Rogers Communications is getting out of the real estate business and has announced that it’s shutting down its discount brokerage, Zoocasa, as of June 22.

Customers who bought or sold homes through Zoocasa — in essence a discount match-making service between homeowners looking to buy or to cut selling costs, and experienced realtors vetted by the company — have been promised that 15 per cent rebates will be honoured for any deals that firm up no later than that date.

“After June 22, 2015, the brokerage will cease to be registered and will be prohibited from trading in real estate as a brokerage,” Zoocasa announced in a letter to customers this week.

Its partner realtors, most of whom also work for major brokerages like ReMax and Royal LePage, were alerted last Friday that the company would shut down the Zoocasa website and company. On Tuesday, letters were sent out to customers.

“For the past two years we have had the pleasure of matching thousands of customers like you with great realtors throughout the country,” says the letter. “As a result of your support, Zoocasa has grown into a unique business in a traditional space. Although we have had great success, we have made the decision to close down our business.

One person close to Zoocasa estimates it’s been losing about $1 million a month for much of the last two years, carrying high administrative and technology platform costs that far outstripped the number of real estate deals.

Rogers spokesperson Allison Fitton said the decision “was made so we can focus the additional resources (of running Zoocasa) on core area of Rogers’ business — consumer, enterprise, cable and wireless.”

Rogers had just undertaken a substantive advertising campaign for Zoocasa, which it has reportedly had up for sale for some time.

Rogers sent shock waves through the real estate industry back in 2008 when it launched the online listing service, although it wasn’t until 2013 — after a major relaunch — that the service really stepped into conventional real estate space by becoming a brokerage and giving buyers and sellers wider access to a host of real estate listings on their home computers.

In the end, it became most popular for one key feature — online listings of “daily solds” properties, a service that shut down recently after the Toronto Real Estate Board announced a crackdown on realtors listing solds.

TREB argued that posting sold prices via publicly accessible websites violated the privacy of sellers, although conventional realtors give them to clients via phone, email and fax on a daily basis.

While the end of Zoocasa isn’t expected to have much of an impact in the industry, “it really highlights the fact that it’s difficult to make money off of real estate search platforms” in a country as small as Canada, said John Pasalis of Leslieville-based discount brokerage Realosophy.

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Modeled after major real estate listings and advertising sites like Trulia.com and Zillow.com in the United States, Zoocasa faced an impossible time gaining the critical mass needed, said Pasalis.

“It’s not like people just flock to a site because of lower fees,” he added. “Sellers, in particular, are very hard to connect with online. They are more likely to look for a realtor in their neighbourhood, or one recommended by family or friends.”