Debby Doktorczyk
By Valérie Vézina
It is December 2011. Patrice Groleau and Debby Doktorczyk are both on vacation and will return the same day, their voice mails announce. It was “our first holiday together in two and a half years,” says Doktorczyk a few days later in the glassed-in meeting room of McGill Real Estate. The two Quebecers were a couple before launching their real estate agency in 2006.
McGill Real Estate in Montreal specializes in selling new projects from plans.
“We have a business model that is different (from other agencies),” says Groleau. We never intended to expand our team and to have 200 agents. We don’t want to manage people all day.”
The brokerage represents 20 property developers in Greater Montreal who make use of the services of McGill’s 30 agents to sell their residential developments. Often these are industrial buildings converted to condominiums, as with Nordelec in the booming neighbourhood of southwest Montreal, near the Lachine Canal. It is a 600-unit project by Elad Canada.
McGill Real Estate sells in several neighbourhoods, but its primary sector remains Old Montreal, as evidenced by one of its most recent projects: BANK, a prestigious project on rue Saint-Jacques, right in the old financial heart of the city. The 1907 building will retain its Neoclassical facade and house 43 residential units, built by Pur Immobilia.
Doktorczyk comes from a family of diamond prospectors (her mother had a shop in Antwerp, Belgium) and she owns a diamond distribution company. She has the entrepreneurial fibre needed to engage in the renovation and sale of homes, which began in 1999 with a brand new loft that Doktorczyk transformed. Trained in interior design, she took down walls and chose different materials from those proposed by the builder. Compliments poured in from visitors.
After this first loft there was a duplex, and then a triplex followed by several multiplexes. She saw to the design of the units and she managed the job sites.
Patrice Groleau
At the time Groleau was working full-time in finance, and despite the comforts and challenges offered him by his job, it was lacking something, he says. There was no passion in his work. His girlfriend said, “Just quit.”
In the high-ceilinged meeting room of their “baby”, the green eyes of Doktorczyk, 39, exudes a quiet confidence. In 12 years she has become president of a growing company and the mother of three children. Her spouse completed his real estate training a few years after her and they worked in co-operation with other brokers so they could “be replaced” and start a family, says Patrice Groleau, 34.
McGill Real Estate is represented by a contemporary logo (grey and white with a touch of red), designed by “…the friend of a friend.” More than once during his interview with REM, Groleau noted the importance of their network of family and friends to explain their early success.
One of his friends, Philippe Boisclair, brother of André Boisclair (former leader of the Parti Quebecois) and one of the partners in Développement McGill, a Montreal development company, helped Développement McGill become their first corporate client.
With offices adjacent to those of DevMcGill, McGill Real Estate is now located in an area of Old Montreal that has been transformed in recent years and where one can still find busy cranes. At the outset the company had offices on McGill Street – hence the name, which takes advantage of the reputation of its university namesake.
The two founders now spend more time consulting with their clients. It may take several months before the construction of a sales office, says Doktorczyk, and among other tasks, she is responsible for planning the proper “unit mix” of condos in a project. Well-versed in residential construction, she works closely with the architects.
Groleau specializes in sales and promotion, thinking about which project will be for connected young Francophones and which will appeal more to retired Anglophones from NDG. Risk management is another aspect of the work that appeals to Groleau, who holds several degrees including a degree in risk management from the University of Quebec in Montreal.
The couple has refused to work for some developers, they say, including once because the project was too large and they were afraid of losing their shirts. Their biggest challenge was not to get carried away, and to grow at a pace that they would be able to manage, they say.
The business model seems attractive on paper. They sell generally well-located condos, in older neighbourhoods in high demand, partnering with established developers. But not everyone can sell new homes, they say.
“Selling from plans is one of the most difficult things to do in real estate,” says Groleau. “It is ‘pure’ selling. We must be able to conclude transactions on the spot, out in the field.”
Each newly recruited agent must go through a three-month in-house training program. Then they are expected to perform. Four or five agents have been dismissed in recent months due to poor closing ratios.
Groleau credits their success to selling neighbourhoods that are in demand, a strong social network, good relationships with brokers and an ability to adapt to changing conditions.
