Can I run contests / incentives (Ontario)?

Yes — contests and incentives are legitimate lead generation for Ontario registrants, inside two rule stacks at once. RECO’s regime requires that incentive advertising disclose its material conditions, that offers run through your brokerage, and that nothing about the promotion misleads. General Canadian contest law then adds its own mechanics — disclosure of prizes and odds, a skill-testing question, a no-purchase entry route. Both stacks are manageable by design, not improvisation. General information, not legal advice; involve your broker of record before launch.

What the real estate rules require

Three obligations do most of the work. Conditions disclosed: an advertised incentive — a rebate, a moving credit, a draw for entrants — must state its material terms in the advertising rather than springing them later; “conditions apply, details on request” gamesmanship is the classic complaint trigger. Brokerage first: trading services and the money around them flow through brokerages in Ontario, so the offer is structurally your brokerage’s and needs your broker of record’s sign-off before it runs, not after. Nothing misleading: the same standard that governs all your advertising under RECO’s website rules applies with extra force to promotions, because “free” and “win” are where consumer expectations get shaped fastest. As of mid-2026, none of this is exotic — it is disclosure discipline.

What Canadian contest law adds

A draw open to the public is a regulated promotion regardless of industry. Canadian practice settled long ago into a standard compliant shape: publish contest rules stating the number and value of prizes, odds, eligibility, and dates; include a no-purchase means of entry so the draw is not conditioned on buying anything; and require winners to answer a skill-testing question, the mechanic that keeps a promotion outside the Criminal Code’s pure-chance lottery territory. Misleading-advertising law also watches the framing — an inflated prize value is a representation like any other. None of these mechanics is unique to real estate, which is convenient: any promotions lawyer or experienced marketer can paper a compliant draw in an afternoon.

Patterns that work

The promotions that generate real leads are the ones attached to real intent. A draw at an open house, entered by sign-in, with disclosed rules. A giveaway promoted through compliant social ads where the entry form is honest about who is collecting and why. A closing-time incentive — credit toward moving or staging — advertised with its conditions stated plainly. A branded neighbourhood event with a prize table. What makes these work is not the prize; it is that every entrant handed you their information knowingly, in a context connected to housing, which is exactly the lead quality problem that plagues purchased leads.

Patterns that generate complaints instead

The recurring failures are all disclosure failures wearing costumes. “Free home evaluation — a $500 value” invents a price for something the market prices at zero. A draw whose fine print requires signing a listing agreement to collect. Conditions revealed at redemption rather than in the ad. A contest that looks brokerage-free when the brokerage is answerable for it. And the quiet one: treating the entry list as a marketing list. That last failure is a law of its own — CASL governs what you may send the people you captured, and contest entry is not marketing consent unless you asked for that separately and they agreed.

The capture side is half the compliance

Design the follow-up before the promotion. Entry forms should say what will be done with the information; marketing consent should be its own unchecked box; and both decisions should be recorded with timestamps, because consent you cannot prove ages into consent you do not have. On BrokerFold, form submissions land in the CRM with source and consent state logged per contact, so the draw’s paper trail builds itself while you run the fun part. A compliant contest is not the enemy of an effective one — the disclosure that satisfies a regulator is the same clarity that makes a stranger comfortable giving you their real number.