The Competition Bureau has obtained a court order to advance its investigation into potential anti-competitive conduct by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) related to rules about real estate commissions and the REALTOR® Cooperation Policy.
The order, granted by the Federal Court, requires CREA to produce records and information relevant to the Bureau’s investigation.
The Bureau is investigating if CREA’s commission rules discourage buyers’ realtors from competing to offer lower commission rates or affect competition in other ways, which could result in less competition and higher costs for both buyers and sellers.
The Bureau is also looking to determine if CREA’s Realtor Cooperation Policy makes it more difficult for alternative listing services to compete, reduces competition among realtors, or gives larger real estate brokerages an unfair advantage over smaller ones.
The investigation is ongoing and there is no conclusion of wrongdoing. CREA is one of Canada’s largest single-industry associations, representing over 160,000 real estate professionals.
Seeking voluntary information from the public
The Bureau is also inviting Canadians – home buyers, sellers, realtors and other market participants – to share their experiences with real estate commissions and CREA’s policies in the Canadian real estate market. The feedback will help the Bureau assess if CREA’s commission rules or Realtor Cooperation Policy raise issues under the law.
People interested can consult the call-out details on the Bureau’s website, and are invited to provide their feedback by November 6, 2024. All the information received will be thoroughly reviewed and considered, and will be kept confidential, subject to certain exceptions.
In 2010, the Bureau reached an agreement with CREA to address concerns that MLS system rules restricted consumer choice and prevented innovative business models from emerging. As a result, CREA changed its MLS rules to clarify that the nature of services to be provided to the seller or buyer is a matter of agreement between the realtors and their clients.
In 2016, the Competition Tribunal ruled in favour of the Bureau in its case against the Toronto Real Estate Board relating to anti-competitive conduct that restricted real estate brokers’ and consumers’ access to historical home sales data and novel real estate services.
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