The Competition Bureau's move to force the real estate industry to loosen its rules governing the multiple listing service will not bring to Canada the huge range of house-hunting tools available in the United States.
That's because the bureau's actions - if successful - are designed specifically to let sellers cheaply list their properties on MLS and avoid full-service commissions, not to broaden the availability of MLS data.
The bureau's challenge, to be heard by the quasi-judicial competition tribunal, addresses the Canadian Real Estate Association's (CREA) rules that force sellers to buy a full range of agents' services, and thus pay full commissions, if they list on MLS.
The bureau decided it would not push for further changes that would allow brokers or others to repackage MLS data with ancillary data, creating the kind of feature-rich websites that Americans have grown to love.
Currently, Canadian brokers cannot take MLS listings, enhance them with more information, and provide that to the public on a searchable website.
While the competition bureau has said in the past that it is interested in this issue, "it is not the focus of this particular case," Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken said on Monday.
So far the courts have supported CREA's view that it owns MLS data and can limit its use. In December, an Ontario judge ruled that a Toronto-based website had to shut down because its use of data violated the standard agreement between brokers and real estate boards.
CREA president Dale Ripplinger said yesterday that anyone is free to create these kinds of sites, but only if they use data from their own sources, not from MLS. That, however, would make it almost impossible to create a site with a full range of listings.
In the United States, however, a 2008 settlement between the Justice Department and the National Association of Realtors opened up the market to a wide range of value-added real estate sites. Internet-based agents were given access to the data in the 800 multiple listing services that were affiliated with the realtors association.
That allowed Internet services such as Redfin.com and Zillow.com to expand their sites, which now have a vast array of features, and provide à la carte alternatives to traditional commissioned agents.
On these sites home buyers can look at the value of homes surrounding the one that is for sale, check local crime statistics, look at test scores at neighbourhood schools, and check out the previous purchase price on the property.
Steve Neil, a Vancouver agent who runs HomeBuyAndSell.com, said he would like to offer those kinds of features on his Canadian site, and he's confident that eventually he will be able to. Currently, he can download MLS data to his website, but he cannot add other material to it, such as the prices of recently sold homes.
"The goal is to provide [clients] with all the information they could possibly dream of," he said.
The Competition Bureau's actions will not bring those features to Canada in the short term, Mr. Neil said, but eventually the industry will have to go further to match what is available in the United States.
