The cartel's HQ in Toronto.

About twenty years ago I coveted my neighbour’s property.

So, I went over one day and took with me an offer to purchase which I’d typed up. And a cheque.  She accepted my lowball offer for two reasons – I let her live there for free for a considerable time; and she got to sell it without any showings, no sign on the front lawn, no salesguy hanging around from 2 to 4 on Sunday afternoons, no need to endlessly vacuum, no uppity buyers judging her furniture (pretty bad) and, above all, no commission.

One day, also years ago, I drove to a suburban Toronto hotel to be guest speaker at a real estate board luncheon event. During my talk I made the point that commissions were negotiable. At the time the Toronto Real Estate Board had a carved-in-stone 6% policy which, I pointed out, was not backed by any force other than their own power as a cartel. In reality, a seller could insist on any damn rate he or she wanted.

And for that, I was bunned. Whole wheat, crusty white ones, round ryes – whatever was in the breadbaskets on the table found their way through the air, and in my direction. It was a moment I will not forget. Monty Python would have been proud.

For decades now, real estate boards have sought to absolutely control the sale of property. In the process, they’ve grown large, powerful and relatively wealthy. I’ve sat in the inner sanctum of boards in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and you can ascertain in a flash these are big businesses. In Toronto, for example, the president of TREB, elected for a one-year term by board directors, has a personal staff, opulent office, lavish perqs and high media profile. It’s a good gig, thanks in large part to a money machine known as the MLS.

The Multiple Listing Service is a closed-end marketing scheme which aggregates all the available properties in a geographic area. Since going online a few years ago, it has turned into the preeminent tool for both sellers and buyers as 80% of all previewing of homes now happens digitally, instead of sitting in the back of a realtor’s Acura. However, the cartel has restricted access to MLS to agents who are board members, and to homesellers who have signed a contract swearing they will pay a commission to an agent, regardless of how their sale happens.

Until about now. Canada’s competition watchdog has told CREA its actions unduly restrict consumers from buying and selling in an unfettered way. Which, of course, is absolutely true. These self-dealing practices have engendered much of the realtor hatred you can taste every day on this blog. Change can’t happen soon enough.

So, soon you’ll be able to send an offer for a house directly to the seller, regardless of whether he or she has an agent or a listing. Real estate agents will probably turn into marketing consultants, charging you a flat fee instead of a colossal commission. Sellers will be able to include their name, phone number and addy directly on listings, so potential buyers can make an offer by email if they want. Individual sellers will get access to MLS so, for a fee, they can upload their property data and have it exposed to tens of thousands of home shoppers. This also opens the door for online competitors, like Zillow in the States, who augment listings with tons of neighbourhood info, interactive maps, aerial snaps and even data about local climate and crime.

So, what will this do to the market?

Obviously democratize it. Never a bad thing. But it’ll also bring more volatility, less predictable patterns and a lot more emotion into the process. Without the benefit of a realtor giving a dozen comparables, and the reasons behind them, sellers will probably ask for the moon. Without an experienced person telling a bidder how to construct an offer that protects his interests, the chances of wandering into a lawsuit blossom. And with potentially thousands of private sales, a chunk of the market will simply disappear from the public eye, skewing stats.

Still, this is big news. Like the end of OPEC. Or Gary Bettman.

Best of all, no more buns.