Canadian Listings Regulations Under Fire

By julieK, 30th Sep 2010 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/1jzf0tp6/
Posted in Wikinut>Business>Business Opportunities

Canadian MLS listings system will no more be solely in hands of realtors, but probably will open to broad public.

MLS and Regulations: Survey

A poll says Canadian housing agents are not in favour of a self-governing market. Many of 1,726 real estate specialists polled by Royal LePage Real Estate Services say the proposed changes to MLS represent a wrong way to improve the real estate industry.

The debate concerns mostly the extent, to which the MLS listings should be administered only by accredited professionals. Over three quarters of those who expressed their thoughts, were worried that by not regulating listings, the service and safeguards to customers could fall dramatically. The housing market is already highly competitive according to most agents, with less than 2% saying there was no competition, within the housing brokerage environment.

Another part to the survey looked at what services housing professionals provided to the buyers and sellers. The top three things when advising a client on a transaction were ranked as shown: Supplying a full brokerage service, avoiding preventable delays and looking after the consumer's financial welfare. Barely 0.6% of polled professionals said, they never helped a client avoid financial or transactional mistakes. Slightly more than half of those polled helped clients very often, with just over 37% saying they helped often. This poll showed agents are out there when it comes to marketing. Toronto MLS, open house, local advertising and own websites were frequently used by more than three quarters of of those surveyed.

Lastly, the question about experience and continued education reported that agents have been members of Royal LePage for 15.5 years on average and almost 90% of them participate on formal conferences, seminars or courses one to four times a year.

This survey was Internet based in April 2010, the full results can be found on the Royal LePage Real Estate Advisors website.