The Canadian Real Estate Association has wisely avoided adding chaos to uncertainty as the real estate market hits the doldrums.

Faced with either opening up its Multiple Listing Service or having a long and messy fight with the federal Competition Bureau, CREA chose the safe route.

There were no guarantees CREA would prevail and the battle alone would have been long, expensive and damaging to the MLS and the real estate industry as a whole.

Though there was much to lose for CREA and the thousands of realtors who rely on MLS, there is now much to gain, and that was the point of the Competition Bureau's charges.

Fortunately, CREA saw a way to maintain control over the MLS while at the same time giving Canadians more options that the Competition Bureau said were needed in the real estate industry in Canada.

The main concern of the Competition Bureau was that the MLS was too restrictive, and now the public will have more access to the service. Though the system will continue to be restricted to use by licenced realtors, the public will be able to hire a realtor to simply post a private sale.

There's little doubt the MLS had something of a monopoly on home listings. Those who didn't want to hire a realtor could not get the same exposure to potential buyers as they could through MLS. And no one was going to pay fees to a realtor just to get on MLS. Something had to change.

This is a good settlement and seems to be satisfactory to Melanie Aitken, the Commissioner of Competition. And it ought to be satisfactory to realtors all over Canada. Realtors work hard and serve Canadians well in executing what is one of the most important financial transactions a person can do.

While it is a no-brainer for most of us to use a realtor, there are some who for various reasons don't want to. Often it's about money, wanting to save on fees. Others are confident they can do the same work as well and don't believe they need a realtor.

For those who have that knowledge and experience, an expanded MLS service may serve them well. But those looking to just save a buck by cutting out the middleman may want to think long and carefully. A good realtor saves time, money and grief.

A real estate transaction has various pitfalls, not all obvious, and having someone with knowledge and experience is vital for the average home buyer. This isn't like buying a pair of shoes.

But the success of this plan depends on local realtors. No doubt, some sales are going to slip through their fingers that before may have come their way.

To make this work realtors are going to have to market themselves as experts in all facets of real estate transactions.

This agreement leaves intact the potential for earnings where realtors may lose home sales. By breaking down separate services for vendors or buyers that lead up to a transaction, there is great potential for earnings. But these prices have to be fair and appropriate and based on a measured cost of the specific service.

This won't happen overnight. It's going to take some time to get this organized. And then there's the slowing real estate market, which may have been further incentive for CREA to do a deal that avoided a long, costly battle with the Competition Bureau that they may not have won.

Like everything else, the real estate industry is now shifting. Whether it means lower prices remains to be seen.

But the best result is stability as competition increases.