Interested, I did in fact answer your question, to the best of my ability and within the parameters I am legally limited to. It’s unfortunate that’s not acceptable to you however, some other Realtor is free to provide what you ask for, it just won’t be me.
You’ve not stated how the raw data is going to tell you whether it’s correct or not, complete or not, please explain.
I’m not aiming to fight with anyone either, and for each of us to have an opposing point of view does not mean anyone is aiming for a fight. I know you will object to what I say next, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. As much as you want the raw data, powers bigger than you and me say you have no right to it for a host of reasons (see those links) and I don’t know how else to express to you other than as I have done, that we, as Realtors may not, unless we violate the Real Estate Business and Brokers Act, The PIPEDA and the contract we each have with the board - its TOS, cannot give it to you, in fact nor can the boards.
If I asked your condo board to give me a list of the rented suites in Shangri-la because I want to know exactly which ones are being rented and not just the aggregate, would they? It’s not that they can’t get the information it is that it is privacy protected information to which I have no right, not even if my client wanted to know who they will be living beside.
So then, would it be difficult for you to do as I suggest and have your Realtor sit with you and show you whatever you want? Because publishing it on the net isn’t the only way Interested can have of seeing it.
For a sale in Oakville to appear on two boards, it must be independently entered by a Realtor on the MLS system for each board. They are independent systems, and the results the boards produce are for the purpose of providing an informational report only which states the number of transactions/sales/listings processed through its independent board’s MLS system. So if I enter an Oakville listing on Oakville’s board system, and also on TREB’s board system, OMDREB publishes that this listing/sale was processed on its system and TREB does the same, but neither is claiming that the total sales for Oakville was 2. Here is the OMDREB’s report, note the source says: The Oakville, Milton and District Board, it doesn’t say all boards in Ontario with Oakville listings, ditto TREB.
http://www.omdreb.on.ca/market_watch/recap/2013-MR/January 2013 Market Watch Oakville.pdf
To determine the number of Oakville sales, it becomes necessary to know how many Oakville listings were placed via other boards that were not also placed on OMDREB and how many listings were placed on OMDREB that were not also placed on other boards. It appears as best as I can tell from CREA’s statements, that job falls to a process that takes place when each board reports to CREA which in turn aggregates and publishes the national stats.
As for independently auditing a board’s listings results, why does anyone seem to think this is should be required? They are a non-public entity whose only customers are Realtors and brokerages – not the public. A board’s report being statistical, is of a non-financial nature and is not a line item in the board’s actual financial statements. In fact, no private entity can be made to publicly disclose anything at all, not even their statistics and I think people just don’t put it together that boards chose to produce these listing statistics, with disclaimers, for informational purposes and all do come with a margin of error especially when a board as large as TREB has upwards of 30,000 non-employees entering the information that is turned into statistics.
But, some decide to claim that the boards and associations results are bogus and that proves that they need to be independently audited? Does it surprise you to learn that the CMHC is independently audited, yet there are those with no connection whatsoever to it who claim the results are bogus? Should they now go out and hire another independent auditor or just have every objector come in and verify the raw data for themself?
Maybe you can also explain to me how TREB or CREA can’t explain whatever it is you wish them to explain because it can hurt their membership? I’m a member and I’m baffled by that statement.
Anyway, I've given you my suggestions as to how to get answers independent of mine – your Realtor, RECO, Privacy Commissioner.
