Reproduced from an Ottawa Real Estate Board publication:
To call… or not to call?
When Canada’s National Do-Not-Call List (DNCL) came into effect last fall, you may have
eagerly added your phone number to it, because you’re tired of telemarketing calls. If you did,
you may not have realized that real estate professionals are deemed by the government to be
telemarketers, so we cannot make unsolicited phone calls to numbers on the DNCL except under
certain circumstances. That can make it tough for a real estate professional to maintain a working relationship with his or her past clients.
Here’s when they are allowed to call you: if you’ve purchased services from a real estate
professional in the last 18 months; if you have a contract with them for services that is still active
or expired within the past 18 months; or if you’ve inquired about their real estate services in the
last 6 months. They can also call you if you’ve given them written or verbal permission to do so
(for example, you attended an open house and provided your contact information to the listing
salesperson). But if you’ve worked with a real estate professional in the past, longer than 18
months ago, and your number is on the DNCL, they need your permission to call you to help
keep that business relationship alive.
It’s understandable that many people don’t wish to receive any unsolicited phone calls at all, and
see the DNCL as the most effective way to make that happen. However, if you have established
a relationship with a real estate professional or brokerage, there are advantages to maintaining it
even if you have no immediate plans to buy or sell your home. You never know when you might
need their assistance: that house down the street that you’ve always loved might go up for sale;
your job might require you to transfer to another city or country, necessitating the quick sale of
your current home; or a family member might ask you for a referral because they’re ready to buy or sell their home.
Relationships are valuable, and they grow more so over time. So if your real estate professional
wants to give you a call once every six months just to check in, or to let you know about
something they think you might be interested in, why not say yes? Life is full of surprises.
Many people also are not aware that the law requires all telemarketers, even if they only make
exempted calls (such as polling organizations), to keep their own internal do-not-call lists. So
you don’t need to subscribe to the entire list to reduce the number of calls you receive. For
example, if you receive a call from a particular business you’d prefer not to hear from again, you
can ask them to add your number to their internal do-not-call list and they must comply. You can also contact a business pre-emptively to have your number placed on their internal list.
In this way, you can cut down on the number of unwanted calls you receive, and still maintain
valuable working relationships with businesspeople like your real estate professional.
