Bob Myroniuk and Larry Buttress, December 2004

To celebrate 25 years of serving Canada’s real estate community, REM asked a small group of real estate leaders this question:

“Who had the biggest impact – good or bad – on Canadian real estate in the last 25 years?

This is not a popularity contest or a marketing exercise. We want to know who you think had the biggest impact on the industry in the last 25 years – even if it was, in your opinion, a negative impact. Your choices could include Realtors, company executives, association executive officers, regulators, service company executives….even politicians! Who has had the most impact during the last 25 years in making the industry what it is today?”

REM took those consensus picks and added our own and the results will be revealed on REM online every day until the end of June.  Take a look and see if you agree with these choices, and then let us know who we missed. Add your comments below or drop an email to [email protected].

The Regulators

“The biggest impact on how real estate is practiced in Alberta would be the creation of the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA),” says Dick Oakes, owner of MaxWell West and MaxWell Canyon Creek in Calgary. “Since its inception on July 1, 1996, the conduct of the Realtors took a giant leap upwards. Expectations of professional Realtors were finally realized in getting rid of the deadbeats and scum, because RECA had the teeth to bite. The man leading the council has not changed – Bob Myroniuk is the executive director.”

The Real Estate Council of B.C. (RECBC) was founded in 1958 and became self-regulating in 2005. Robert Fawcett has been the EO there since 1995 and serves as a mentor for volunteer leaders in the province. In Ontario, the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) was established in 2007.

Tom Wright

In December 2004, Myroniuk and Larry Buttress, deputy EO of RECBC, were interviewed by REM about their Agency Task Force findings. It’s the only time a non-Realtor or real estate company CEO has appeared on REM’s cover in the last decade.

Ontario’s Tom Wright, who is retiring as president/CEO after 17 years at RECO, told REM last month that some measures that regulators provide, such as a code of ethics for the profession, mandatory errors and omissions insurance and consumer deposit protection “provides the ability for consumers to feel they can work with a real estate professional and do so with confidence. Trust is the essential part of any professional relationship.”