The Competition Bureau has obtained a court order as part of an investigation into potential anti-competitive conduct by the Canadian Real Estate Association.
The bureau is examining whether CREA’s commission rules discourage buyers’ realtors from offering lower commission rates or impact competition in other ways.
It is also investigating whether CREA’s realtor co-operation policy hinders alternative listing services from competing with major listing services or gives larger brokerages an unfair advantage over smaller ones.
The court order requires CREA to provide records and information relevant to the investigation, with the bureau stating that the investigation is ongoing and no wrongdoing has been concluded at this time.
CREA’s membership consists of over 160,000 real estate brokers, agents, and salespeople, but they have not yet commented on the matter.
Court documents reveal that the bureau’s inquiry began in June, with the competition commissioner suspecting that CREA engaged in conduct that hindered real estate agents’ ability to compete.
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The documents indicate that CREA owns the MLS and Multiple Listing Service trademarks and operates realtor.ca, a platform where real estate groups list homes for sale.
Websites like realtor.ca allow the public to view home listings, while MLS systems provide agents with additional data such as listing details, sales activity, and neighborhood descriptions.
Access to the MLS system is a benefit offered to members by real estate boards and associations.
In recent years, the Competition Bureau has been investigating whether limited public access to these systems hinders competition or innovation in the real estate industry.
Listings on an MLS system must include a commission offer to the buyers’ agent, and typically the buyer’s agent is paid by the seller’s agent upon sale, as per court documents.
The rules allegedly reduce the incentive for buyers’ agents to offer lower commissions since buyers may not choose an agent based on commission rates if they are not paying directly.
The bureau claims that these rules also encourage buyers’ agents to steer clients away from listings with lower-than-average commissions.
The documents also mention that CREA’s co-operation policy, implemented in 2024, favors larger brokerages due to their ability to reach larger agent networks.
The policy mandates residential real estate listings to be added to an MLS system within three days of public marketing, disadvantaging alternative listing services in areas like privacy and inventory competition.
Last year, the Competition Bureau investigated whether the Quebec Professional Association for Real Estate Brokers’ data-sharing restrictions were impeding competition in the housing market.
A court order was obtained in February 2023 for the ongoing investigation into whether QPAREB and its subsidiary, Société Centris, engaged in practices that hinder competition or innovation in online brokerage services in Quebec.
Much of the data-sharing activity in question was related to an MLS for Quebec real estate.
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