Searching the GTA PLUS for you!

On Tuesday, July 28th, members of TREB (Toronto Real Estate Board) will have beta access to a new system. Here's an excerpt of the announcement we received....

CONNECT is a joint venture of the Toronto Real Estate Board, REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington, the London and St. Thomas Association of REALTORS® and the Ottawa Real Estate Board. It offers all REALTOR® members, Unlicensed Assistants and Brokerage Administrators from participating boards the ability to search and view active listings and recent sales history of all other participating boards in their own local MLS® format.

CONNECT is not an MLS system – it provides access to more information in an efficient manner. Members will have the ability to search and view 2 years of Active, Sold, Conditional Sold and Pending Sold information for all listing classes except for Commercial, which will have 4 years of history.

What does this mean for you?

Well, now your TREB Realtor will have access to a much broader geography of real estate properties. Currently we can see listings (and history) as far west as Oakville - Highway 6 and the Oakville/Burlington Townline.

Going forward, we'll also have access to listings (and two years of history) in

• Burlington,
  
• Hamilton,
  
• St. Thomas and
  
• London in the west
  
• and in the "far" east, Ottawa!

Note that this isn't an amalgation of systems or boards but rather a collaboration to share information.

How is this different from REALTOR.CA (formerly MLS.CA)?

Well, that system (REALTOR.CA) is a Canada-wide system aimed at the consumer, offered by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). All member boards of CREA can upload their board-specific listing information into that national system for access by the broader public.

Since every board uses their own selected software and database, some have more and/or different information than others so only a common set of information appears on REALTOR.CA.

In addition, REALTOR.CA shows only current listings without any sold information.

With this new CONNECT system, your Realtor will also be able to access up to two years of historical information on properties in those areas as well.

Call your local Realtor (me?) for more information.

Protect your own interests, first!

There's an interesting article in today's online "paper" that talks about someone lending their name to a real estate transaction over the lure of cheap & easy money. Read it here.

Per the old saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Your credit rating is extremely important to you and you should do everything that you can, to protect it. Who accesses your credit rating? Not just credit card companies. Insurance companies have hinted that they're trying (or are) connecting their insurance rates to your credit rating; that people with lousier credit tend to also be higher insurance risks. Also, I have heard (but don't know for sure) that some employers run credit checks on their prospective employees as part of a security check.