From December of 2023 to January 1 of this new year, there have been a lot of changes for us Realtors. Some of these changes affect consumers & some affect the business end of things - like new software, a newly launched health insurance plan - it's a lot to digest at once!
I have been doing a LOT of learning to make sure I understand and comply with these changes. I've spoken about them before - but here's a deeper dive into what they may mean for you in a real estate transaction, you could be affected whether you're buying, selling or leasing (and this doesn't even begin to cover updates to things like short term rentals!)
But first, let's begin at the beginning - it may be helpful for you to know what professional associations we deal with and some of their mandates. That way it can lead into the deeper information driving some of these changes.
I've broken down some of the bigger changes in a series of 5 short videos that will be released in the next 2 weeks on my YouTube channel. So go over there and hit that 'subscribe' button to be notified when the next video is released!
This blog post will give you more details than the videos; but if you want to only spend a minute or so, here's the first video just click on the picture:
1. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) with a national mandate, CREA owns the trademarks for Multiple Listing System (MLS) & Realtor.ca MLS is the back end and REALTOR.ca is the consumer interface across Canada.
If someone inquires on a listing, in Canada we'll get an email with the prospective clients information. It may interest you to know that in the USA, the Realtor.com trademark is privately owned, allowing the data for inquiries to be sold back to Realtors!
If you want to look at property listings across Canada, go to Realtor.ca Individual boards decide how to share data feeds - so for example my website would not allow you to save a property search from Manitoba. Interestingly, this sharing/not sharing of data feeds at a local level is why you will see duplicate listings on Realtor.ca - that simply means a home is listed on the agents member board, and also the local board if they are not a member. We call this interboarding.
New change from CREA is the "Realtor Co-Operation Policy" which will be VIDEO 5 in this series
2. Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) is one of our provincial bodies. They draft and provide the pre-printed legal forms, contracts and clauses we use in real estate transactions. They have just updated all of the forms to be compliant with the changes to the provincial legislation under the Trust in Real Estate Act 2002 (third phase). Our acronym for that is TRESA. For more on TRESA changes affecting consumers see this short video:
OREA has also just launched a new mandatory health and wellness insurance program for all Ontario relators - so you can see they do other things than just legal forms.
By the way, only Realtors and Lawyers are allowed to use and access OREA's forms and clauses (we pay big fees to them each year) So people like individual landlords who aren't using an agent should not be using these forms - which are clearly trademarked.
3. Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO)
This government-based body provides all education & licensing to train relators - which is delivered by Humber College. They manage most of the disciplinary process & fines if there are consumer complaints, too. They also manage the legislation we are bound by; this legislation was created in 2022 and was updated across the last three years. The name of this legislation is Trust in Real Estate Act, or TRESA.
The TRESA updates includes more than just the consumer portion. It also includes an updated code of ethics (yes, we do have one!) as well as the ability for realtors to incorporate. They also manage the rules that brokerages abide by and do audits on brokerages to make sure they are compliant.
More detail on some of the changes in that video will be in videos 2,3 & 4 in this new series
4. Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) - but honestly we all still pronounce it "treb" even though there's an additional R stuck in there recently. There are several regional real estate boards across the province. They provide local education, manage local listings, provide local rules and manage the discipline & complaints on a local level. As well they manage local data feeds that manage how listings appear on Realtor.ca and individual websites like mine They do have a consumer interface as well, with lots of helpful tools like this Property Search Tool & Local Market Data bulletins.
The'll be updating some of their back end software for agents this year - we have 2 choices now. I use one that won't be changing, but our legacy system will be retired this spring.
Not all the regional boards share data; so not everything is integrated. Realtors working in areas not their home board have to interboard (join another board temporarily) to access sold data and full listing details & list out of area properties.
Finally there are the brokerages - as agents we are independent contractors working with a Brokerage - mine is Keller Williams Advantage in Toronto!
For additional resources you can visit:
Canadian Real Estate Association
Ontario Real Estate Association
Real Estate Council of Ontario
Toronto Regional Real Estate Board