Toronto Real Estate Board President’s column as it appears each Friday in the Toronto Sun’s Resale Homes and Condos section
As the fifth largest city in North America, Toronto has many characteristics for which it is noted. Our city is home for example, to a number of world-renown cultural events; we have the world’s seventh largest stock exchange and a university that ranks amongst the top ten globally.
You may not be aware though, that Toronto also has a system for the purchase and sale of property that is admired internationally. In many countries, there is simply no equivalent to the Multiple Listing Service, a sophisticated computer database of sold, expired and active listings accessed only by your Realtor.
As a professional association of more than 29,000 Realtors, the Toronto Real Estate Board operates our city’s Multiple Listing Service, TorontoMLS, and in doing so, supports Greater Toronto Realtors‘ efforts to offer you outstanding service.
Established nearly 80 years ago, Toronto Real Estate Board has evolved through the decades to offer a range of services to its Members that include statistical updates on the market, Continuing Education sessions and access to land registry, assessment and new construction data.
You Realtor in turn, uses these and other tools to offer you professional counsel.
If, for example, you intend to buy a home you can be registered in the Toronto Real Estate Board’s Buyer Registry Service. It is a central repository in which your Realtor can register your housing preferences, providing their name as the contact. By registering your criteria in the BRS, your Realtor can get early notification from other Realtors when properties matching your preferences become available. You can also receive nightly notifications sent through the TorontoMLS prospect match function.
If you are planning on selling, your Realtor can use MLS data to provide a comparative market analysis that will help you establish a realistic asking price for your home. In addition to listing your home on TorontoMLS, your Realtor can advertise general information about your home on public websites like TorontoRealEstateBoard.com, Realtor.ca, your Realtor‘s own website and those of other real estate professionals through formal agreements facilitated by the Toronto Real Estate Board.
While their primary focus is helping you achieve a smooth and financially healthy transaction, Greater Toronto Realtors work to make our city a better place in many other ways as well.
Realtors advocate your interests on key legislative issues like property taxes, sales tax harmonization and land transfer taxes. They make direct contributions to GTA communities as well, providing REALTORS Care Foundation grants to 20 shelter-related charitable organizations this year alone. They also offer a helping hand to GTA schoolchildren, through the Children’s Breakfast Program, a joint venture between the Toronto Real Estate Board and the Toronto District School Board’s Toronto Foundation for Student Success, they help to provide nutritious breakfasts to 1900 children in 11 different schools every week.
These are just a few of the reasons that the work of Greater Toronto Realtors is so highly regarded around the world. For more information on real estate in the GTA including market statistics, neighbourhood profiles and open house listings, please visit www.TorontoRealEstateBoard.com.
Tom Lebour is President of the Toronto Real Estate Board, a professional association that represents 28,000 Realtors in the Greater Toronto Area.
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