Flat Fee Vancouver Real Estate

For the past three years, Ottawa real estate agent Joe William has been offering his service to post a person's home on Multiple Listings Service for $109. So what does a seller get for $109? William would post their home on MLS and let the owner handle the rest of the details such as price negotiations and showings. So far, he has more than 60 homes listed on MLS.

Although the practice is frowned on by the Canadian Real Estate Association, no disciplinary action has been pressed by the board based on their "sketchy" rules. The CREA is using William as an example of various business models that exist in Canada's real estate as their dispute with Canada's Competition Bureau continue. The ompetition Bureau is trying to force the association to offer open access and other options to MLS buyers and sellers.

Would this change Vancouver's real estate scene? As one of Canada's major housing markets, Metro Vancouver has seen the steepest increase in home prices in the first quarter of the year compared to the same time last year reports the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

Instead of using the traditional high commission-based business structure, one realtor in Surrey has already tried to capitalize on CREA's relaxed rules to MLS with the opening of One Flat Fee. Mayur Arora would list the seller's property on MLS, his website and various free sites for a fee of $649. He's hoping his business model would be a cheaper alternative on the seller's side for advertising properties and perhaps, additional realtor services can be purchased as customers would be more willing to pay for them if they are not paying out high commissions to realtors.

Tsur Somerville, director of urban economics and real estate at UBC's Sauder School of Business, believes the new rule amendments would open up more choice to customers. He added that if we learned anything from our American neighbours who have opened up their MLS to consumers, full service realtors would not go extinct. The realtor who has the ability to quickly adapt to change and who continues to build their relationships would always be in demand.