Agent Will

So long MLS.ca. You’re name will forever be remembered as a boon to the industry and the greater public. Wait. Don’t cry. You’re not losing a website, you’re gaining a renamed one. On May 28th, 2008 MLS.ca will become REALTOR.ca.

Huh? Wha? Why?

While the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) owns both names and will never relinquish ownership of the MLS.ca domain the entire site will be rebranded as realtor.ca (I’m tired of typing in all caps) and the old site will point to the new domain.

The reason? Our industry is under attack and CREA’s answer is to fight back with trademark rights. This makes perfect sense. See, the government can argue by definition that the MLS, or multiple listing service, is not multiple but actually single. Non-realtors cannot post there. Only realtors can. Realtors are single in voice when it comes down to it and that is through their various associations ultimately ending with CREA. By moving away from MLS.ca to Realtor.ca that defence point is strengthed. Realtor.ca cannot be opened up to anyone to post unless they meet the (likely to increase) strict CREA guidelines of what qualifies as a Realtor.

Bam! Trademark rights enforced! Problem Solved! Realtors rule, ok?

Or not.

The MLS/realtor.ca is and will continue to become increasingly irrelevant. Virtual Office services such as the one provided on this site provide far greater info and search parameters than MLS may ever employ and is far faster in delivering that info. Further the back office data systems realtors use is even better and buyers would be wise to work with a realtor who really knows how to use that system to gain the advantage there. The back office system is determined by the local boards and hats off the the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver for doing an awesome job with ours.

But back to what the general public uses… Realtor.ca (come May 28th)? I wish you luck. You’re up against some increasingly stiff competition. The biggest, one might say. And who is this I speak of? The big G.

Google.

Already you likely use it to search for whatever real estate you search for. You likely get a bunch of realtor sites (and few which impress you but some will stick out). Well, have I got news for you:

Using Maps.Google.com (not .ca for some reason) search for “Vancouver, BC” but before you hit enter click on “Show Search Options” (just to the right of the search box) and then select “Real Estate”. Hello! I see Sothebys is feeding the G Machine. So is Point2 (a provider of many realtor websites). I also see some By Owners are on there. I wonder how I can feed the big Googlie one?

You can refine your search by a few criteria, like bedrooms and price. But if you want to see something really cool click on one of the available properties and then click “Search Nearby”. They use the example Pizza but you could look for any business (sponsored by Yellowpages). Too bad they don’t do that good a search of schools (yet).

Real estate listings on Google link to the original website (just like MLS.ca). Sure, it’s not as complete as MLS.ca but it’s a start and we’ve seen what Google can do once they get going. Imagine if all the realtors and by owners started filling it with listings?

The downside? It’s open to scams like Craigslist while Realtor.ca is definitely, and infinitely, more trustworthy. Still, if this were to get all the realtors, and the by-owners (I know, I just said that… but imagine)…

Realtor.ca meet your future competition. Google and tens of thousands of Realtors feeding it.

Hey, at least you won’t need to spend any more of our dues defending lawsuits.

Update:  Apparently the new Realtor.ca is going to have some pretty trick improvements like interactive map based searching (which will be very cool if it is anything like what has been on this site for the past two months) and will use Microsoft Virtual Earth (while this site uses Google Maps).  Though second through the gate I applaud CREA for at least adding some features to their site.