Canada to open up real estate listings?
Moving with typical Canadian speed, the country’s Competition Bureau is “shocked, shocked I tell you” to find the national Multiple Listing Service may be anti-competitive. It has apparently reached a (no doubt gentlemanly) tentative settlement with the Canadian Real Estate Association, which commands 5 and 6 per cent commissions on virtually all resale transactiions. As reported in The Toronto Star, the settlement may allow property information to finally become more freely available online, as in civilized countries. This a full seven years after the Toronto Real Estate Board paid $700,000 to settle with the same discount brokers currently suing both TREB and CREA for $100 million.

