REM Editorial Team

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“You cannot fix Canada’s housing crisis by denying millions of hardworking families the choice of how to sell their home and by pitting homeowners against buyers. In fact, this plan would have the opposite effect – negatively impacting Canada’s housing market and making home ownership even more unaffordable,” says David Oikle, president of OREA, in a statement.

“Open auctions are the norm in Australia and New Zealand, where sellers overwhelmingly choose to use an open process. Auction fever creates a three-ring circus on front lawns, as hopeful buyers crowd in front of a home with a live auctioneer, or online, and the bidding begins. Far from making homes more affordable, auctions can drive prices higher, and dangerously push buyers to make rushed decisions involving tens of thousands of dollars in just minutes,” says OREA.

The Liberal Housing Plan includes creating a “Home Buyers Bill of Rights” that would ensure “the process of buying a home is fair, open and transparent. It would include banning blind bidding, which prevents bidders from knowing the bids of other prospective buyers; establishing a legal right to a home inspection; “ensuring total transparency on the history of recent house sale prices on title searches;” and “requiring real estate agents to disclose to all participants in a transaction when they are involved in both sides of a potential sale.”

Kevin Crigger, president of the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, says in a statement that “consumer choice and consumer privacy should be paramount in shaping government policy. Federal public policy should recognize the right that consumers have to privacy and should allow them to consent to the disclosure of personal information, instead of penalizing home buyers and sellers. Punishing home buyers and sellers for wanting to keep their financial decisions private for the largest transaction of their lives is a substantial overreach of the government.”

But Toronto real estate broker Philip Kocev of iPro Realty says, “In my view, OREA and TRREB’s approach has been an irresponsible and narrow-minded response to a very real consumer concern….Offer transparency can be simple. In Ontario, we can utilize our current regulated offer process – with tweaks to allow Realtors to be able to communicate what the top offer is to the seller – which may include price or other terms (price is not always the leading factor for a seller). All participants would know what the leading offer is (versus the current system where they need to guess) and be given an opportunity to improve their offer or walk away.

“OREA and TRREB keep saying that with transparency buyers lose confidentiality. That is simply not true. The identity of the buyer or any of their personal information would never be disclosed. Only the terms of the leading offer would be,” he says.

“At the end of the day, transparency alone won’t solve Canada’s housing affordability crisis or stop price growth. There will still be disappointed buyers and there will still only be one successful buyer, but buyers won’t feel like it was a rigged game, were not given an opportunity to bid again or weren’t even in the running and their offer was just being used to scare other bidders into paying more,” says Kocev.

The complete Liberal Housing Plan is here.

CREA’s election page with the association’s policy recommendations and links to all the party’s platforms is here.

REM Editorial Team

realestatemagazine.ca

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Most Southern Ontario Realtors seem to agree that having one MLS system serving all boards would be an ideal situation. Members would pay just one membership fee to their local board – no need for dual memberships, buying subscriptions to other boards’ systems or interboard listings.

But when it comes to how this single system would be administered, there’s a sharp divide between TRREB and just about everyone else. In April, Information Technology Systems Ontario, which provides MLS listing content for 21 member boards and has a sharing agreement six other boards, sent an open letter to TRREB, asking it to share its data.

More recently, TRREB ended a data swap arrangement with the Oakville, Milton and District Real Estate Board. That board is currently considering what MLS service provider it will use, with a decision expected by the end of August. Joining TRREB as a partner board is one of the options that OMDREB is considering, but the board was unhappy with the way TRREB described the end of the data swap agreement to members.

An irritant for members of boards near Toronto is when TRREB members list out-of-town properties on TRREB’s MLS but not on the local board’s system. Recently a petition was launched by Blue Mountain area Realtors, asking CREA to make it mandatory to list homes on the board where the property is located.

“TRREB’s membership works across the province, as they are licensed to do. I think a cohesive MLS system, especially with the contiguous market, really makes a lot of sense,” says Crigger.

TRREB runs the largest MLS in the country, with more than 60,000 users. “I think TRREB offers an incredible opportunity for boards across the province to benefit from the extensive staffing and the massive investments in technology” that TRREB is putting into its MLS system, he says. “We have an incredible amount of experience and we have drafted and continued to update our rules on a regular basis. And that work is done by a dedicated group of volunteers who then make recommendations to our Board of Directors. The approach is very grassroots.

“At the end of the day, there’s one member paying membership dues,” says Crigger. “Our goal is always to look at how we provide that member with the highest possible value for the money spent.”

TRREB has had partner board arrangements with the Durham Region Association of Realtors and the Brampton Real Estate Board for more than 20 years, and recently the Northumberland Hills Association of Realtors also joined. The agreement allows members of all these boards to have full access to all listings on the board, under one set of rules and bylaws.

TRREB has made presentations to a number of other boards to become partner boards, and some of these discussions are ongoing. However, some boards are unwilling to give up control of their local MLS system, and TRREB has been accused of being inflexible when it comes to adapting its MLS rules to accommodate other boards’ needs.

The rules are all “with the intent of ensuring the integrity and security of data,” says Crigger. “But you know, if the system didn’t work and the system wasn’t effective, would we have the volume of active members on a daily basis that we do?

“I think there’s a lot of fear-mongering among some boards,” says Crigger. “They’ve created a false narrative and have been very attacking in their approach. And the reality is, we’ve never worked with them. They have no understanding of what our partnership board approach is.” He says the boards that have partnered with TRREB “have happily continued their relationship for greater than two decades. I’d ask these other boards where they have a 20-year relationship approach with any of their local associations.”

Crigger says that with a partnership, it’s the local boards that have the most to gain. For example, he says OMDREB currently has more than 700 dual members. If they became a partner board with TRREB they would no longer need to be members of TRREB. “So we would likely lose 700 members in the process. But in the interest of efficiency and providing the highest level of value to Realtor colleagues, we’re not concerned about that loss of membership because they are getting better value. They are not paying two sets of fees.”

Crigger says TRREB has no interest in having local boards fold or amalgamate.  “We really see the value in local grassroots representation. I think having boots on the ground for political advocacy, for community engagement is incredibly important. That local touch and local governance is incredibly important.”

He says partnering with TRREB offers local boards “the best of both worlds” because they don’t need to worry about their own MLS system.

“We’re not creating added layers of bureaucracy, additional costs to membership, additional levels of complication. If you look at Durham, I don’t think they function any differently than Oakville, for example. The only difference is that their MLS provider is TRREB, as opposed to a third party.”
He says the board is hoping to roll out some aspects of the new MLS system this fall. The system is described as a “modern, mobile-first new national front-end multi-list platform that merges land registry and MLS data”.  A preview of the system and FAQ section is available here.

Jim Adair

Jim Adair is the Managing Editor of REM Real Estate Magazine. Contact Jim by email.

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Its mandate: “To examine how to strengthen equality and inclusion and recommend to the Board of Directors ways to better serve and represent the various demographics that make up TRREB. The task force will put forward recommendations and action plans to foster and support a more collaborative, equal and inclusive industry and work environment.”

The members of the new task force are Kate Young, Task Force chair and member, TRREB Board of Directors;  Jennifer Pearce, Task Force vice-chair and member, TRREB Board of Directors; Justin Bock; Colin Andrew Campbell; Kevin Crigger, TRREB president-elect; Soroya Dempsey; Karlo Francisco; Wasim Jarrah, member, TRREB Board of Directors; Mona Mavi, president, Brampton Real Estate Board; Lisa Patel, TRREB president; Geeta Rajpal;  Ingrid Rojas; Daljit Singh; Asha Singh; Mark Steele; Mia That; Leilani Villar-Cisneros; Charlene Williams; and TREEB staff members Ticha Musiyiwa, executive assistant to the CEO, and Von Palmer, chief communications and government affairs officer.

In a statement, the board says, “We care about diversity and inclusion. Over the years we have reflected this at TRREB, including at the leadership and senior management levels. TRREB is determined to continue to improve on this, where we can influence in our industry. Racism against any group is unacceptable.”

REM Editorial Team

realestatemagazine.ca

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