01 Dec 2017
REALTORs® Can Now Publish Sold Prices Publicly
Perhaps now the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) can stop wasting our money fighting this losing battle. Here’s some history before we dig into the “now”
In The Beginning…
This sad sad tale begins with a man named Lawrence Dale who had a passion for open data and of course making money. He saw an opportunity to provide consumers with what they wanted all while helping him grow his “fee for service” basic real estate brokerage. Like most pioneers he fought a hard battle but ultimately failed in gaining any traction. Realtors hated him, he lost, Realtors rejoiced. “Yay we get to keep our data” etc…
Some Traction…
A normal business would sit down and ask themselves: “Hey, what do our customers want” and then find a way to deliver on that “need”.
Well, that’s what a normal, successful business would do anyway. TREB decided to go another direction. They sat down and said: “Hey screw what the people want, let’s do what we want!”. TREB dug in their heels..with a NRA’esque “cold dead hands” commitment and said: “NO! Get your own Data! We pay for this, we’re going to keep this no matter how anti-competitive it seems!”
Hey Bro, wanna go?
Well, after TREB spent millions (actually I don’t know the real number and am scared to find out) fighting the Competition Bureau the case was tossed out sometime in 2014. The case was re-opened later that year. We sort of forgot aka didn’t give a shit about what was happening with the case anymore because we continued to send out Sold Data emails to customers from time to time. We did what we felt was right. That was right. What is right. What will always be right. We listened to the customer. You can google may name (Ara Mamourian) and “sold data” or “sold prices” and you’ll find the CBC, Globe, National Post and every other article that mentioned me there. Too many links to post here.
TREB Down For The Count?
In 2016 the Competition Bureau resurfaced and dropped the hammer on TREB. Yay! Right? Wrong. Crazy TREB decides that an appeal was in order and the dug in their heels further. Honestly, I sort of respect them for taking a stand and going for what they believed was right. I also hate that I refer to TREB as “they” when really I’d love for them to be “us”.
I wish TREB would understand that they’re not protecting anyone’s “privacy” by sealing pending sold data. Did you catch that word there? “Pending” That’s the sold price BEFORE the property has closed (Buyer has moved in). But why protect that data? Buyers are making massive purchasing decisions based on that Pending data. Release it.
Here’s Where we Stand Now
Victory! The Federal Court of Appeals ruled that TREB was completely full of shit with the “Privacy” argument and tossed the case.
If you’d like to read the ruling, you can do that here. It’s 75 pages of absolute beauty!
What’s Next?
Who the heck knows. We just heard that TREB is going to appeal to the Supreme Court and that will be it. There are no appeals after that. I mean, if this were a poker hand and you had most of your chips in, you’d probably shove all in and hope for the best right? I guess you can’t blame them for forging ahead. There are enough TREB members that actually support TREBs decisions.
“TREB disagrees with the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal and will be seeking leave to appeal the decision,” CEO John DiMichele said.
“TREB believes strongly that personal financial information of home buyers and sellers must continue to be safely used and disclosed.”
Let’s dissect that comment from TREB CEO for a second. “Personal Financial Information” are you kidding me? We’re considering SOLD prices “personal financial information”? People don’t make their own financial decisions based on what mortgage rate you got, or the “deal” your car dealer gave you or the friends and family discount you got at your local clothing store BUT they certainly do make their own financial decisions based on what you paid for a property. So please Mr. DiMichele…spare us the bullshit. Consumers are smarter than you think. Sold prices are not “personal financial information”
You’ll get two different answers if you ask a consumer ” Hey would you like to release your personal financial information to the public” and “Hey do you care if the price of your home is released to public since they can get it form any realtor or the land registry office if they want it anyway?”
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about this now. Will update you as new information comes in. In the meantime…we’d love you to real estate with us. Sign up to my irregular newsletter. Sometimes it goes out weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes monthly and sometimes whenever I feel like it.
Mahalo for reading! (in Hawaii now and love it!)
