Victoria Real Estate Board
Galley KitchenVictoria Waterfront

IDX/Reciprocity Program

What is Reciprocity?

Reciprocity is a program wherein real estate brokerages give each other permission to display their listings on each other's websites. Real estate brokerages who participate in the program (called Reciprocity Firm Members) can display all of each other's active listings that have been made available to the program.

If a real estate brokerage chooses not to participate, no other real estate brokerage will be permitted to display their listings.

Reciprocity: Another Option to Advertise a Seller's Listing

The Reciprocity service allows participating brokers to display each other's listings on their own websites. This approach provides several advantages:

  • When a real estate brokerage participates in the program, they agree to provide listing data for display advertising on the internet websites of other participating real estate brokerages and REALTORS®.
  • Reciprocity allows for greater exposure of a seller’s listing.
  • Unless they are already the Designated Agent of the seller, a real estate brokerage does not assume any Agency obligations to a seller whose property is advertised on a Reciprocity website.

Participation in Reciprocity requires a two-step process:

  1.     the Managing Broker of the real estate brokerage must decide that their brokerage will participate in the program;
  2.     each Realtor licensed in the participating real estate brokerage must decide whether to include their listings in Reciprocity and display on his or her website the listings of all real estate brokerages who are participating in the program.

The amount of information available for display in a Reciprocity listing and how the detail is displayed is determined first by the Joint Multiple Listing Service® Regulations of the Victoria and Vancouver Island Real Estate Boards, then the participating Realtor through their website provider.

There are a number of MLS® Regulations that govern Reciprocity websites. A participating Realtor's website must indicate the listing real estate brokerage’s name on each listing displayed, give credit to the Victoria and Vancouver Island Real Estate Board MLS® as the source of any listing not owned by the real estate brokerage and include a disclaimer regarding the accuracy of the data.

Reciprocity information is updated at least every 24 hours with fresh MLS® data and pictures.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

The trademarks REALTOR®, REALTORS® and the REALTOR® logo are controlled by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and identify real estate professionals who are members of CREA. The trademarks MLS®, Multiple Listing Service® and the associated logos are owned by (CREA) and identify the quality of services provided by real estate professionals who are members of CREA.

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