Supreme Court to weigh in on real estate data battle
A Supreme Court of Canada announcement Thursday could put an end to a seven-year-old battle that has prevented realtors from making home sales data more widely available to buyers on the internet.
The long-running dispute has pitted the Toronto Real Estate Board against the federal Competition Bureau, which argues that by limiting access to the data contained in its Multiple Listing Service, TREB insulates its members “from a new and potentially disruptive form of competition.”
TREB maintains that publishing sales and other market information on password protected sites violates client privacy and its own copyright over the information. It has asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling in favour of the Bureau.
The court will announce its decision at 9:45 a.m.
TREB, the largest of Canada’s 101 local real estate associations, allows its 49,000 members to provide individual clients with information on a property’s previous sales prices — but only via fax, email or by presenting it in person. It has resisted the prospect of making that same data available broadly online through broker websites, even when the site is password protected.
Securing permission to distribute such data online was not a common practice in the past and acting without it could violate the rights of clients dating back to the 1980s, TREB has claimed.
In December, the Federal Court of Appeals found that TREB’s restrictions on the data did not present privacy concerns and were limiting competition in the real estate brokerage services market. In its decision, it noted that the data in question was already available to TREB’s thousands of realtor members, who in turn can release it to up to 100 clients at one time.
The decision upheld the 2016 findings of the Competition Tribunal which prohibited TREB from enforcing certain restrictions on the display and use of MLS data. If the Supreme Court decides not to grant TREB’s application for leave to appeal, the board would have 60 days to follow that order.
The case is “hugely important” to the operators of real estate websites seeking to offer clients not just previous prices but also analytical services, said Joseph Zeng, CEO of the site HouseSigma.
Zeng’s site currently provides past sales prices and uses an artificial intelligence system to process the data in order to calculate and recommend bids on properties. Opening the door to greater data access will allow for more such services to be developed, he said.
“A lot of people are going to be watching this very carefully,” Zeng said. “And if realtors think this sort of access threatens their business then they are overthinking things. It is just another tool to give buyers more confidence in the process.”
The Competition Bureau launched the challenge to TREB in 2011 and has pursued the case through the successive tenures of three different commissioners.
“If the Supreme Court of Canada dismisses TREB’s request to appeal, it will be an important win for consumers and will pave the way for much-needed innovation in the real estate industry,” the Competition Bureau said in a statement.
TREB declined to comment pending the court’s decision.
It is just another tool to give buyers more confidence in the process.