The Canadian Real Estate Association is set to bring transparency to the real estate consumer.

This week, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) announced the launch of a pilot project that will show real-time offer tracking on REALTOR.ca listings. Openn Offers, a web-based offer management programme developed by Openn Negotiation, has been chosen to be integrated with REALTOR.ca, Canada's leading real estate site.

Through research tools on REALTOR.ca, CREA continues to assist Canadians on their real estate journeys. Consumers can use features such as transaction history, sold data, multimedia, REALTOR® ratings and reviews, and neighbourhood and market intelligence. Openn Offers is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at providing useful data to the site.

"In today's real estate environment, multiple offer scenarios have become increasingly common," said Michael Bourque, CREA's Chief Executive Officer. "Canadian property buyers and sellers want more confidence in the process, while Canadian REALTORS® want tools to enable and manage these situations more easily... We're very excited about this pilot's potential to address both."

"Through six-plus years of development, execution, and innovation in the Australian market, we have proven that enhanced transparency benefits both the real estate professional and the consumer," said Duncan Anderson, Executive Director of Openn and President of Openn North America. "We are ecstatic about the opportunity to collaborate with CREA to bring Openn Offers to the Canadian market."

The pilot, which is set to launch this summer in select markets across Canada, will assist REALTORS® in reinforcing consumer trust in the current home buying and selling process through REALTOR.ca.

"This is a well-timed and well-suited opportunity for our market," said Jeff King, CEO of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. "We are excited to be a part of a solution developed by REALTORS® for REALTORS® that provides equal access to information and facilitates increased transparency for the consumer."

At Paralegal Plus, we think this is a very interesting development for real estate consumers. This has the potential to open up markets and further empower consumers to have more control and even purchasing power. We recently launched our real estate coordination services helping our clients with mere listing programs. With both Tammy and Adam having previously enjoyed successful careers in the real estate sector, we know our approach will save our clients thousands of dollars in real estate commissions. The opening up of the offer/bidding process will be another tool consumers can employ to make the DIY real estate experience more rewarding.

[Source: CREA]