For companies like HomeZilla, Zoocasa, ViewPoint, and others changes in the industry can only be good. For consumers, more choice is always better. But if you are one of 98,000 agents, then change makes you nervous.

Every industry hates to see government intervention and they usually put up a great fight (ex: Microsoft & ATT). Usually, the industry in questions puts together a fantastically crafted message and repeats that message again and again. (This worked especially well for Obama and George W. Bush)

That is why I was shocked to see a ‘rough’ interview by CREA president Dale Ripplinger on CBC. In fact, I double checked the page to see if it was a REAL CBC page. Here are some of the questions and awkward answers are:

Q. And the average commission is how much?

A. There’s no such thing as an average commission.

Q. The one most of us have paid is around six per cent.

A. Yeah, well, we don’t comment on commissions because the Canadian Real Estate Association doesn’t get involved in negotiations between our members and their clients. If a realtor won’t work for what a client is willing to pay, then that client has to find another realtor who will, and believe me, they will, because there’s lots of competition and lots of choice.

Isn’t the average commision of a real estate agent common knowledge? Even more importantly, doesn’t CREA know exactly how much agents make on each transaction? Being evasive about provable numbers isn’t going to help CREA’s case in the public’s eye.

Q. Well, it’s not me that’s putting this forward. It’s the Competition Bureau, which doesn’t often get up on its hind legs and roar like this.

A. I’m not sure what their motivation is.

Q. What would the motivation be beyond taking care of consumers? What do you think is.…

A. We’re taking care of consumers by providing service that brings confidence to Canadian consumers when they handle the most important transaction of their life.

For such a big and common question, you would think that CREA would have a better crafted response. Real estate agents pay a lot of money in dues to support their board structure and I have to assume they would be concerned with these type of interviews.

Could it be possible that CREA wants the Competition Bureau to shake things up?

You can read the entire CBC interview here.

Today we want to present you with a video of Rosedale. Rosedale is one of Toronto’s oldest and most prestiges neighbourhoods.

Check out the video version of this video, we would love your feedback!
All real estate agents who retweets OR comment will be entered into a draw for a branded version of this video!

Air Miles Rewards

Most people have collected points of one kind or another, whether it’s for drugstore purchases or free groceries – but the granddaddy of them all is the Air Miles program. If you have bemoaned the length of time it takes to collect enough points to go anywhere more interesting than Sudbury, the new AIR MILES Reward Program for real estate transactions might be your solution. At last, enough points – all in one shot – to really fly away!

The scoop: If you max out at the 1500 reward miles, you can earn a flight to New York, or other goodies like electronics, entertainment packages and more.

The bonus: Exclusive for GOLD Collectors, earn 200 Bonus AIR MILES reward miles when you buy or sell a property through CENTURY 21.

The catch: You have to work with a Century 21 agent. And you have to submit your request for miles within 12 months after the closing date of your transaction. And the offer is valid until April 30, 2010.

Aeromove

If you collect Aeroplan points, there’s also Aeromove, a home and move services program available exclusively to Aeroplan® Members. Whether you’re buying a home, selling a home, moving anywhere in Canada or refinancing, Aeromove can help you through the process.

The program: Aeroplan connects you with qualified real estate agents, home inspectors, movers, lawyers, junk removers and more. You earn Aeroplan Miles every time you use these services, making it a one-stop shop and letting you earn points just for joining Aeromove.

The scoop: At 1,500 Aeroplan Miles for every $10,000 in home value purchased or sold when you use a cooperating Aeromove real estate agent, plus additional Miles for other transactions like legal services, a typical transaction of $500,000 earns enough miles to buy THREE round trips to New York.

The catch: You have to use an agent registered with the Aeroplan program. You have to deal with restricted flight availability. You have to navigate the annoying Aeroplan website.

Travel miles not your thing, maybe you’d like gift cards instead?

Sears Certified Real Estate Services

One service gets you really close – Sears Certified Real Estate Services, which lets you earn thousands in Sears Gift Cards when you buy or sell your home – gift cards you can take into a store and use.

If you sign up with a Sears Certified Agent, when you buy or sell your home, you’ll earn 0.6% of your home’s value in Sears Gift Cards.

The program: Fill out an online form to sign up and you’ll be referred to a Sears Certified Agent ideally suited to help you find or sell your home. Sears Certified Agents come from several different national brokerages like RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Sutton Group, Coldwell Banker, Prudential, Homelife or Century 21. They’re chosen for their years of specialization in the communities they serve, and have been certified as meeting high standards for experience, dedication to customer service and demonstrated results.

The scoop: If you buy or sell a $500,000 home, you get $3,000 in gift cards (check out the Sears Reward Calculator to find out how much you can earn.) That’s enough for a new living room.

The bonus: You’ll also receive a Sears Home Savings Book when you sign up, with special offers that could save you hundreds on furnishings and home improvements.

The catch: Uou have to work with one of the Sears-certified agents to earn the cash rewards.

Because gift cards are so much like cash, they are easy to use.

Here’s what people are saying about the Sears program:
“We earned 0.6% of our house price in Sears Gift Cards by using the referral service. Now we’re using those gift cards to help outfit our home. I feel like we got the most for our dollar. If I’m getting points every time I buy a pair of jeans or a slice of pizza, why shouldn’t I expect an incentive when I’m buying something as big as a house?” —Julianne of Hamilton

Obviously, the only way an incentive – whether it’s airline points or a free TV from your Realtor – will work for you, is if there’s no negative difference in the real estate process. After all, if the agent representing the rewards program doesn’t do a good job, no amount of points will compensate you for lost money and hassle. But because the current reward programs screen their agents first, to ensure they’re professional and knowledgeable of the market, it might be worth it to let someone else select your agent. You can always interview the affiliated agents to see if they’re a good fit for you, before you sign anything.

After you buy or sell a house, a trip to New York might be just the thing to get away from it all. But Certified Real Estate Services offer greatest freedom of choice because gift cards can be used for so many more things. And remember, you can earn points on the buying AND selling of your old and new house.

Look for real estate related points programs to continue to grow in 2010.

We have received a great response from agents. Most of the emails we received are about being part of our blogging network and how they can advertise on our website. We can do small scale advertising and will be rolling out large scale advertising later in this year.

If you have any questions just drop us a line…

Once change, we now show the previous months rantings for each of the items listed. Next month we are growing this report to include most search cities per province.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Provinces

1		Ontario
2		British Columbia
3		Alberta
4		Prince Edward Island
5 (+1)		Nova Scotia
6 (-1)		Newfoundland
7 (+2)		Saskatchewan
8		New Brunswick
9 (-2)		Manitoba
10		Quebec

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Cities

1		Toronto
2		Ottawa
3		Vancouver
4		Calgary
5		Edmonton
6 (+1)		Charlottetown
7 (-1)		Mississauga
8 (-)		Kelowna
9 (-)		Summerside
10 (-)		Halifax

Our HomeZilla Finder, had a big increase in usage and lots of it was focused on schools. They have always been the most popular search but this month we saw a huge increase!

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Amenities

1		Schools
2 (+1)		Elementary Schools
3		Sr High Schools
4 (-)		Jr High school
5 (+1)		Grocery Stores
6 (-)		Coffee Shops
7 (+2)		Liquor Stores
8 (-2)		Child Care Services
9 (-1)		Pubs
10 (-3)		Parks

This month, the formerly fast mosing custom searches ‘were religious buildings and hardware stores’ have dropped off the map. This must have been a couple of users who were really intrested in these things; lets hope they found a ‘dream neighbourhood’.

We hope you enjoy these December 2008 real estate trends and we look forward to your feedback!

Happy New Year

var ws_address = “1501 Pike Place, Seattle, WA, 98101″;
var ws_width = “500″;

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Provinces

1. Ontario
2. British Columbia
3. Alberta
4. Prince Edward Island
5. Newfoundland
6. Nova Scotia
7. Manitoba
8. New Brunswick
9. Saskatchewan
10. Quebec

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Cities

1. Toronto
2. Ottawa
3. Vancouver
4. Calgary
5. Edmonton
6. Mississauga
7. Charlottetown
8. Markham
9. Halifax
10. Brampton
11. West Vancouver

Our HomeZilla Finder, which helps you find amenities around a specific address, has been growing every month and November was no exception we had an increase of 200% between November and October.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Amenities

1. Schools (forth straight month, margin continues to grow)
2. Sr High Schools
3. Elementary Schools
4. Restaurants
5. Grocery Stores (the fastest growing category)
6. Child Care Services
7. Parks
8. Pubs
9. Liquor Stores
10. Transit

There are a couple of custom searches moving their way up the long tail of real estate search. The two new categories were religious buildings and hardware stores. The religious building included mosques and server types of churches. While the hardware stores only included Home Hardware and HomeDepot. Our previous up and coming category of fire stations and gas stations has completely dropped off the search list.

We hope you enjoy these November real estate trends and we look forward to your feedback!

The HomeZilla team, since our redesign, hears lots of comments from people that they love our UI and our neighbourhood information. Occasionally, people tell me how they use Realtor.ca and HomeZilla side by side when house hunting. HomeZilla doesn’t provide house listings but we have all the Canadian neighbourhood information you will need. You can find the closest school, parks, restaurants and demographics information. Homezilla constantly adding data is part of our DNA so when you need to research a Canadian neighbourhood do a search on HomeZilla.

UPDATE

Realtor.ca Goes Mobile

Realtor.ca is has launched their new mobile version of the site. This is a huge advance for Realtor.ca and shows they are responding to new listing competitors (ZooCasa I am looking at you). How will the new Realtor.ca mobile site go over with consumers? Well, the HomeZilla team reviewed it and think it is the minimum they could have done for a mobile site. Lets hope this is a first step for Realtor.ca to make mobile searching much better.

Check it out your self: http://beta.mobile.realtor.ca/

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Provinces

1. Alberta
2. Ontario
3. British Columbia
4. Nova Scotia
5. Prince Edward Island
6. Manitoba
7. Quebec
8. New Brunswick
9. Newfoundland
10. Saskatchewan

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Cities

1. Calgary
2. Edmonton
3. Toronto
4. Ottawa
5. Vancouver
6. Halifax
7. Scarborough
8. Kelowna
9. Mississauga
10. Surrey

Our HomeZilla Finder, which helps you find amenities around a specific address, has been growing every month with a huge growth of 400% between July and August.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Amenities

1. Schools (third straight month, margin continues to grow)
2. Coffee Shops
3. Elementary Schools
4. Grocery Stores
5. Liquor Stores (new to the list)
6. Restaurants
7. Parks
8. Pubs
9. Fitness Centres
10. Transit

Here are a couple of new trends we have been seeing for the past two months: fire stations and gas stations. In the next couple of months, we will be adding more data for both of these amenities.

We hope you enjoy these trends and we look forward to your feedback!

The categories will grow and change every month; please send us suggestions for next month’s HomeZilla Real Estate Trends.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Provinces

1. Ontario (won by a HUGE margin)
2. British Columbia
3. Alberta
4. Nova Scotia
5. Prince Edward Island
6. Manitoba
7. Quebec
8. New Brunswick
9. Newfoundland
10. Saskatchewan

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Cities

1. Toronto (in first place for a second month, won by a huge margin)
2. Vancouver
3. Calgary
4. Mississauga
5. Burlington
6. Winnipeg
7. Oakville
8. Edmonton
9. Kelowna
10. Charlottetown

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Amenities

1. Schools (second straight month, won by a huge margin)
2. Parks
3. Coffee Shops
4. Grocery Stores
5. Child Care Services
6. Restaurants
7. Dog Parks
8. Pubs
9. Fitness Centres
10. Transit

We hope you enjoy these trends and we look forward to your feedback!

The categories we cover will grow and change every month; please send us suggestions for next month’s HomeZilla Search Trends.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Cities (June 2008)

1. Toronto (won by a huge margin)
2. Calgary
3. Vancouver
4. Ottawa
5. Halifax
6. Etobicoke
7. Oakville
8. North York
9. Winnipeg
10. Charlottetown

In the coming months, we will rank cities based on population and searches, levelling the playing field between cities of different sizes.

HomeZilla’s Most Searched Amenities

1. Schools (again, won by a huge margin)
2. Grocery Stores
3. Coffee Shops
4. Child Care Services
5. Restaurants
6. Parks
7. Dog Parks
8. Pubs
9. Fitness Centres
10. Banks/Credit Unions

We hope you enjoy these trends and we look forward to your feedback!