By Marty Douglas
Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in the 1930s. It is a fiction about society in the future, where children are raised in hatcheries and societal dogma is ingrained by sleep learning. George Orwell, a decade later, began writing 1984, eventually published in 1949. It too imagined a future society, one of mind control and thought police. And yes, sex played a huge role in both novels, which partially explains their presence on my university reading list. That and they were mandatory! And before you can insult my age, yes, they were recent.
In 2010, your national association, CREA, began writing the scripts of four scenarios for the future of organized real estate (ORE). (I wonder if anyone has defined or discovered “disorganized real estate”.) In a program named Exploring Possible Futures for ORE in Canada, invited participants – there have been hundreds across Canada – were asked about the role of the Realtor in five to 10 years and the implications for organized real estate – given future consumer expectations.
Yikes.
So let me get this straight. You want me to put myself in the head of a consumer in the future, describe the role of the contemporary Realtor and then extrapolate the opportunities and threats to organized real estate? And I volunteered for this? Plus I had to do homework in advance of the session!
The process was facilitated expertly and the material included video presentations by systems gurus, futurists and actors, who with great skill and empathy painted the picture of reality in their “brave new world”, how they got there, who they blamed or gave credit.
The four scenarios were titled Treading Water, Quantum Leap, Coup and RealtorSaurus and time travelling future Realtors commented on what had brought them to their future reality. Everything presented was not only plausible; in several scenarios we are experiencing their root causes today.
My personal bias in future planning is always the same. It doesn’t stop me from playing the game but it is simply a caveat. Recognize we are planning the future for folks who are not yet in the industry and in order to get there, we will need the approval of our members, half of whom likely won’t be in the business in five years. Which way do you think they might vote on perceived change or threatened expense?
Like the current Euro crisis (specifically Greece and as I write this column, Italy looks to be in the on-deck circle) the pain of the change required in the future will be felt by current players for the next decade or longer, likely leaving the culprits – those who got us here – unscathed. Seems to me that bitch is at the heart of the Occupy demonstrations worldwide.
Like most Realtor sessions, the add-on value was in the networking and the casual asides from participants. Between sandwich bites in a working lunch, one leader offered the main concern for organized real estate – will Quebec stay in CREA? (Who knew there was a problem?) If this is a real threat, perhaps there are consequences for franchises and national brands. Most franchise agreements require membership in organized real estate. If Re/Max, Sutton and fellow big five members can’t keep their members in organized real estate, what does that say for the strength of the franchise agreement period? If Quebec leaves CREA, will the Big Five resurrect their scenario of uniting for data distribution?
But I digress. Here’s my cut to the chase, grass roots initiatives beginning with office managers but requiring the support of those members who are or will be career oriented.
Cull the unproductive, recognizing that funding formulas must become user-pay.
Seek and support a third-party rating authority for Realtors.
Introduce mandatory mentoring/apprenticeship by incentive.
Move towards a single license.
Why not de-regulation? Consider the frequent horror stories from the Internet of people who are defrauded of everything from rent deposits to life savings – that’s unregulated real estate.
Sometime in the future when you are bitching about your board or association, a provincial or national body or licensing regulators, remind yourself that the world is run by those who show up. Did you show up? Do you respect those who did? Did you even know about the meeting? Did you vote?
And take a gulp of Draper Kauffman’s medicine: “Those who do not create the future they want must endure the future they get.”
You can find Marty Douglas on Twitter – 41yrsrealestate – Facebook and LinkedIn. He is a managing broker for Coast Realty Group, with offices on Vancouver Island, the Discovery and Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C. , the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. [email protected]
