I have been in real estate for 12 years. I am currently broker/owner of two real estate offices. I have witnessed a great deal of change in real estate and have concluded that no one is representing the Realtors in the field properly. The Ontario Real Estate Association seems bent on making money on courses and creating changes to justify its existence. CREA seems bent on giving away the information that is the our source of business and future, to lawyers, insurance companies, house inspectors, appraisers, banks, builders, and all the other people who rely on our industry to produce their jobs. They do not give the credit and respect that we as an industry deserve.
We need an association or union that is run by Realtors for Realtors and that will lobby for Realtors exclusively — by Realtors I mean active salespeople in the field, not political wannabees or head office people with paycheques and security.
The benefits of our own association would be great. We could get benefits at real group rates for our members; we could help draft up new sales contracts that assure we get paid on the day of closing — before the lawyers deduct their costs in the event of a shortage of closing funds. We could have an exchange of information for Realtors only that could address issues that are being created by lawyers to increase their businesses at our expense. We could lobby politicians in a meaningful way — similar to the teachers union that can sway the government to do their bidding.
We could expand our businesses into paralegals and mortgage brokers with one-stop service. We could ensure that courses are meaningful rather than just necessary. We could develop our own listing website and ensure that its information and member lists are not sold to interested parties – avoiding the spam you get if you ever answer a poll on the CREA site, or the worms imported from the same source.
The list goes on and on, but it always comes back to the same point: we need an association for Realtors only. We also need to address the associations we are paying dearly for already, and either change them through our new association, or drop membership in them altogether in order to create associations that represent the real Realtors – those who do all the work and training that supports all the other people who live off of our efforts and continue to create problems we have to live with.
I would be interested if any real Realtors agree with my idea and would welcome hearing from you by mail.

Douglas Teddiman
PO Box 1014
Durham, Ont. NOG 1RO