A Broker of Record / Manager Meeting was held on November 8, 2018 at the RAHB Offces. Below is a synopsis of what was discussed at the meeting:
VOW Status
As a result of the Supreme Court of Canada decision, REALTORS® will be required to publish sold data but it must be behind a password protected website. In conjunction with RAHB’s legal counsel a VOW contract has been prepared and MLS® policies have been drafted. Any RAHB member requesting access to the sold data will be required to sign the VOW contract with RAHB in order to receive the data feed. There may also be a fee, which is still to be determined. As instructed by the Board of Directors, the MLS® Policies will be reviewed by the MLS® Committee, and once they are finalized a final review will take place of the MLS® Policies in conjunction with the final contract by legal counsel. Completion is anticipated by the end of the first quarter of 2019, or sooner.
Concerns were expressed as to why the VOW contract/MLS® policies will not be in place sooner. RAHB’s IT staff are prepared to start working now on the data feed with any brokerage, however the feed cannot go live until the VOW contract and MLS® policies are in place.
Update on CREA REALTOR.ca
Following receipt of the announcement from CREA regarding sold prices being included on REALTOR.ca, the President and CEO of RAHB, along with the CEOs and Presidents of the London and St. Thomas Association of REALTORS® and the Ottawa Real Estate Board, attended a meeting with CREA to discuss concerns. There are provinces in Canada where sold data is already published and available. However, in Ontario you cannot publish sold prices on a standard website – sold data can only be displayed within a password protect area. CREA has since acknowledged that they did move too quickly with their announcement and have since forwarded a communiqué indicating that more work is required before the sold data can be displayed on REALTOR.ca.
Data Sharing
RAHB continues to work with TREB to establish a fair and equitable data sharing agreement for all members to have access to the gap listing data, which are listings taken by TREB members within RAHB’s area, and not put on RAHB’s MLS® System. RAHB has also prepared and proposed an IntraMatrix data sharing contract to the Collective Group, who are not using Connect. Although both initiatives are not certain, we will continue to push forward to find ways to bring closure to these items so our members have access to more data.
Zillow Conference in Toronto
Zillow has been approaching brokerages in Canada and recently held a meeting in Toronto to discuss the services they are currently offering. Any RAHB brokerage can be set up with Zillow provided they sign the necessary RAHB contract to receive a RETS feed of their listings.
GEOWarehouse®
Discussion took place regarding the number of search requests RAHB members are allowed each year. Currently this is 1,000 per member, per year.
City of Hamilton Signage By-laws
The City of Hamilton is currently on a campaign to clamp down on the misuse of REALTOR® for sale, open house and directional signs that are not in compliance with the City’s bylaw. Some of our own RAHB members are the root cause for this ongoing issue, and if the misuse continues the City has advised RAHB they may not allow any open house signs at any time. It was also noted that Hamilton and Burlington have different sign bylaws. It was recommended that the Government Relations Committee consider reopening the discussions with the City and the use of real estate signage. The Government Relations Committee will examine establishing a sign by-law task force for this issue.