MLS wins, Canadian consumers lose in court
A real estate broker has lost his case against the Toronto Real Estate Board, leaving the board — temporarily at least — with its stranglehold on resale listings. As reported in The Globe and Mail, Fraser Beach (and by extension BCE Inc.’s short-lived realestateplus.ca) broke the club rules in 2007 when they downloaded MLS listings and republished them online. However, the Ontario Superior Court judge was clear that his decision does not address whether the MLS rules breach Canadian competition laws. A decision on that issue may yet, after all these years, be forthcoming from the federal competition bureau if it can’t reach an agreement with the Canadian Real Estate Association.
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.
