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“ Using the MLS gives unmatched exposure to properties for sale. If you’re selling your home, a listing on MLS will be shared with other Realtors for the broadest distribution possible. If you’re buying a home, MLS will have the largest pool of homes to choose from.” JAKE MOLDOWAN REBGV PRESIDENT
Housing market information originating from the Multiple Listing Service ( MLS) has long been recognized as the most reliable and comprehensive data available for those looking to buy or sell a home.
The strength of this more than 60-year-old system rests in the quality and accuracy of the information. Government, economists, fi nancial institutions, appraisers and others all rely on MLS data. This is because Realtors who submit the listing information, and MLS staff at real estate boards who conduct quality control, are trained and educated in the complexities of real estate.
“ Using the MLS gives unmatched exposure to properties for sale,” says Jake Moldowan, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. “ If you’re selling your home, a listing on MLS will be shared with other Realtors for the broadest distribution possible. If you’re buying a home, MLS will have the largest pool of homes to choose from.
“ The MLS also serves as the foundation of our property taxation system by providing reliable information, backed by professional accountability, to government bodies responsible for assessments in our province,” Moldowan said.
Realtors know how to describe a property accurately and what information must be disclosed in an MLS listing. For instance, if there is a restriction on the use of a property, something called an easement, this information must appear in the MLS listing.
Many alternate systems and services exist to buy and sell homes and they all compete for customers. The MLS is the Realtor option.
Why www. realtor. ca is a great advertising vehicle for property sales.
The public website www. realtor. ca is not the MLS system. Local MLS systems are owned and operated by local real estate boards, for use by Realtors. Consumers have direct access to information about MLS listings through www. realtor. ca, an advertising vehicle which was named www. mls. ca until 2008.
Each month, approximately four million unique visitors go to www. realtor. ca and view more than 145 million pages. More than half a million people located in B. C. log on to the website each month.
At any given time, there are approximately $ 1.35 billion in Canadian properties listed on the website.
The home listing information on www. realtor. ca streams from the MLS but does not contain the full collection of information on the system. The website is provided by Realtors across Canada to help market properties on behalf of their clients.
How does the MLS work?
Realtors compete with each other for your business, but at the same time cooperate to help you buy or sell property. That unique concept of cooperating while competing led to the creation of the MLS in 1950 by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
The MLS is fundamentally a cooperative marketing system that helps the public buy and sell real estate. It’s a system for sharing information between Realtors on homes for sale.
“ Through the MLS system, the Realtor who represents a seller is inviting all other Realtors to off er that home for sale to their buyers. Sellers therefore have all the Realtors in their community seeking buyers for their homes. For buyers, it’s a one-stop shopping experience,” Moldowan said.
“ By having Realtors agree to share their inventory with one another, a more effi cient marketplace is created,” Moldowan says.
If the MLS system did not exist, sellers would have to choose an individual real estate brokerage to list their home and only that brokerage would have the information about it and the ability to show and sell it. If the MLS system did not exist, buyers would have to go from Realtor to Realtor to view the listings of each individual brokerage.
“ Sellers and buyers often decide to work with a Realtor because they want expert guidance through a complex process. For this important transaction, people want to select someone they are comfortable working with and who off ers the services they are looking for at a price they can agree on. The MLS system provides consumers a vast range of choices,” Moldowan says. (* REALTOR ® and MLS ® are trademarks owned by the Canadian Real Estate Association.)
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