Historical home sales data to be freely available on realtor.ca

The Canadian Real Estate Association will be adding historical home sales data to its realtor.ca website and make it available without a password.

It follows a Supreme Court decision which ended Toronto Real Estate Board’s bid to protect home sales data. Although the case focused on GTA data, the ruling set a precedent.

CREA will not automatically add the information though and crucially it seems unlikely that Toronto data will be included. That’s because realtor.ca will only feature data when its inclusion is requested by regional real estate boards.

HuffPost Canada reports that TREB has not been consulted by CREA on its decision and will be reviewing it.

In defence of its position to restrict data, TREB CEO John DiMichele said after the Supreme Court’s decision that “TREB believes personal financial information of home buyers and sellers must continue to be safely used and disclosed in a manner that respects privacy interests and will be studying the required next steps to ensure such information will be protected in compliance with the Tribunal Order once that comes into effect.”

TREB is already allowing its data to be used on password-protected sites.