BY DON LAWBY
It's been more than four years since the CREA Conference in Quebec City where I first called on organized real estate to deal with issues that I felt were important to our future.
Since that time, Century 21 Canada and other national real estate companies associated with us and represented as the Industry Leaders Group have, in my mind, patiently followed a course of trying to convince organized real estate of our point of view.
We have gone out of our way to be non‑confrontational and have provided research that shows a ground swell of support of our point of view throughout the industry. Unfortunately, this approach has not achieved our goal. It is now time to reassess our position. As customers of real estate boards, our associates have a right to demand a service that suits them. The boards have an obligation to provide that service, or their customers will make way for someone else who will.
CREA and the large boards know what we believe is needed ‑ a technologically advanced central database of national real estate listings that is easily accessible on the Internet and reasonably priced. The current MLS systems don't meet this need. The system is fragmented between boards, the technology in most cases is outdated, and the boards are wasting money on simultaneous investigation and/or development of new MLS systems.
There was a time when real estate boards produced printed listing catalogues and it was common policy that these catalogues were not to be made available to the consumer. Realtors generally allowed their customer to study the catalogues, but only after they developed a business relationship with them.
Now there are boards that are selling your listing and sales data to companies, organizations and government agencies without the permission of the responsible broker who originally provided the information. This is tantamount to the boards selling printed catalogues to third parties for general distribution to the public. These third parties often make the data available directly to consumers on the web. They don't pay for your listing data, nor have they received authorization from you to use it. Nevertheless, they use it to generate revenue for themselves.
This practice also undermines your business and your relationship with your customers. For example, some boards are providing your data directly to consumer real estate sites such as Homestore.com, Homeseekers.com, Homeadvisor.com and even mls.ca. In my mind, this is inappropriate. Real estate boards were structured to assist with the sharing of data among Realtors, not with other companies or with consumers; at least not without your prior approval.
We are not opposed to consumer oriented sites, but the decision on the use of the data should rest directly with the responsible broker, not with real estate boards, or for that matter, with franchise companies like us.
We estimate that the annual revenue generated from fees and dues by organized real estate is approximately $65 million, and we believe that you are not getting anywhere near good value for your money. There is absolutely no reason why the boards’ revenue should exceed the cost of providing the service that you, the members and customers, want and need.
The industry can no longer afford the cost of bureaucracy of organized real estate. It is time for a business-like approach to deal with these issues.
On our proposed national MLS system, information would be accessible only to companies and organizations approved by the responsible broker. After all, this information belongs to you, the responsible broker, and should not be used by boards to profit at your expense.
Boards and associations and/or Canadian real estate organizations and companies should own the national MLS system. Brokers should have the right and the obligation to control the listing data.
There is one other issue that concerns me. Some boards are currently advertising themselves and their services in a variety of media such as newspapers and bus signs, and are using your fees and dues to do so. The promotion of listings and web sites is the responsibility of Realtors and real estate companies, not the boards. In my opinion, real estate boards and associations should remain separate from the transaction and not be involved.
So this is where we corporately stand at Century 21 Canada. We are concerned about our industry’s future. For big and small companies, branded or not, we need to find a way to work together to best serve all of our interests.
We hope the issues can be resolved amicably with the co-operation of organized real estate. We strongly believe that this can be done by the larger boards getting together to collectively build a business plan that includes the creation of a technologically advanced central and national listing database.
I have heard it said on numerous occasions that the Industry Leaders Group’s shared interest in convincing organized real estate of our point of view is at the expense of independent or non-branded companies and their salespeople. I am at a loss as to how I could knowingly agree to something that would positively impact on one of my major competitors, yet have an adverse effect on the industry as a whole. I have always maintained that individuals and companies have the choice of being associated with a franchise organization. On the other hand, it is virtually impossible to practice the selling of residential real estate in this country without being a member of a local real estate board.
Contrary to some opinion, I do not believe that real estate boards were created to “level the playing field” for all salespeople or companies in this industry. It makes no sense to me that someone would want a member of an organization (independent or franchised) to financially support, via fees and dues, the advertising of a consumer web site, be it the Vancouver Real Estate Board web site, mls.ca or any other web site, because it directly diverts business away from them.
I continue to strongly support organized real estate but, at the same time, my true interest is for a strong industry where we can all prosper.
Don Lawby is president and chief operating officer, Century 21 Canada Ltd.
