REAL ESTATE REPORTER
There's little doubt the real estate industry in Canada is changing. The real question is who gets to drive the change - Canada's Competition Bureau or the Canadian Real Estate Association.
The regulator has had the trade association in its sights for three years, after the association tightened its rules around how consumers and real estate agents interact on the Multiple Listing Service.
The rules state that an agent must be used throughout the entire process when selling a house on the association's trademarked database, no small thing considering that it's through MLS that an estimated 90 per cent of all sales in Canada take place. Last year more than 450,000 homes changed hands via MLS, generating billions of dollars in commissions for the association's members.
Knowing the Bureau was losing patience, CREA's president Dale Ripplinger presented the commissioner a list of amendments last week that it felt went far enough to eliminate any concerns about monopolistic behaviour. The key change said consumers would be able to pay an agent to place a listing on the MLS, and then do their own thing the rest of the way. That means they could market their own properties, run their own open houses and negotiate their own sales terms.
More importantly, it would mean they'd be able to sidestep commissions and pay for services as they are needed.
CREA thought it went far enough, but the Competition Bureau escalated the case to the Competition Tribunal only days later, starting a legal process that could force changes regardless of CREA's objections.
The key reason? The clause contained language that still gave local real estate boards the ability to set their own rules, which could arguably render the whole amendment nothing more than a public relations exercise. What's more, CREA won't change its rules unless all of its members agree at a vote to be held in March.
The vote will go ahead next month, and the changes may just be enough to head off a fight at the Competition Tribunal. But if CREA insists on inserting clauses that give it wiggle room when setting the rules for housing sales via the MLS, chances are the Competition Bureau will be content to let the Competition Tribunal sort things out.
