Four of Canada biggest real estate companies to share listings.

-- Canada’s four biggest real estate companies are close to an agreement to share their listings, the National Post reported.

Century 21, Royal LePage, Re/Max Ontario-Atlantic Canada and Coldwell Banker have met “several times” in the past year to work on an accord under which they could take sales listings from each other’s Web sites and post them to their own, the Post said. Re/Max of Western Canada and Re/Max Quebec aren’t part of the proposed deal, the newspaper said.

The companies say the proposed agreement is unrelated to an inquiry by Canada’s Competition Bureau into a restricted-access system called Multiple Listing Service, which is controlled by the Canadian Real Estate Association, the Post said. The pact could provide realtors with an alternative to the MLS system if it’s modified as a result of the two-year-old investigation, the newspaper said.

For now, only licensed real estate agents who are members of local real-estate boards can post listings on MLS, the Post said. The Competition Bureau has requested the real estate association remove all rules that prohibit or impede the posting of property information on MLS systems, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter for this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal at tomesco@bloomberg.net.

Fabienne Malenfant

Relationist

http://agentsbysector.com