Bill Johnston (photo by Geoff Parkins)
By Danny Kucharsky
An application by the Competition Bureau to stop what it calls “anti-competitive practices” by the Toronto Real Estate Board’s (TREB) is nothing but an attempt at headline-grabbing by bureau commissioner Melanie Aitken, says TREB president Bill Johnston.
In late May, the bureau filed an application with the Competition Tribunal alleging that TREB is denying real estate agents the ability to provide detailed and updated MLS listing information to consumers on the Internet, even though that information can be obtained by other means. The bureau says agents do not have the ability to set up password protected websites, known as Virtual Office Web sites (VOWs) that enable customers to search a full inventory of listings. “TREB’s leadership continues to impose anti-competitive restrictions on its members that deny consumer choice and stifle innovation,” Aitken says in a statement.
An inability to reach an agreement with TREB forced the bureau to seek a legally binding order from the Tribunal, Aitken says.
But Johnston says TREB anticipates it will have a VOW policy in place by the end of the summer that will lead to websites in Toronto, based on Zillow.com and Redfin.com in the U.S. Those house-hunting websites sites were created after a deal was struck in 2008 between the National Association of Realtors and the Department of Justice.
Johnston says there has not been much member demand for VOWs, “so it will turn out to be a very, very small issue at the end of the day as it has in the U.S.” He says only few members will want to create a VOW.
But demand is high for the type of real estate information supplied by Viewpoint.ca in Nova Scotia, says site founder Bill McMullin.
He says the consumer response for the site, which updates all MLS listings in Nova Scotia by the minute, “has been almost overwhelming.” The site obtains MLS data from the province’s two boards, the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors and the Annapolis Valley Real Estate Board. It has served more than a million visitors since January 2010 and has had 280,000 unique visitors who have viewed 27.5 million pages of property data.
McMullin says it is supposed to be members who decide how they deliver information to their clients, and that the Competition Bureau does not like board restrictions that limit what data brokers can or can not provide.
The existence of Viewpoint.ca has made things easier for agents in Nova Scotia and has not affected the way real estate trades in the province, McMullin says. “There’s still a growing number of Realtors, the buyers and sellers keep doing their thing, and I think the market operates more efficiently. I’m not sure what there is to be afraid of.”
He says most agents now recognize that it’s inevitable that the Internet delivers information, while “consumers much prefer to get basic facts through a self-service interface than they would through a human contact.”
Johnston, however, begs to differ. “In my view, it’s still a person-to-person business, and always will be. The way you build trusted relationships as professionals is not through a computer, but face-to-face. I think there will be very little uptake on this. It’s an overblown, non-issue for the vast majority of members.”
Bill McMullin
McMullin, meanwhile, is forging ahead to bring the Viewpoint.ca model to other provinces, but has been met with resistance by most real estate boards he has approached. “We typically don’t see boards quickly embrace the concept,” says McMullin, who is licensed in Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and expects to be licensed shortly in Ontario.
For example, boards in Moncton and Edmonton have refused to provide Viewpoint.ca with “efficient access” to MLS data, he says. He believes the bureau sees such restrictions as anti-competitive.
“If I can’t operate a legitimate business under my chosen business model as a licensed brokerage, I think that’s a symptom of a serious problem. TREB is obviously a popular target because of their size, but they’re not alone,” says McMullin, who also hopes to bring Viewpoint.ca to Toronto.
Johnston expects TREB’s VOW policy will be approved by the end of August after TREB members are given a minimum 60 days to provide input on the MLS rule changes recommended by the task force.
He says the VOW that Toronto ends up with will not be exactly the same as what has been seen in the U.S. because more stringent privacy laws here will require more checks and balances. Still, “it should meet anyone’s reasonable expectations.”
He says TREB had been close to making a deal with the bureau.
“Just as it seemed we had come to a mutually satisfactory agreement, the commissioner chose to launch her application. In my view, she’s simply grabbing headlines and trying to build her own career at taxpayer expense and is being totally unreasonable with us. We’re not prepared to put up with it.”
Richard Silver, who becomes TREB president in July, wrote on his blog that he has seldom worked as hard on a deal. “However, since the start of negotiations, I doubt there was a deal to be made. I don’t think that the Competition Commissioner ever had any intention of an agreement.”
Johnston adds that a TREB task force has been working on its VOW policy for almost a year and denies allegations by Aitken that the board is moving too slowly.
“We’re doing it in an orderly manner in accordance with our rules and bylaws and we’re not interested in being pushed around by some woman in Ottawa who is trying to build her own career at our expense. And you can quote me on all of that.”
Adds Johnston: “The commissioner wants a fight, she’ll have a fight. And she’ll look like an idiot by the time the Tribunal hearing comes along because we’ll have a policy in place and that is simply a given.”
