Changes irk Real Estate Agents

Changes irk real estate agents

By JENNY YUEN, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: March 23, 2010 12:19am

TORONTO ­-- New changes to the Multiple Listing Service, a Canadian Real Estate Association system that allows home sellers to widely advertise their properties online, will cause great headaches to both buyers and sellers, said a Toronto real estate client co-ordinator.

The changes, which were adopted Monday by representatives of 300 real estate boards across Canada, make it possible for homeowners to pay a one-time fee to list a property on the MLS and have prospective buyers contact them directly by phone ‹ potentially saving money by cutting out the middleman.

"You can advertise on MLS but you still have to show the house and write the offer and do all that stuff," Neil Harris, previously a real estate agent with 10 years' experience in Mexico and Toronto, said Monday night.

"The lawyers will like it because they'll have a lot of lawsuits. People will learn very quickly that private sales is not the road to go." Harris used an example of a private seller unknowingly telling a buyer that they could build a second storey to the home when city bylaws wouldn't allow such construction.

"They don't know the legalities," Harris said.

Thomas Cook, a Re/MAX agent with 30 years of experience, said that the amendments are insulting to to agents.

"Imagine, you want to sell your car so you go to the local car dealer and say you want to sell your car on your lot and put a for sale sign on it and not pay anything for it. What do you think they'll say? No," he said.

"That's exactly what the Competition Bureau is saying here." North America has one of the smoothest real estate systems in the world because of MLS, Cook said.

"You go to Europe and there aren't any countries that have an MLS system and it's extremely chaotic," he said.