Getting Leads On Your Real Estate Listings with Realtor.ca / CREA

Brokerage Insider

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We sit down with Patrick Pichette, VP with Realtor.ca about the offerings that CREA (the Canadian Real Estate Association) offers it's members for free. This includes hundreds of thousands of free leads on their own listings with the #1 real estate website in Canada.

TRANSCRIPTION

Eric Stegemann (00:02):

Hi everybody. And welcome to Brokerage Insider, the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. And today I am so pleased to be joined by Patrick Pichette. He's the vice president Realtor.ca focusing on strategic business and innovation. So Patrick, thanks so much for joining me here from up North today.

Patrick Pichette (00:25):

Hey Eric, my pleasure, nice to reconnect.

Eric Stegemann (00:28):

Yes, for sure. For sure, Now I've known Patrick a while from in being involved in the real estate standards organization and it Realtor.ca and the team up there in Canada, they've been big backers of RESO. And so I met him through that and I got to know a little bit how they do things differently up in Canada. And if you're a regular listener of this podcast, you'll know that we've tried to interview a lot of international folks and understand what they're doing differently and what's working in other countries versus what we're doing here in the United States, particularly when it comes to during the time of the virus. So, you know, Patrick, why don't we just start and talk a little bit about Realtor.ca and how it came about and how CREA, the Canadian real estate association kind of set out to build this national website for Canada. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

Patrick Pichette (01:25):

Yeah, thanks. That's a great place to start Eric. And actually the whole thing started before my time. So I joined CREA in 2012 and the site was launched back in, I believe, 1995 under the URL mls.ca. And it was later rebranded Realtor.ca in 2008. And the thought back then from the leadership at the local level through the, the local boards and at the national level you know, they, they made the wise decision to launch a national website where consumers could access listing information from I'm a less systems across the country. So regardless of which broker is represented the listing or which franchisor was doing a promotion, Canadians got a single source to see everything that was available on the market. So today Realtor.ca is still owned and operated by CREA, the Canadian real estate association.

Patrick Pichette (02:30):

And it's done in collaboration with the 80 different local real estate boards across the country. So in other words, every single MLS system in Canada publishes their active listings to Realtor.ca and just you know, a couple of notable things. First of all, the site is completely funded through member do so there are no additional fees. Members pay CREA $310 a year and that includes a Realtor.ca as a member benefit as well as all the leads they get from that. And in terms of the website, there's no advertisement which consumers really love. Over the years, we've been able to build up very strong recognition and trust across the country. Just recently we did a a study that looks at the perception of Realtors and Realtor.ca in, in Canada. And 92% of Canadians are aware of Realtor.ca and 85% of those that have used the site in the past would use it again. So these are, are very strong figures and Realtors in Canada are really proud of their Realtor.ca

Eric Stegemann (03:53):

That sure sounds like it based on those numbers. So, you know, and, and to be clear CREA or the Canadian real estate association, that's kind of a, a version or an offshoot of the national association of Realtors like we have in the United States. That's the Canadian version of that organization, correct?

Patrick Pichette (04:12):

Yeah, that's correct. Essentially we are the equivalent of the NAR up in Canada. So we have 130,000 members and it's very similar to the U S right. I think the NAR has about 1.3 million members and Canada is about 10% of your population. So the math works out you know, in terms of the size and scope of our association

Eric Stegemann (04:43):

And that's yeah, I was, that was going to be my next question about, because I was going to say, is this, do we have the same number of agents of Realtors in Canada compared to the population? It sounds like there is where it's about one in every one in United States about one every 30 people are going to be 300 people. One in every 300 people in the United States is a Realtor. And so it sounds like it's about the same there. So let's step back for a second and talk a little bit about Realtor.ca because obviously the Canadian CREA, I took a different stance than NAR did, right? Because the national association Realtors here in the States they kind of abdicated building out a website and both the first version of it that was in the mid to late nineties around the same time you guys got started. And version of that were both kind of licensed the term Realtor.com to other companies. And now of course it's owned by new News Corp. That's operating that website. So, you know, I, you know, I know you weren't there, but do you know the history of kind of what made the, the CREA team decide, Hey, we want to do this, build it in house, operated in house and take on that technical investment.

Patrick Pichette (06:04):

Yeah, I, I don't know yeah, that, that was a long time before my arrival, but I think it's just the philosophy is different. You know, the fact that the national association in Canada owns and operates Realtor.ca and the fact that we don't answer to shareholders is, you know, we're seeing it today. It's a great thing for our members. You know, thinking about the US I know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in the US the consumer over the years has been programmed to go to various different sources to find out what's available in the market. Right. where in Canada was felt, it was really important to have this one source, this one trusted source that provided a complete view of everything that was available in, in all the MLS systems across the country.

Patrick Pichette (07:04):

And, you know, that might stem from the fact that, you know, something else that's notable. We talked about CREA membership versus NAR membership in Canada, the large majority of practitioners that have a license. I think it's well over 95% are Realtors and are members of a local real estate board and, and CREA where forgive me if I'm wrong. But I think in the US it's maybe about 50%, right. So you've got a much more fragmented marketplace where in Canada, it's been a lot easier over the years to take a collaborative approach right. In, in building out a national portal.

Eric Stegemann (07:52):

Yeah. it definitely seems either way. It seems, you know, from, from an outsider's view it certainly seems like CREA made a great decision and is yielding the benefits of that being that Canadians definitely know that that Realtor.ca is a place where they can get all the listings. And there isn't as much bifurcation of traffic as there is in the United States where you've got multiple players. So I want to go back to a couple of things regarding that. Number one is, you know, you mentioned that Realtors in Canada, if they're getting, they're getting leads, it sounds like they're getting these leads for free from Realtor.ca and every lead on their listing goes to them. Is that correct?

Patrick Pichette (08:36):

Yeah, that's correct. Again, Realtor.ca is a member benefit. There's no, there's no funny stuff. The listing agent gets full credit. It's their face that appears on, on the listing and they get 100% of their leads at, at no additional

Eric Stegemann (08:57):

D does the Realtor have the ability to see what the person is looking at after they've come to them? Or is it more of a delivery where a lead comes in and says, I want more information on one, two, three, any street, and it's just delivered to the agent and they take it from there. Is there any backend tools inside of Realtor.ca?

Patrick Pichette (09:17):

Yeah, There is. They can manage their email lead through a web interface. And just last year we actually launched a Realtor.ca mobile app just for Realtors. And it allows them to do several things. They get notifications when leads come in they can manage those leads, they can manage the back and forth communication with those consumers. Also, they can get a stat reports on each one of their listings. They're able to text message or email those reports out to clients. So I wouldn't say we have like a full brokerage CRM system, but there are definitely some tools that we're providing to members as part of the Realtor.ca suite. And again, it's completely built into their membership dues.

Eric Stegemann (10:09):

Yeah. And speaking of that, as I understand it, Realtor.ca and being a CREAn member, not only do you get these free leads from Realtor.ca, but as I understand it, there's also other tools, various other tools, not just the app that you were talking about, but for example, from what I read when I was doing some research before, before we talked here today is that for example, you guys provide free forms, software to all CREA members, is that correct?

Patrick Pichette (10:38):

Yeah, that's correct. We do provide a service called web forms which is essentially it's a white labeled version of lone Wolf transaction desk. And the system has about 2000 different forms. So we've got every single form across all 10 Canadian provinces, so that that's available. And that's you know, another service where we collaborate with all the local boards and associations to deliver to members. Another notable service is called the Realtor.ca DDF, which is our data distribution facility. And there's a, there's a few components to this, but you know, the two significant ones are first of all, there's a national shared pool. So the way this works if you have listings and you contribute your listings to the pool, you can also pull other listings from the national shared pool for your, your personal website.

Patrick Pichette (11:47):

And then secondly, you know, beyond Realtor.ca agents can publish their listings on other websites using the DDF, which is a listing syndication tool. And, and so our members you know, in a consistent fashion are able to send their listings to about 20 other real estate advertisement websites, but also some key partnerships that we have, like TD bank, for example who will publish Realtor.ca listings after a, a consumer on their site will use their mortgage affordability calculator tool. So, so again another tool that we're providing to members as part of this.

Eric Stegemann (12:30):

So I want to dig into that and kind of two, two pieces of the DDF piece of the conversation, because, you know, it sounds like, and this is certainly the way I understood it is that's almost like a national IDX feed of almost all listings in Canada. Is that correct?

Patrick Pichette (12:53):

It is, that's a good way to explain it. The only caveat is that brokers have to opt in. So you know, we get a fee from every single MLS system of, of all the listings. But then we don't just sort of turn around and, and open up a feed for all the listings, like the brokers have to opt into that. So you know, I mentioned TD bank, or I mentioned sites like a Kijiji or home finder. You know, we don't just turn around and send them 100% of the listings. A broker actually has to opt into that service, but the opt in is, is fairly high. 65% of brokers have opted in, and, and that's something that we believe in, right, that brokers and their agents should have control over their listing data and where that that's being shared.

Eric Stegemann (13:46):

And is it granular in that system where we're a broker could say, I want it to go to the TD bank website, but not to go to this other vendor.

Patrick Pichette (13:58):

Exactly. That that's how it works

Eric Stegemann (14:00):

And could a company like TRIBUS that goes out and builds real estate brokerage websites. Could they get that feed from you, or is it really only for publishers of sites like TD or, you know, other syndication websites that might have all the listings on them?

Patrick Pichette (14:17):

Yeah, no that, that is a part of the service. So I think there's about five or 600 different you know, we call them technology providers, but companies that build websites for, for Realtors. So we do provide we do work with those companies and we provide a feed. So if a Realtor wants to use a service to build and launch a website, we'll work with them to make sure that their feed works properly. And if they're using the national shared pool, they're able to you, if they want to launch a website, that's all about cottages in Ontario. You know, as long as they're part of the pool, they can do that

Eric Stegemann (14:58):

That's a great how you guys have handled it, I think is a great middle ground to what we have here in the States. Whereas, you know, there's 625 roughly as of today, MLS is in the, in the States and, you know,...