mls.ca is now "Realtor.ca"

- the Power to Search, Market & Sell!

The www.mls.ca web site  - now www.Realtor.ca is one of Canada's most popular internet research tools for residential real estate. It is a public site, so anyone with access to a computer – buyers, sellers, or the “just curious” – can view property listings at any time.

The original MLS web site was launched in 1996. The idea was a simple one – to promote MLS^® listings online as a convenience to Canadian consumers buying or selling a home. It started with just over 6,000 listings from only four local real estate Boards. Today it's hard to imagine the home-buying process without the internet. In fact, a 2003 consumer survey indicated 85 per cent of Canadians who bought a home started the process on the internet. The same survey reported even those not buying a home used the internet to “stay in touch” with the housing market.

In 2004 alone, more than 650,000 residential listings were posted on www.mls.ca, representing almost 90 per cent of all MLS^® properties in Canada. The listings on the web site come from the MLS^® database of most local real estate Boards across Canada. The listings are updated once every 24 hours with information provided by the local Boards and Associations. This information includes basic listing description, photographs, and contact information.

The Realtor.ca web site is not an MLS^® system, and does NOT display all of the listing information associated with a property in the local real estate Board's database.  Rather, the web site is an advertising vehicle that helps REALTORS^® market a property to literally a world wide market. Every month, an average of 2 million unique visitors visit the English and French versions of the www.mls.ca web site. Each unique visitor, on average, visits the site three times a month and spends an average of 20 minutes per visit*.

If you're BUYING a property, use the www.mls.ca web site as a resource, but remember:    as Your REALTOR ^® I can provide local market expertise and information on market conditions, along with the additional data available to me from the MLS^® database of the local real estate Board. 

Realtors generally receive new listings in advance of them being available to the public on the mls.ca site, and I can easily set up a customized, search for properties for you!

If you're SELLING your home please ask me about the marketing opportunities available by posting your property on the www.mls.ca web site.

Please note that commercial and investment properties are posted on the WWW.ICX.CA web site.

*2005 average data, Jupiter Media Metrix

The bulk of this information published courtesy of the Toronto Real Estate Board.