The photograph depicts real estate signs on Bloor Street West near Major Street.
Category: TRREBs Beginning: 1920–1945
The TRREB Beginnings:
1920–1945
The Royal Bank Building
A photograph taken from the Royal Bank Building, looking north on Yonge Street.
Toronto’s Resilient Housing Market
Two months after the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, Toronto real estate rebounded. It is a continuing story in Toronto real estate. Despite the crises and hardship – wars, Hurricane Hazel, recessions, skyrocketing interest rates, pandemics – the Toronto housing market has been resilient. For much of the past 100 years, Toronto has been in growth mode with market forces driving values ever higher. Some of the larger real estate projects that were completed in the 1930s – Maple Leaf Gardens, Canada Life Building and College Park – remain today as important landmarks in Toronto.
The First Multiple Listing Service®
A Multiple Listing Service® in the 1920s? Long before computers and condos, real estate brokers regularly gathered to share information about properties they were trying to sell. Eventually, the first MLS® System was born. TRREB veterans from the early days remember doing everything manually and going through reams of carbon paper. Then came cellphones and fax machines. TRREB has continuously innovated to keep up with the times, leading the industry in the process. Today, the Multiple Listing Service® provides Members with a timely inventory of available properties and other related realty information.
TRREB’s Annual Report
Government advocacy by Toronto real estate professionals started many, many years ago. The Toronto Daily Star, reporting on the release of the 1925 TRREB Annual Report, offered a summary of the recommendations that the Board has made for city improvements, including new street signs, the widening of Bloor Street, and concerns over limiting the height of commercial buildings.
1921 Real Estate Advertisement
When TRREB first opened its doors in 1920, real estate agents were happy to support many components of house buying, from insurance to toasters, heaters, irons and electric fixtures.
This is an advertisement for household items on sale at Seal’s Real Estate Office in 1921.
Victoria Street Building Signage
This 1888 photograph was taken of the northwest corner of Victoria Street in Toronto. Taken before TRREB incorporated, the building’s signage illustrates how real estate agents provided diverse business practices, including marriage licenses, at that time.
Own Your Own Home Advertisement
If some of the real estate advertisements from the 1920s may seem a bit hokey to modern readers, they were completely in line with the customs of the time. Home ownership remains a key long-term investment, and owning a piece of “Mother Earth” a lifetime goal.
The Toronto Real Estate Board Advertisement
From the beginning of the Board, TRREB has proudly promoted its Members as a part of the Association’s benefits. In this 1921 newspaper advertisement, the approximately 50 founding Board Members are touted as “insisting on the principle of fair dealing in their business of buying and selling Real Estate.”
Real Estate Board Formed in Toronto
This October 6, 1920, article is the first mention in print of the establishment of the Toronto Real Estate Board. From the very outset of operations, the Board was dedicated to “raising the standard of efficiency in the real estate business, and protecting the properties of all owners in the city by combined action.” R. B. Rice was the first President, and J. B. Laidlaw the first Executive Secretary.
TRREB has come a long way from its humble beginnings: “TREB’s first headquarters was a desk space and a filing cabinet in a little office at 46 King Street West in the old Canada Life building … It soon became too small to cope with the volume of business and in 1925 larger quarters were obtained in the Union Trust building at the northwest corner of Victoria and Richmond Street.”