Dated Real Estate Industry Still Hoarding Information Like It’s The 90’s
The often debated question; should access to sales data be made available to the public? Living in a social media world I talk to hundreds of people every day and they all want the same thing, access to sold listings. It baffles me that this data is still not available to the public. It’s 2016, we are living in the information age. You can literally google anything and get the answer (except for Canadian Real Estate sold data). The one exception, a Toronto brokerage called ‘Just Sold on MLS’ has been providing the public with sales data. As of yesterday they have temporarily shut down due to legal disputes with the Toronto Real Estate Board. You can read that article here.
But how does it even get to that point?
I’m going to share some conversations I had on Twitter with REBGV President Dan Morrison. This is not to vilify Dan, it’s to show you the counter arguments and the misconceptions around sharing data. I actually want to thank Dan for his efforts with REBGV and commend him for taking a rather thankless role. The first counter argument from the Real Estate Board when asked why they don’t share the data is “hey we built this, we invested the money, if you want it ask your Realtor”. This begs the question, is a Realtors value proposition known as ‘the gatekeeper of data’? The sad truth is the Real Estate industry has lost much of it’s trust amongst the public. Unfortunately, mostly due to a few bad Realtors ruining it for everyone. Stories of shadow flipping, and brokerages encouraging agents to deceive their clients. How many people could have avoided being ripped off if they had access to the data? The boards other counter argument is sales price can’t be released until the sale completes in order to protect the sellers interest.
The Success of Zillow
All we have to do is look to the United States to see current real estate models which are working, such as Zillow. Zillow publishes sold data with no known issues. But Zillow never should have been invented. An unwillingness to innovate from the National Association of Realtors led to a lawsuit from the US Department of Justice. The Department said that NAR’s policy prevents consumers from receiving the full benefits of competition and threatens to lock in outmoded business models and discourage discounting through innovative services. Sound familiar? You can read the full lawsuit here. I truly believe the Vancouver real estate board is stuck in total fear mode. A misconception that by releasing precious data it will diminish the role of the Realtor.