TREB's stubbornness marks them as Luddites – analysts

The Board’s decision to hold on to its data as much as it can does not make sense in a heavily connected world

By Ephraim Vecina

06 Sep. 2018

The Toronto Real Estate Board’s apparent resolve to hold onto its sold data as tightly as it can represents a retrograde mentality that will harm the Canadian housing segment’s capacity to innovate in the long run, according to a new analysis by Ryerson University associate professor Murtaza Haider and industry veteran Stephen Moranis.

In their shared piece for the Financial Post, the pair noted that despite the Supreme Court’s recent decision, TREB has still warned its members that the data cannot be “scraped, mined, sold, resold, licensed, reorganized or monetized in any way, including through the sale of derivative products or marketing reports.”

This will block the rest of the industry from performing any kind of analysis on the numbers, effectively violating the spirit in which the Supreme Court verdict was made, Haider and Moranis argued.

“In a world awash with data and analytics, TREB has decided to join the ranks of digital-age Luddites,” the duo wrote in their column. “For decades the real estate boards in Canada have been data rich and insight poor. The wealth of information TREB holds cannot be subject to data mining for the benefit of board members or the consumers.”

This stubbornness does not make sense in a densely interconnected world, the analysts stated.

“Recent advances in analytics, AI, and data science have transformed entire economies where data-driven intelligence has led to greater profits, larger markets and reduced inherent risks,” they explained.

“TREB and other boards generate data and content that drive millions to their websites — they are content and data rich. The natural next step in TREB’s evolution is to embrace analytics and become not just a data vendor but a purveyor of property market insight.”

Ultimately, the Board needs to wake up and adapt to the inevitable, all-reaching influence of technology before it gets left behind by the competition, many of which already have firm footholds in the 21st century.

“TREB’s lack of imagination and initiative are preventing innovation and restricting consumer choices,” Haider and Moranis concluded. “Ignorance is not bliss. And it’s not folly to be wise. Why TREB believes so remains a puzzle.”