Interesting Globe and Mail article on the back-and-forth between Canadian consumers and residential realtors. The standoff continues, as the Federal Competition Bureau is ready to keep battling realtors on what consumers should and shouldn’t be entitled to when it comes to buying and selling homes.
On the one-hand, realtors say they’re not doing anything to prevent open competition in the market. On the other, consumers are pushing the national competition watchdog to allow for concessions when it comes to what’s paid and what’s included in a residential listing – both by the realtor and by the seller.
Have a read and see what you think. When the feds do eventually provide a final ruling on this ongoing issue, it will certainly change the real estate business if the judgment caters to the supposed plight of the consumer.
What do you think? Who’s side are you on?
Comments
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By Pjrowbot, April 12, 2010 @ 7:00 pm
Nice use of the word “supposed”…it’s a rip off and you know it. The rates for real estate agents were never intended for the age of $500,000 average house prices.
Commission rates as in everything in a free market are determined by the market. As home prices rose, obviously people in the market were prepared to pay the rates or they would have fallen long ago. the competition board states that 93% of sales happen through a Realtor and MLS. If enough people did not like the rates or the service provided they would have flocked quicker to other alternatives ie For Sale by owner sites. The irony in the competition board making MLS public is actually anti-competitive. How would you like it if you created a product and supported it with millions of dollars of marketing etc. and then the government forced you to let your competitors have it? Government intervention in free markets is always bad.
By Pjrowbot, May 11, 2010 @ 6:40 pm
You use the words ‘free market’ as if this is actually what is happening in real estate. MLS is a monopoloy on information. How can consumers go elsewhere if they don’t have the information.? Government intervention is always bad? I assume then that you think that we should be making money off the sick like in the US then? So it would be ok if Telus bought all the other phone companies and charged $1000 a month for telephone use? Where did you get your economics degree from? For most people this isn’t just some ‘investment’ like its a mutual fund or something. It’s they’re home! If you ask someone what they do for a living and they say “I take money from people” then they are probably just making money screwing people. MLS is simply a way for real estate firms to gather together to fix the market. If you had lower rates you weren’t allowed on MLS…there’s absolutely nothing free about it.
By www.canadianmortgageadvisor.com, July 16, 2010 @ 3:23 am
Very nicely written.
Thanks
By Yves Hypotheque Prevost, October 5, 2010 @ 3:06 am
It’s probably unfair for the government to impose public access to the mls but if the platform does not change, MLS is so poorly configured for the end-user, it makes searching for a home a pain in the butt.Realtor access allows for more fluid searches and makes it much easier to find the perfect property using more specfic search fields… If there is no change to the public interface, it won’t make much of a difference if the public has access. On the plus side, the better realtors will have to offer better services for the money, professionnal photos, good ad copywriting and better structure. the public wins either way, you sell yourself or you get better service. Besides, having access to an hammer doesn’t make anyone a carpenter, it will probably work out the same with mls.