CREA’s membership has spoken,” says Georges Pahud, incoming president of the group. “CREA accepts the results and will continue to ensure the accuracy and quality of the information on boards’ MLS systems that Canadians have come to trust. This result will not change how CREA operates today, tomorrow or in the future.”

Canada.com

How is HomeZilla (and other Canadian Real Estate startups) going to benefit?

More people will use our services because they help the home buyer, home seller and the Realtor ® save time. As more people use a ‘pay for service’ model they are going to need more tools to help educate potential buyers. HomeZilla is Canada’s Neighbourhood Expert and I am sure home seller will be printing our neighbourhood reports.

The only concern we have is the Competition Bureau is probably still going to go after CREA to change more. The reason, the Bureau didn’t like that CREA allowed local boards to install their own set of regulations on realtors. The is almost no way for the Competition Bureau to police local boards. In our opinion, this is the main reason the Bureau send the complaint to the tribunal and will pursue it faster.

Until more changes comes, HomeZilla expects to see a increase in usage as more people try and save time during a house transaction.

At CREA’s AGM on March 22nd, members are going to vote on proposed rule changes to appease the Competition Bureau. These changes let home sellers choose the services they want to buy from an agent (i.e.: it puts more options in the market.) More openess in a market is a good thing so let’s also open up the data to help home buyers.

Sidenote: I haven’t read any articles regarding real estate agents being 100% commission based. This is an important thing to remember, if they don’t sell a house they don’t get paid…try and find a lawyer who works like that.

Is it too late for the Competition Bureau to think about Open Data?

The Competition Bureau could have, and may still, greatly increase innovation in the Canadian real estate market. Opening access to real estate-related data, which is inevitable, would benefit everyone in the home search process. Major cities in Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, and more) and around the world (such as San Francisco), have opened up their data and the citizens of these cities have benefitted.

Open access to this real estate data would be a great thing:

1. Open up access to historical home sale prices
2. Reduce barriers to showing listings on 3rd party websites
3. Recommend that CREA open up Realtor.ca to 3rd party widgets

Opening access to these three pieces of data are smaller changes than affecting a Realtor’s © commision. And adding innovation to an industry is always a good thing for the consumer.

With access to more information, websites like HomeZilla, Zoocasa, and View Point Realty could provide better research tools to home buyers. Home buyers being able to find a home they love is at the heart of any real estate industry. Helping home buyers would help the entire real estate market.

This is Canada, let’s keep everything fair; if the sellers of a house are getting a benefit then so should the home buyer. Let the innovation accelerate!

How do you feel about Open Data in real estate?

The first ‘wish/tenant’ that 5 Blocks Out mentioned was:

If you’re publishing it for humans, publish it for machines too. We need data in machine-readable open standard formats like JSON, XML, CSV, iCal, and so on. Not just PDF.

We at HomeZilla couldn’t agree more! We have spent a lot of money for people to ‘re-type’ PDFs into a more usable format. Please government…stop releasing ONLY PDF versions of data…instead release the raw data as well.

The three things Osh asked for were:

1. Lists of places, including place name and location information.
2. Event data
3. TTC route, stop, and vehicle location information.

And two of those are things HomeZilla wants as well. Our top five requests for open data would be:

1. Lists of public places, including place name and an exact latitude & longitude.
2. Public transit routes, stops, and make sure to include multiple door entrances for stations
3. City election bounds, polling stations, and vote counts for as many years as possible.
4. nvironmentally ‘monitored’ locations (gas stations, recycling, land fills, etc)
5. Building permits and building applications

One big difference between our posts is that HomeZilla needs this data for all of Canada. Getting data for one city is good but Canada wide data is fantastic! For Open Data to go nationwide, the mind set of sharing data will have to change from ‘never give it out’ to ‘always give it out’…and that mind shift is happening but it will take a while. Governments can help this by getting on TV, radio, Twitter, and telling people… “Share your data! Not sure what to share, research it quickly then give it away!”

HomeZilla wants our top five sets of data listed above…but causing a mind shift in sharing data is even more important!