You are just playing with words.

I don't see this as necessarily bad for realtors; especially in Canada where the industry is protected from this kind of competition by the government. Stuart has often said that mls is only available to people out of the kindness of realtors hearts; but this misses the point that pretty much everybody now expects to start their property searches on the web. However when they start they are confronted with the truly dreadful mls website so I would hope that this will either force it to become better or simply get shutdown.

Personally I think having a combination of street view, maps, and real estate listings could be a really good offering from google.

The realtor.ca is being constantly upgraded and street maps etc are coming. Also a link to local demographics so you can get an idea of the income range of your neighbours and ethnic mix.

BUT even though I was told they were coming last week at a meeting with the board, it does take time (don't know why).

But what makes it crap isn't the lack of information about the colour of the people in the area shown but the cumbersome and slow user interface. A quick fix would be to put it back to the previous version.

I think their thinking was to change it so that in the long run they can make it better.

I agree I do not know why it should be so slow now.

My post was tongue in cheek but it does highlight perfectly the difference between the morals of the realtors in Canada. I would respectfully suggest that anyone viewing Sam's post versus Helen's would be able to pick the one to deal with with relative ease.

As most know, I am a lawyer. Having to put up with comments and jokes about lawyers is just part of the job. I have picked people up from the airport as well. Who knows, I may start putting my wife's name on all my posts too

From a seller's perspective, surely this new site will be a very good thing. It will be interesting to see how the purchaser's realtor will get paid in such a situation. If sellers hold their nerve (and refuse to pay the realtor's fees) it could be the begining of the end of realtors. Who would honestly pay a realtor $9,000 to "help them" purchase a $400,000 in Calgary when they can view the details online and view the house themselves (a la England)?

It may generate extra work for lawyers though, in that they will be asked to draft contracts that actually benefit the purchaser rather than the current pro forma contracts that are significantly adverse to their interests.

Probably because they don't have the resources, know-how and money of Google. I think the best mls can do now is to do some kind of deal with Google. This would be better for everyone.

And how is this a good or positive thing

Because it it doing a lot more than the other site. When you move the map around it is doing something AJAXy to dynamically return a list of properties as you scroll. Only probably is, it isn't really well laid out and could do with some optimising. Google's map engine leaves it in the dust.

If you are a snob or a racist it maybe useful.

Its no different to take a drive around a neighbourhood and looking around, but it saves you the trip. If Im buying a home I want to know about the neighbourhood. When did you become all P-C anyway? You dont assess the makeup of a neighbourhood before investing hundreds of thousands to live there?. Im not going to pretend I wouldnt.

Its just information. If its possible to make it easy to access, then why not do so. More information to base a decision on is usually better than less, simple as that.

I reckon a lot more people will be interested in that than would admit it.

Iain, I will NEVER claim to be PC, nor will I ever claim not to assess the make-up or 'feel' of a neighbourhood. My point is that income and ethnic mix do NOT necessarily make a good or bad neighbourhood (or a more desirable one)

Example 1: The ethnic and income mixes of Bridlewood/Evergreen are broadly similar to those of Tuscany (communities within Calgary) yet I wouldnt live in one and I doubt AC would live in the other.

Example 2: Taking my last home and my current home there is probably a wider spread of income levels (lower mean) in my current area and certainly a larger skew towards Black (Caribbean and West African) and Asian away from Black (East African), East Indian and White, HOWEVER I prefer this area (even with the sketchy reputation) for a number of OTHER reasons.


Alan I dont doubt for a minute you are correct

That information is readily available for Toronto, the mls site would just have to link to it; work of a moment.

I dunno, I always quite fancied Tuscany and, now that a certain someone has moved to downtown, it might be worth another look