Real Estate

TREB loses appeal | TREB appeal / Supreme Court Decision Thursday

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  • Aug 30th, 2018 7:41 pm
Deal Fanatic
Jul 3, 2011
6517 posts
3798 upvotes
Thornhill
rjg4235 wrote: I still can't believe how much tax dollars were wasted in courts fighting this. They should have to pay back the tax payers.
FYI, TREB had to reimburse the Competition Bureau and Tribunal for all costs.


The courts exist to decide if a) a case is worth hearing and b) to hear that case if so decided. Otherwise, and in the absence of a King, the public gets to decide what is and is not meritorious which would never produce a consensus.
Deal Guru
User avatar
Jun 26, 2005
10111 posts
1966 upvotes
Toronto
Yes!!! Haha those Real Estate body think they can keep treating us unfairly , for all these years.

Finally get their day!
Member
Jul 25, 2008
400 posts
274 upvotes
ottawa
anyone seen plans for other regions? I'm specifically interested in Ottawa.
Member
Mar 5, 2012
251 posts
73 upvotes
Midland
arzhiJZ wrote: *
Someone posted bungol.ca earlier this week it seems similar.

Any other resources like these?
Last edited by MrDisco on Aug 28th, 2018 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: quote was removed
Deal Guru
User avatar
Jun 26, 2005
10111 posts
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Toronto
Next they should cap the max amount of commission a realtor can get.

Like how is it proportional that one sale of a $2 million dollar house will get him like 2-3%. Ridiculous. Like did the realtor have to go to medical school and pass then do surgery and save a life?

Most of the time, they just drive clients around, negotiate and print stuff. Hardly worth $70k a year.
Deal Expert
User avatar
Aug 18, 2005
21223 posts
5939 upvotes
Burlington-Hamilton
rfdrfd wrote: Next they should cap the max amount of commission a realtor can get.

Like how is it proportional that one sale of a $2 million dollar house will get him like 2-3%. Ridiculous. Like did the realtor have to go to medical school and pass then do surgery and save a life?

Most of the time, they just drive clients around, negotiate and print stuff. Hardly worth $70k a year.
I don't agree with this. More expensive houses sell less frequently, and tend to be more specialized, with more sophisticated buyers and sellers. Let the agent make more.
If the seller doesn't like it, then FSBO or shop for a different agent. Nothing forces you to sign with a particular brokerage.
- casual gastronomist -
Sr. Member
Jan 13, 2007
689 posts
669 upvotes
Toronto, Ontario
Regarding commissions, I still maintain that it should be done the same way as you would when you hire a general building contractor:

  1. Contact real estate agent, asking for a quotation for their services to sell specific property.
  2. Agent looks into the property, works up their estimate and sends this quoted figure back to the prospective client with a detailed scope of work.
  3. Client does the same with 2 other realtors and chooses from the 3 quotes they get back.


A percentage of sale price doesn't make sense. Realtors should work out a quoted figure using whatever method they want (i.e. they can use a % figure if they want but they're competing against other realtors who will have their own formula to determine what their services are worth).

Now, with historical sold information being more readily available, I think this forces the industry to sharpen their pencils and focus on offering true value to their clients.
Deal Addict
Nov 2, 2014
1137 posts
450 upvotes
Scarborough, ON
rfdrfd wrote: Next they should cap the max amount of commission a realtor can get.

Like how is it proportional that one sale of a $2 million dollar house will get him like 2-3%. Ridiculous. Like did the realtor have to go to medical school and pass then do surgery and save a life?

Most of the time, they just drive clients around, negotiate and print stuff. Hardly worth $70k a year.
You would have to go after all commission based occupations.

Being a successful salesman/saleswoman is a skill.

Try it yourself.

I am not a realtor.

I know multiple unsuccessful realtors.

I know a few successful realtors.


Keep in mind, the client has the ability to shop around.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2004
1621 posts
766 upvotes
GTA
crystallight wrote: Wonder what the real estate agents on RFD think
Most should welcome it. More information is never bad. It saves me time when the client is able to and willing to do more homework, and focus on areas where I can add value to them.

Most of my current/past residential clients are already able to get the past sold info. It's just another variable to consider when buying a place.

Ultimately it's the buyer/seller's money at stake. The more they know, the more comfortable they feel with the process and the better off everyone is.

A sales profession is heavily reputation dependent. If I screw over one client for a few thousand dollars, somehow somewhere it'll come to bite me down the road. If I'm working hard enough to build a reputation as a good salesperson the last thing I'd want to do is jeopardize that for a few $$$. With that said, given the huge number of agents in the market, I'm sure there are bad apples out there.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you have people from all sorts of background in this profession. Someone who practically bleeds real estate is on the same playing field as someone who had nothing to do with real estate but became an agent because of easy money, and now both have to market themselves to the same pool of clients. Not all agents work the same way.

On a random note, since working in this industry I've met a ton of different people. I had always known that money changes people but it amazed me to see how little money it took for people to be okay to screw someone else over. Agents have a clear agenda to close a sale, but seeing some of the buyers and sellers out there has made me more cynical towards humanity than before. With that said, I've also met some incredible people that I'm close friends with now and I'm really grateful for that.
CPA. Realtor.
Sr. Member
Jan 14, 2017
753 posts
686 upvotes
Clueless Fox wrote: Most should welcome it. More information is never bad. It saves me time when the client is able to and willing to do more homework, and focus on areas where I can add value to them.

Most of my current/past residential clients are already able to get the past sold info. It's just another variable to consider when buying a place.

Ultimately it's the buyer/seller's money at stake. The more they know, the more comfortable they feel with the process and the better off everyone is.

A sales profession is heavily reputation dependent. If I screw over one client for a few thousand dollars, somehow somewhere it'll come to bite me down the road. If I'm working hard enough to build a reputation as a good salesperson the last thing I'd want to do is jeopardize that for a few $$$. With that said, given the huge number of agents in the market, I'm sure there are bad apples out there.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you have people from all sorts of background in this profession. Someone who practically bleeds real estate is on the same playing field as someone who had nothing to do with real estate but became an agent because of easy money, and now both have to market themselves to the same pool of clients. Not all agents work the same way.

On a random note, since working in this industry I've met a ton of different people. I had always known that money changes people but it amazed me to see how little money it took for people to be okay to screw someone else over. Agents have a clear agenda to close a sale, but seeing some of the buyers and sellers out there has made me more cynical towards humanity than before. With that said, I've also met some incredible people that I'm close friends with now and I'm really grateful for that.
Great post, thank you for your input. Why, in this case, in your opinion, was TREB fighting so hard?
Jr. Member
May 7, 2016
182 posts
221 upvotes
Toronto
Now that the TREB court case has come to an end, I wanted to share my thoughts on the future of Toronto real estate.

I run Bungol.ca and have been working on it full time for almost a year now. So I have had plenty of time to think about the industry and all the players in it.

For those of you thinking how recent changes will the Realtor profession, my official opinion is - not much.

Empirically, when you look at US real estate, they have had sold data since 2008 (we are literally a whole decade behind the US!). And Realtors are still going strong there. In fact, buyer representation in the US have only been going up.

See Statistics by the NAR. In 2001, 69% of buyers purchased with a Realtor. In 2018, 87% of buyers purchased with a Realtor.

Zillow has allowed home sellers to list their homes directly on Zillow for 10 years, thus eliminating the need to go through a brokerage to get your house listed on an MLS. Yet if you look at the number of FSBO listings on Zillow, it makes up only ~5% of the total listings.

More agents are being hired than ever before, why?

The reason people hire Realtors is not because they are too incompetent to buy/sell homes themselves. The reason they hire Realtors is to get an insurance policy. We have an intrinsic desire for security, and Realtors provide that sense of security. The main value of Realtors is calming the fears of home buyers/sellers of potentially screwing up the most important decision in their lives.

Realtors provide a sense of security for their clients, and human nature isn't changing anytime soon. As long as people want security, the Realtor profession will continue.

In terms of disruptions to the industry, some of you may have heard of PurpleBricks's acquisition of ComFree. PurpleBricks have been very successful in the UK, so it is likely they understand what customers want (insurance at a much lower price).

If a disruptive, low-fee brokerage can convince home sellers/buyers that they can provide the same level of insurance as traditional 2.5% commission Realtors, I believe that low-fee brokerage will be very successful.

So far most low-fee brokerages have been unsuccessful, mainly because we automatically perceive lower cost = lower quality. It may be true, but not always.

My outlook on the industry:

- PurpleBricks will bring their knowledge of low-fee listing services to Canada, and grab a larger share of major markets like Toronto
- Commission rates in Toronto will see a general decline. It will be very slow. Evolution, not revolution.
- People will continue hiring Realtor services. FSBO's will continue to be mostly a non-existent market.

tl:dr - The main function of Realtors is to provide insurance for their clients. Human beings will always desire security/insurance. Therefore Realtors will be around for a long time.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2004
1621 posts
766 upvotes
GTA
Vasyllaw wrote: Great post, thank you for your input. Why, in this case, in your opinion, was TREB fighting so hard?
Leverage probably? We didn't always have websites like mongohouse, bungol so the only way for someone to get historical data was to know an agent. 10~15 years ago that worked out for TREB but now we've got ~50K agents across GTA and online resources so that info is available with a couple of extra steps. And this is also one of the arguments that the courts contended to rule in favour of transparency.

Ultimately, I think this will only help weed the bad agents out from the good ones. The ones who are working hard will keep doing what they do, the rest will struggle to justify their value if they had nothing else to offer in the first place.
CPA. Realtor.
Deal Expert
Feb 24, 2007
15169 posts
2743 upvotes
Supreme Court clears way for release of Toronto home-sale data
The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal from the Toronto Real Estate Board over a federal Competition Tribunal order on the restriction of home-sale data, effectively ending TREB’s years of legal wrangling with the Competition Bureau.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-es ... data-case/

This should prove very interesting of the monopolistic unraveling.
Newbie
User avatar
May 22, 2017
4 posts
4 upvotes
Toronto
Reminds me when smoking was going to be banned at bars and clubs. I only wish it was like that when I used to go to bars.

People thought clubs and bar owners would collapse, even though about 80% of people don't smoke and many of them avoid bars and clubs because of the smoke!

Anyways, definitely not the end. Better things will come out of this.

Nice site, btw, Valachio.
[removed external advertising link]
Deal Addict
Jul 3, 2007
4153 posts
4626 upvotes
Toronto
crystallight wrote: Wonder what the real estate agents on RFD think
probably busy looking for real jobs now....
Sr. Member
Oct 8, 2003
625 posts
250 upvotes
Toronto
crystallight wrote: Wonder what the real estate agents on RFD think
I am all for it. I am so sick of TREB wasting money fighting this case when they could have used that money to make even better tools for the consumer. The fact that they spent so much fighting this makes me think that they are so old school in their thinking that the only services a realtor has to offer is sold data. RIP dinosaurs of real estate.

I can't wait to see all the innovation that comes from this. This is a great day for the general public who all realtors serve so if anyone is complaining about this you have to question their priorities.

BTW great site Valachio! I agree with pretty much everything you said except I am not sure PurpleBricks will do much better. These companies have to spend a lot to advertise and when they aren't making much they are often just burning cash and don't last.
Realtor at RE/MAX Professionals focused on the Toronto Condo Market and Real Estate Investing
Deal Guru
User avatar
Jun 26, 2005
10111 posts
1966 upvotes
Toronto
RobertSmalls008 wrote: You would have to go after all commission based occupations.

Being a successful salesman/saleswoman is a skill.

Try it yourself.

I am not a realtor.

I know multiple unsuccessful realtors.

I know a few successful realtors.


Keep in mind, the client has the ability to shop around.
Just because the job is difficult to succeed does not relate to the amount of profit someone should make. If a home doesnt sell, all it takes is one rich buyer from a foreign land to come in and buy it.

Selling a house is just like conceiving a child. Much of it is luck. All it takes is ONE sperm to hit and that's it. It doesn't matter if the male is missing a nut, or have low sperm count, we just need 1 lucky one.

One buyer is all it takes. Unsuccessfuly realtors know why they suck. They aren't polite, don't know how to advertise, they are stuck up (only takes big deals) dont treat their customers right, low client base (need to build more). Or don't know too many rich family members.

Compared to becoming a Medical Doctor, who can get paid much less than a realtor selling houses, there is no comparison.

Give it 10 more years, the need for realtors will drop dramatically.

Buyers now do their own research online much more than any realtor would to help a client buy a new house.

From my experience, my wife and I did soooo many hours of research on houses, etc then asked my agent to help me book appointments to see them. He didn't spend hours researching for us. Those forms he filled can easily be done by me. My education level is higher than his. And I caught a few mistakes too.

Then in one shot, a realtor gets $40k or more in commissions. Look at your own job, how many paychecks is that? For the amount of work they do, and their responsibilities? Come on.
Deal Expert
Feb 22, 2011
16521 posts
21871 upvotes
Toronto
Valachio wrote: Now that the TREB court case has come to an end, I wanted to share my thoughts on the future of Toronto real estate.

I run Bungol.ca and have been working on it full time for almost a year now. So I have had plenty of time to think about the industry and all the players in it.

For those of you thinking how recent changes will the Realtor profession, my official opinion is - not much.

Empirically, when you look at US real estate, they have had sold data since 2008 (we are literally a whole decade behind the US!). And Realtors are still going strong there. In fact, buyer representation in the US have only been going up.

See Statistics by the NAR. In 2001, 69% of buyers purchased with a Realtor. In 2018, 87% of buyers purchased with a Realtor.

Zillow has allowed home sellers to list their homes directly on Zillow for 10 years, thus eliminating the need to go through a brokerage to get your house listed on an MLS. Yet if you look at the number of FSBO listings on Zillow, it makes up only ~5% of the total listings.

More agents are being hired than ever before, why?

The reason people hire Realtors is not because they are too incompetent to buy/sell homes themselves. The reason they hire Realtors is to get an insurance policy. We have an intrinsic desire for security, and Realtors provide that sense of security. The main value of Realtors is calming the fears of home buyers/sellers of potentially screwing up the most important decision in their lives.

Realtors provide a sense of security for their clients, and human nature isn't changing anytime soon. As long as people want security, the Realtor profession will continue.

In terms of disruptions to the industry, some of you may have heard of PurpleBricks's acquisition of ComFree. PurpleBricks have been very successful in the UK, so it is likely they understand what customers want (insurance at a much lower price).

If a disruptive, low-fee brokerage can convince home sellers/buyers that they can provide the same level of insurance as traditional 2.5% commission Realtors, I believe that low-fee brokerage will be very successful.

So far most low-fee brokerages have been unsuccessful, mainly because we automatically perceive lower cost = lower quality. It may be true, but not always.

My outlook on the industry:

- PurpleBricks will bring their knowledge of low-fee listing services to Canada, and grab a larger share of major markets like Toronto
- Commission rates in Toronto will see a general decline. It will be very slow. Evolution, not revolution.
- People will continue hiring Realtor services. FSBO's will continue to be mostly a non-existent market.

tl:dr - The main function of Realtors is to provide insurance for their clients. Human beings will always desire security/insurance. Therefore Realtors will be around for a long time.
This is very spot on. I consider myself very stubborn and arrogant, especially on my opinions regarding the economy and RE. I still used a realtor because even if there is a small chance I am wrong or making a mistake it is worth that 1% fee. One bad RE move can have a drastic impact on your life. It should never be taken lightly and any additional information or expertise is incredibly valuable.
Sr. Member
Oct 8, 2003
625 posts
250 upvotes
Toronto
Interesting take but so much to question here...
rfdrfd wrote: Just because the job is difficult to succeed does not relate to the amount of profit someone should make. If a home doesnt sell, all it takes is one rich buyer from a foreign land to come in and buy it.


Easier said than done. There is a reason a large percentage of homes are not selling right now. Using that same logic we should all be buying lottery tickets too because all it takes is that one time to win.
rfdrfd wrote: Selling a house is just like conceiving a child. Much of it is luck. All it takes is ONE sperm to hit and that's it. It doesn't matter if the male is missing a nut, or have low sperm count, we just need 1 lucky one.
Again, not true. Much of it is marketing the property to reach the most people and then getting one of them to put in an offer.
rfdrfd wrote: One buyer is all it takes. Unsuccessfuly realtors know why they suck. They aren't polite, don't know how to advertise, they are stuck up (only takes big deals) dont treat their customers right, low client base (need to build more). Or don't know too many rich family members.
Do you know how many buyers change their mind after investing months of work into their search?
rfdrfd wrote: Compared to becoming a Medical Doctor, who can get paid much less than a realtor selling houses, there is no comparison.
I totally agree with this that doctors should make more on average, and I believe if you look at the numbers you will see this is true as the average realtor makes less than $50k/yr
rfdrfd wrote: Give it 10 more years, the need for realtors will drop dramatically.
I neither agree nor disagree with this.... I think the role will actually evolve in the next 10 years, but there won't be 50k people with their license to do it also.
rfdrfd wrote: Buyers now do their own research online much more than any realtor would to help a client buy a new house.
Your average buyer isn't seeing properties every single day of their life, so for the most part this is false. This rings true if your realtor has another job though and do it part time.
rfdrfd wrote: From my experience, my wife and I did soooo many hours of research on houses, etc then asked my agent to help me book appointments to see them. He didn't spend hours researching for us. Those forms he filled can easily be done by me. My education level is higher than his. And I caught a few mistakes too.
If your education level is so high, why did you hire a schmuck?
rfdrfd wrote: Then in one shot, a realtor gets $40k or more in commissions. Look at your own job, how many paychecks is that? For the amount of work they do, and their responsibilities? Come on.
I would not hire a schmuck to buy a $1.6M property let alone any property. This also fails to acknowledge that a large percentage of that commission is going to the tax man, the agent's brokerage, their board dues, and any other costs associated with the purchase.


Don't get me wrong I think there is changes that need to be made to my profession, but as someone who got into the industry with similar beliefs I have quickly discovered these public misconceptions are very wrong. Don't get me wrong with 50,000+ realtors in the GTA there are going to be plenty of bad ones, but there are also plenty who bust their butt for their clients and are worth every cent they make.
Realtor at RE/MAX Professionals focused on the Toronto Condo Market and Real Estate Investing
Deal Expert
Feb 29, 2008
21738 posts
21353 upvotes
Tarrana & The Ri…
Great news and a long time coming. Should not affect good agents, will affect lazy, untrustworthy, sleezebag agents.

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