Opponents of Canadian Real Estate Association’s new rules restricting the use of unlisted, so-called ‘exclusive’ home sales are charging that the move is anti-competitive
On Jan. 3, CREA brought in rules that sellers of properties marketed as 'exclusive' – also known as 'pocket' listings – must add those properties to the Multiple Listing Service within three days or face sanctions.Opponents of the Canadian Real Estate Association’s new rules restricting the use of unlisted, so-called “exclusive” home sales are charging that the move is anti-competitive.
Mr. Syme was for six years the general counsel to the commissioner of competition at the Competition Bureau, spending 20 years inside the federal agency before opening his own competition law firm in 2019. “If you look at the Competition Act, section 1.1 says the goal is to enable competition to allow for greater product choice. This is literally thwarting that.”
CREA’s policy also limits the use of “Coming Soon” signs posted on or near a home, applying the same three-day requirement to post a listing on MLS after a sign is planted. These three-day rules apply to all regional real estate boards in Canada. Provincially licensed realtors are not required to be members of regional real estate boards, but without membership they cannot access the MLS system that is critical to the buying and selling of residential real estate across the country.
“Because I deal with a lot of affluent sellers, at least 50 per cent of the time we had people saying: ‘We don’t want looky-loos’”, Mr. Halloran said. However, he believes it’s still possible to sell homes with exclusives, it just requires more legwork and getting creative with tools such as a listing website only accessible by a single-use password.
Mr. Syme notes that many times in the past competition authorities have raised issues with the way real estate boards have wielded control over member’s businesses.
The Listing Noastack Crea Competition Estate Part Brokerpocket CREA Listing Mls Federal Court Of Appeal MLS Canada
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