes in Durham Region, I have never had a single item taken during either an open house or an agent showing. The way of protecting the homeowner, and agent is to ask that the buyer sign in with their name and contact information, or, in some cases, to show a piece of identification that is recorded. I even know agents who go as far as taking photos of the buyer's licence plate. Inviting strangers into a home that you do not own is a huge responsibility that I have never taken lightly. As for safety, every few years you hear a story, (mostly from the U.S.) of an agent who is assaulted or in some instances murdered at open houses, however these are very rare occurrences. I have been to safety workshops led by Durham Regional Police sharing how female (and some male) agents can use best practices to protect themselves during the course of their work. Again, inviting strangers into your home allows us, the real estate agents, to demand certain things to protect ourselves, our sellers' properties and our co-workers. Such measures include instructing the seller to hide any items of value, recording contact information of all attendees, staying with people as they tour the property and having people wait outside when there is a large volume of touring buyers. Fingers crossed, my future sellers have the same results: homes sold and no items that go astray. Lindsay Smith is with Keller Williams Energy and has been a Durham real estate broker for 36 years. He can be reached at lindsay@buyselllove.ca. ARE OPEN HOUSES A GOOD MARKETING TOOL? OPINION LINDSAY SMITH CONSIDERS THE SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS FOR SELLERS LINDSAY SMITH Column