Attention: [INSERT ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE]

The current Canadian housing crisis is a multi-faceted problem that will take concerted action and political will to solve. One aspect of our housing system is extremely high transaction costs when compared to other countries such as the UK, Australia, Iran and Israel. In the UK for example even an expensive traditional estate agent would charge a client 1-2%. There is no such thing as a buyer’s agent commission, nor a buyer’s agent. In Ontario average transaction costs are sky-high, at 5% + HST being the standard. On an average Ontario home, that is almost $40,000. The fact that real estate associations even have a standard is worrying enough. Sellers have a tough problem if they want to refuse paying a real estate agent: over 85% of Ontarians use one. This monopoly position gives sellers a stark choice: pay the 2.5% + HST fee to have someone negotiate against you, or risk having the majority of buyers steered away. There is solid academic evidence from UC Berkeley to show real estate associations form an informal cartel to keep prices high: https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1194892.

The core problem is that we do not mandate everyone must pay for their own representation. Once this one simple legislative change is enacted, many issues with transactions are immediately solved. First and most importantly, it frees sellers from demands for payment, and buyers can negotiate their own price for representation. It immediately removes the conflict of interest that is inherent to multiple representation and to the current structure of a buyer’s agent’s compensation. Overall such a change would greatly lower transaction costs, bringing them closer to other counties. It would finally give consumers choice, and leverage to negotiate their representation whether it comes in the form of a salesperson, a lawyer, or none at all.

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[CONSTITUENT NAME]