Across Canada, Realtors are held to a higher standard. We are expected to uphold ethics, accuracy, and professionalism. But the platforms we rely on to meet those expectations are designed by organizations that do not bear the consequences of failure.
When listings are incomplete or misleading, it isn’t just agents who lose. It’s the consumers who make life-changing decisions based on flawed information. It’s time we stop pretending the system works. The tools that power our listings are riddled with gaps that force even the most diligent Realtors into impossible positions.
Brokerages carry the risk, yet boards retain control. That misalignment is eroding public trust and the Realtor brand along with it.
Systems that undercut service
Realtors are not just working within flawed systems; they are compelled to.
Under CREA’s Realtor Cooperation Policy, agents who publicly advertise a property are required to post it on the MLS. There is no true opt-out. That means if an agent markets a listing on social media, in print, or even by putting a sign on the lawn, they are obligated to input it into a system that may not be capable of capturing the full picture.
In practice, we are forced to shoehorn listings into rigid platforms, regardless of whether the data fields reflect the property accurately.
In many regions, agents are working within platforms that do not allow them to input basic details of a property. One common issue is the restriction on the number of rooms or features that can be uniquely defined. Some systems limit descriptors, cap room types, or omit fields entirely. These gaps seem trivial until you list a $3-million custom home and find you cannot properly describe it. Not because of negligence, but because the system itself makes full disclosure impossible.
It’s a Hobson’s choice: either comply with systems that cannot reflect the full truth of the listing or violate the policy by withholding it entirely. In either case, the agent loses, and the client is underserved.
That listing then feeds into Realtor.ca, our most visible and trusted public-facing platform. The consumer sees incomplete information on a website that claims to be powered by Realtors. They expect that it is accurate.
Who takes the hit?
Not the system vendor. Not the board. Not the national platform.
The Realtor does.
The brokerage is on the legal hook, but the agent is the face beside the listing, and the one the public holds responsible. When the data is wrong, that trust is shaken, even if every rule was followed.
The fragmented foundation
This is not hypothetical. It’s happening right now, in real markets, with real listings that bear real consequences.
In some cases, agents are told to work around limitations. They are advised to put key details in the remarks, fudge the structure of the property, or leave important aspects unlisted. This creates a troubling contradiction. Realtors are held to the highest standard but asked to compromise accuracy because of technical limits they cannot control.
At the heart of this issue is a contradiction in organized real estate.
We promote ourselves as a unified national profession but operate in a fragmented data ecosystem. There is no single MLS system in Canada. Each local board or regional association negotiates with its own vendor and sets out its own rules.
The result is a patchwork of differing input fields, inconsistent property categories, and minimal national oversight.
Even Realtor.ca, which is often treated as our national standard, is not a national MLS. It is a reflection of data feeds from boards across the country, each shaped by different priorities and limitations.
Risk without authority
Who owns the data? And more importantly, who is accountable for it?
Listing data may originate with Realtors, but in practice, it’s governed by boards, housed by vendors, and syndicated nationally by CREA. Boards license its use, enforce its rules, and in some cases, restrict how it can be accessed. CREA promotes the listings and brands them with Realtor trust.
At no point does the individual Realtor retain full control over the dataset. Agents pay dues to three levels of organized real estate but often cannot access their own listing history without going through approval processes or paying additional fees. That is not sustainable. Especially when the stakes are high.
Because what boards and CREA do not carry is risk. Brokerages do.
It is the brokerage that takes on vicarious liability. It is the brokerage that ensures accuracy and compliance, that trains, audits, and disciplines its agents. It is the brokerage that absorbs reputational and legal fallout when listings go wrong, regardless of whether the error began in a system it cannot access or control.
A misalignment of power
So why are the most accountable actors given the least control?
Today, boards control the platforms that manage the most visible and valuable real estate data in the country, while brokerages, the entities legally responsible for much of what happens with that data, are often left out of governance conversations entirely. This is not a question of internal politics. It is a fundamental misalignment between responsibility and authority.
And this isn’t a governance quirk. It’s a cultural flaw that distances decision-makers from responsibility, and one that is often hardcoded into board-level vendor contracts that entrench limitations, delay reform, and prevent innovation. In many ways, Realtors have become service users of their own listing platforms, with limited ability to shape or challenge the architecture of the systems they fund. That disconnect reinforces disengagement. It limits innovation. And it weakens the voice of those doing the work on the ground.
The erosion of trust
This is a problem because data is trust. The Realtor brand is not just a logo or a code of conduct. It is a promise. When the listing platform shows incomplete or misleading information, it reflects poorly on the brand that is supposed to represent integrity and accuracy. And if the national platform cannot distinguish between a system constraint and an agent oversight, then the public sees no difference.
The result is that consumers blame the Realtor. Not the board. Not the system. Not the national feed.
This guarantees reputational risk. It also undermines the value of being a Realtor rather than a registrant. If a consumer sees inaccurate or missing information on a Realtor listing, they may ask what value the designation truly offers. If a custom home cannot be accurately marketed on Realtor.ca, why would a seller choose a Realtor when the system is built to fail them?
From awareness to action
Organized real estate has been aware of platform limitations for years, but progress toward national data standards has been slow, cautious, and largely invisible to members. The result is that frontline agents and brokerages are left to fill the gap, absorbing reputational risk while systems inch forward behind closed doors. That silence is no longer defensible.
If brokerages are held accountable by law, then they must have standing in the governance of the systems that define their risk.
If brokerages are to remain accountable, they must also be empowered. Platform governance should include brokerage representation. Data policy must be co-designed with those who shoulder the liability. Anything less is regulatory negligence by design.
CREA does not own MLS systems, but it does own the Realtor trademarks and operates Realtor.ca. That comes with responsibility. CREA should not micromanage boards, but it must set national expectations for what Realtor-level data integrity looks like. That might include minimum input standards, public disclaimers when known system limitations exist, and tools for agents and brokerages to preview how their listings will appear.
It also means working collaboratively with boards and vendors to modernize platforms in ways that reflect how real estate is practiced today. This includes eliminating arbitrary field caps, improving cross-board interoperability, and giving brokerages and Realtors more agency over the data they are responsible for.
A seat at the table
When there is no accountability for the system, the accountability falls to the agent and their brokerage. This is not just unjust; it’s structurally indefensible.
We’re at an inflection point. Consumers are more data-savvy than ever. Alternative platforms are gaining traction. Realtors cannot afford to be trapped in outdated systems governed by legacy contracts or institutional politics. If we want to maintain our place as the most trusted advisors in real estate, our tools must reflect the standards we uphold.
Right now, the message to consumers is this: trust the Realtor, but not the data they are forced to work with.
That contradiction cannot stand. If we want the Realtor brand to thrive, we must stop outsourcing control and start aligning authority with accountability.
Brokerages carry the risk. It is time they had a seat at the table.
Brandon Reay brings a multifaceted background in real estate practice, policy, and governance. Before stepping into brokerage leadership, Brandon spent several years in organized real estate, contributing to strategic initiatives and advocacy efforts with CREA and OREA, and various Chambers of Commerce. His work has included shaping housing policy, supporting regulatory reform, and improving REALTOR® engagement across the country.
Brandon’s approach blends hands-on brokerage experience with a systems-level understanding of how policy, market forces, and professional standards intersect. He is known for helping professionals navigate evolving market conditions and advocating for higher standards within the industry. In addition to his leadership role at RE/MAX Hallmark Realty Group, he remains an active REALTOR® focused on agent development, business strategy, and client service.
Brandon regularly contributes commentary on market trends to media outlets and industry publications and has served as a spokesperson on housing issues in Ottawa. He is also a frequent speaker at real estate events, offering data-driven insights on brokerage strategy, professionalism, and the future of the industry.
He holds a Master of Business Administration from the Sprott School of Business. Brandon lives in Ottawa, where he remains closely involved in local policy discussions on housing affordability and real estate governance.
It was a great post until….an inexperienced realtor is in brokerage leadership at Hallmark.
How many Hallmark listings have been posted at $1 asking price?
How many Hallmark listings were advertised on realtor.ca at a price the Seller had informed their realtor was so low they would never accept it?
How many Hallmark listings refuse to publish the size of the home (sq.ft) because they know it’s too small for the asking price ?
How many Hallmark listings are being counted multiple times in CREA’s monthly and annual sales counts..(I just found 4 in 60 seconds) ?
What is that saying about stones?
Kent was fun guy in the early 90s his NLP kick was legendary across the brand.
I’m confused, what does this article have to do with Hallmark?
I want what Ross is smoking. Go to bed kiddo
Ross, you have a passion for correctness, a passion for expressing it, and some how the world is not content.
I do not know if your assertions are correct; if they are, my suggestion to all of us not to dismiss the brokerage for these.
Brokerages may own the data but the cannot limit their clients competitive needs over what is right where the right thing to do is not prohibited by everyone. It probably should not be prohibited at all, except in law and in contract. In fact having the brokerages as data owners is one of the fundamental problems of ORE, after all the work product and the accountability for it should rest with the REALTOR® as should the value.
This article is a most outstandingly, remarkable, and insightful dissertation of THE problem with ORE. The problem manifests in multiple different MLS® systems – a fact the public does not have a universal understanding of, it manifests in the varied rules, it manifests in ORE acting as if the parent of our misbehaving ways, and it manifest in ridiculously requirements for express behavior.
Respect for your passion, Ross, is warranted and for your right and temerity to speak out. Dissing this article is not the form to result in progress toward a brighter future, especially when the critique is not at all on the merits cited therein.
My opinion, until we send in an independent auditor to audit everything we are not going to have an understand of the true extent of the mess our associations have created and how to fix them. There is so much wrong. It’s almost worth burning it down and starting over. The biggest problem is that people in charge don’t seem to understand real estate. And then they farm out our services to companies that haven’t got a clue as well. So we’ve got the blind leading the blind. I hardly used the mls system now. I do most of my research on how sigma
I didn’t read the entire post, but one thing I want to comment on is that our board was “The Lakelands” and before that merger, it was “Southern Georgian Bay”. Now we are part of OnePoint and each time we merge with another board our data gets messed up. We had worked hard to had waterfront related fields added to our data and now that we are OnePoint many of those fields don’t exist and ones (like ‘pool’) are mandatory. Very many historical listings didn’t make it over to the new system and I am increasingly feeling like we did this to appease TRREB and not in the best interest of our board members and our clients. I am definitely not getting what I am paying for now and my clients aren’t either.
Hi
It wasn’t the merger that is the problem, it’s switching over to PropTx that messed everything up! I was a HP board member and Matrix worked great but when we all merged and PropTx happened, it became a messed up system! I
Thank you, Brandon, for putting into words what so many of us are experiencing on the ground.
Since being moved to Proptx, we’ve faced numerous glitches and limitations that make it difficult to properly represent listings. In our area, several towns and hamlets aren’t recognized, forcing us to use the broader township name instead. This creates confusion—not just for the public, but also during the offer process. We risk serious confusion for buyers, lawyers, and lenders alike.
We even have situations where two or more properties share the same street address on “Main Street” within one township—but in entirely different towns. Without the ability to distinguish between them in the system, we’re left with workarounds that compromise clarity and accuracy.
Multi-family listings are another challenge. We no longer have proper fields to include income, expenses, CAP rates, or unit-specific details. Yes, we can upload documents—but that information isn’t visible to the public, and often goes unnoticed even by fellow agents.
We’ve also lost access to important historical data. Photos are missing, listing records are incomplete, and in some cases, the system shows the wrong property altogether. It even took months for key geographic features, like Eastern Ontario’s lakes and rivers, to be properly added.
At the end of the day, the public judges us—the Realtors—for inaccuracies that are out of our hands. We’re held to a high standard, and we want to meet it, but we need systems that support us in doing so.
You’re absolutely right: if brokerages are the ones carrying the legal and reputational risk, we must be part of the conversation when it comes to how these platforms function. Until then, we’re being held responsible without the tools or authority to do the job properly—and that’s not fair to us or the clients we serve.
The general yet unpolled consensus from the real estate community seems to be a desire for one system. It will be interesting to find out if this opinion piece represent the pinnacle of what can go wrong in the current middle stages of that effort.
And now imagine with the new cross border change, the liability that may arise not just with the out of town agent assisting buyers and sellers but also for out of province agents navigating their clients in the face of missing, deficient or incorrect information.
Henrietta, have you experienced any missing listings? I recently had my sales record erroneously under-represented in a legal document.
This is exactly why Cornerstone Association of Realtors took a stand!
They, as a board, did not have the right to give away the data. Brokerages own it & license it’s use to the board.
More broker of records should hold their boards accountable for handing over the full use/rights to forever!
My CEO also said that PropTx gets to do whatever they want with the data, however the board is held liable for any misues.
So PropTx makes all the profits, we provide the data, our brokerages have no say & the boards are held liable?
It’s a mess & makes no sense at all.
This is what happens when most boards move to greedy, for-profit proptx. It’s beyond limited, and is utterly awful and not user friendly at all. The data is often wrong, or missing entirely. I’m happy to still have itso- something that is actually reliable and has the fields needed to do the job properly.
So happy to have ITSO & the robust version of Matrix… not the watered down version that was provided to those on PropTx who don’t like realm.
What a ridiculous world it would be if the brands and brokerages were able the cheat and tilt everything in their own favour… What we don’t need as Realtors is more Brand BS. The answer sounds simple for you, pull out of membership and build your own… but you can’t have it both ways!
The fundamental flaw is our profession is governed by layers of authority, with diminishing input…individual realtor elects its board, who appoints or elects lesser numbers of persons to be voting at provincial ORE and CREA. There is no accountability; well meaning professionals try and do their best, however, the goal line is a constant moving target and certainly there is no financial (or really reputational) risk to the decision makers. Fix ORE. Make it all a for profit arrangement with shareholders being the REALTORS® individually.
Some of this information is accurate. Some is creating issues where none should exist. Regardless of any platform there will always be a gap in a description of a home and the actual home itself. A residential home is subjective. It’s the eyes of the beholder. It’s an emotional purchase. Looking at a home on line will never compare to physically looking at a property. Homes have a feel. If a buyer is interested in a home and purchase sight unseen, they should have very little recourse for any issues discovered after the fact. If a Buyer has physically looked at a home a few times. Had a home inspection before firming up a transaction, then they should have limited recourse for any issues that arise after the fact. There will be exceptions even after complete due diligence. Caveat Emptor still rules. From a buyers perspective if things such as square footage are important, then recommend a Buyer measure the home by the standards they choose to verify before firming a transaction. If the age of a furnace or any or any questions about any major systems, have them inspected to your satisfaction. If you physically looked at a at a home, make sure you look at every room. Even ones that may have to be described in the “comments “ section. There are endless ways a realtor can protect buyers and sellers and themselves through proper due diligence. The solutions to all problems should be “Common Sense” rule. At some point in time Common Sense has to be followed.
Thanks for taking the time to weigh in. I agree: real estate is inherently personal, and buyer due diligence will always be essential. But that’s not what this article is about.
The concern here is systemic, not emotional. Agents are responsible for data accuracy, but many of the tools we’re required to use make it harder to meet that standard. And the consequences aren’t just about liability.
When platforms can’t properly capture key property details, buyers may never see listings that would be a perfect match. And sellers, who hired us to market their home, may miss serious opportunities because the system fails to reflect what makes their property unique. Consider waterfront listings on lakes that can’t be noted. Multiplex properties. Unique layouts.
Yes, common sense matters. But so does infrastructure that’s fit for purpose. If we’re expected to carry the risk, we need tools built to support the standard we’re being held to.
I find it quite amusing when brands and brokerages point their fingers at boards, emphasizing the costs and fees, as the OP has here. It is true that associations take their fair share and they ought to be cognizant of who’s money it is! The funny part, is the red herring that is ever present in these OpEds, from the source of the largest drain on Realtors wallets – their own brokerages – who charge 10 times what the associations do. Now compare the offering; think about it!
Respectfully, my position mentions fees once, and even then, only to note that we pay three levels of ORE. At no point do I emphasize costs, nor do I argue that boards are expensive. The focus here is on governance and accountability; specifically, how brokerages are expected to uphold professional standards using tools they didn’t build, can’t control, and that often undermine compliance and client trust.
Pointing to brokerage fees may be a popular pivot, but it doesn’t address the issue raised. If a listing goes live with missing or inaccurate data, the board doesn’t get the phone call, we do. We carry the liability. And if we’re going to be held to that standard, we deserve a system that’s built with that reality in mind.
Agents can fill in gaps/clarify etc in listing remarks. Caveat emptor too. All have responsibility – listing agent, buyer agent, seller. buyer, board,, MLS system providers etc. Systems aren’t perfect – can only go so far on depth of design & info etc. Try hard and do our best
The system should allow us to use the legal address or the name of the town a property is in. Unfortunately, the system does not give some of that option in our markets.
Agents can fill in gaps/clarify etc in listing remarks. Caveat emptor too. All have responsibility – listing agent, buyer agent, seller. buyer, board,, MLS system providers etc. Systems aren’t perfect – can only go so far on depth of design & info etc. Try hard and do our best
An interesting and illuminative article – it is my opinion that the entire southern Ontario mls system has been set back 25 years this past year as the boards have split with the TREBB vs non TREBB realtor boards and non comparable different MLS systems –
We have also seen the mls system weaponized and I am surprised there has not been a legal challenge of the compulsorily listing all listings onto the mls – worse the compulsory completion if data fields – what happened with buyer verifying for themselves important data – eg the idea house prices should be based on a price per se ft is the primary part of the CREA home valuation models yet over the years experienced agents know location, lot shape, type of home, condition and other factors are key and maybe more important than price per sq ft.
I deal with rural properties and absolutely for sure none of the mls forms encompass a proper and accurate listing capability – simply compulsory fields being completed automatically make the listing inaccurate – so the solution force a square peg into smaller round holes –
Listings should provide the basic info but the making of mandatory square footage and other mandatory fields eg rooms, heating etc on a farm with 2 houses , barns other buildings and multi environmental zoning – heaven forbid explaining the property owners crown grant rights – the system is VERY broken – now the multi MLS boards and non comparable and unified all boards accessible mls info is a disaster.
OREA and CREA are more concerned about building their empires then about making selling real estate easier and realtor friendly.
By the way I agree with Ross -I also believe many agents are gaming the system and fudging data but I don’t name names – we need a 100 sales reps to sit down and create new listing forms and data fields which will be compulsory for the province and the mls info must be available to all realtors in the province – no matter their board –
Don, do you think a separate database for rural properties would be helpful, the way there is a separate commercial database? Of course some properties would get listed on both the residential database and the “rural” database the way some properties (eg multiplex residential) get listed on both the residential and commercial databases. The residential database could provide a sort of “reader’s digest” version of the listing whereas the listing on the rural database could have many more fields not found on the residential db. Just spitballing here — I don’t do rural real estate at all so have no idea. But some sort of dedicated rural db sounds like it could solve some of these problems.
Realtors reputations at risk… MLS systems… and you think THAT’S the problem! Wake up and smell the ethics/Tresa violations.