MLS.ca Becomes REALTOR.ca

With over 3 million visitors monthly, Canada’s most popular consumer real estate website http://www.mls.ca/ was recently re-launched as http://www.realtor.ca/ featuring an entirely new use interface. These two websites and their respective domain names are the property of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) which has 97,500 REALTOR® members across Canada.
Increasing, consumers everywhere are user the Internet to search for properties, agents and other real estate related information. Studies conducted by CREA indicated that consumers were of the opinion that http://www.mls.ca/ was the actual MLS® system used by REALTORS®. In reality http://www.mls.ca/ now known as http://www.realtor.ca/ is a consumer only website that allows both buyer and sellers, online access to current MLS® listed properties across Canada of which the sellers have authorized their uploading to the site. Rebranding this website to http://www.realtor.ca/ was done to (a) avoid any confusion that consumers had with thoughts that is was the actual MLS® system they were accessing and (b) using the name http://www.realtor.ca/ was felt to better represent the many and varied services that REALTORS® provide to consumers, some of which are highlighted via links on the new site. Anyone using or that has bookmarked http://www.mls.ca/ in their web browser, will automatically be re-directed to the new http://www.realtor.ca/ site.This new site features a number of improvements over the old interface, the most significant of which is the interactive mapping of active listings that is accomplished via the use of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth software. Consumers searching for properties of a specific type, price range and location will continue to receive downloaded information and photos about the available properties but will also have their property selections mapped for them. Given the fact that a growing number of buyers for Georgian Triangle area property do not reside full-time and are not overly familiar with the area, this mapping function is a great addition to the new website.