When the buyers become more knowledgeable than the Realtors, it’s time for our industry to make a change.

At present, if a buyer searches www.realtor.ca for a property in, say Brampton, Ont., the buyer is able to see all properties listed for sale in his price range in the specified neighbourhood. However, if a Realtor in Brampton searches the data provided by his real estate board, he may not see all the available properties.  It’s very embarrassing when the buyer updates the Realtor about new listings!

Why does this happen?  This occurs when a member of a different real estate board, for instance Guelph & District, lists a property in Brampton and places the listing on his home board.  It appears quite correctly mapped on www.realtor.ca, but does not appear on the Brampton MLS System, which is TREB.

We can argue all we want that the Realtor should interboard the listing, or that the Realtor should not take listings outside his own board, but we all hold the same real estate licence that entitles us to list anywhere in our home province. The problem is not with the individual Realtors, but with our real estate board system.

We are so busy guarding our individual territories, we have created a system in which the buyer may know more about available listings than the Realtor.

I suggest organized real estate (I mean CREA, which takes our money for dues every year) make a change and correct this inequity.  One of two changes will solve the problem. Either give access to all real estate boards in the province to all registered Realtors in the province or, more simply, create a new area of the Realtors’ section of www.realtor.ca that allows Realtors to search geographically for new listings.

This needs to be done immediately – before your client loses a perfect house because you did not know it was available.

Sharon Grant

Sales representative

Royal LePage RCR Realty

Shelburne, Ont.