Realtors scrambling after threats by board to cut access to MLS

The Toronto Real Estate Board is threatening to cut off a vital lifeline — access to the Multiple Listing Service — for realtors who continue to push the information envelope by offering sold data of homes on public websites.
The move is largely seen as aimed at a new, tech-savvy generation of realtors who believe that all MLS data — and especially sales histories of homes — should be readily accessible online, as it is on popular U.S. sites such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com, which allow folks to do more of their own research.
TREB did not respond to requests for interviews.

Some realtors were scrambling this week to ensure their websites weren’t in violation of TREB rules. At least one brokerage — which counts a former TREB president and a president-elect among its realtor ranks — appears to have shut down an innovative app that, for a year, has offered sold data right to househunters’ phones.

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