As you have probably heard over the last months CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) has been in negotiations with the federal competition bureau. Well today, they came to a tentative agreement. The new agreement will allow sellers to list their property on the MLS service for a fee (instead of a set commission) and to carry out the sale on their own without the help of a Realtor.
So what exactly does this mean? Well, we aren’t too sure at this point how the details will work out but from what I understand a seller can pay a fee up front to the Realtor to list their property on the MLS. From here, the seller can choose to either pay the Realtor to market the property, organize showings, negotiate offers (just to name a few) or the seller can choose to do these tasks on their own without the help of the Realtor.
My (seemingly biased) opinion? I think this is a recipe for disaster. This change is really going to make the whole real estate industry unprofessional. There are so many unanswered questions not only about how the process would work but also about loyalty, ethics and liabilities. As Realtors we abide by many rules and regulations and by introducing this option for the public to possibly schedule appointments and handle their own offers it really changes the game.
People forget real estate is a professional industry and as soon as we open up our MLS system (a system that was created by Real Estate boards for Realtors) to the public we are going to have a ton of problems and law suits on our hands. We aren’t talking about selling Girl Guide cookies here, we are dealing with legally binding documents and large sums of money. If sellers believe they can become a Realtor overnight, then by all means go for it!
I could go on forever on this topic, but Ill stop here. Yes, there are terrible Realtors out there, but there are also many respectable ones too. Just like in an industry, you can’t let a few bad apples ruin the whole batch. Hopefully some sort of middle ground will be met that works for both Realtor and Sellers. I love my job and I hope that people realize the value of our expertise and knowledge of the industry.
Your Comments and Opinions?
A simple solution would be to have the commissions cut to say 3%…. this is more fair for the homeseller. I think 5 or 6 % is a bit rich and its time it ended