Members of the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) have rejected a plan to dissolve the organization and merge with the Alberta Real Estate Association (AREA).
Of the board’s 7,000 members, CREB confirms that 1,526 of them participated in Wednesday night’s vote virtually or in person. A two-thirds majority was required for it to pass— 53 per cent voted against the proposal.
The proposed consolidation was initiated by CREB and approved in early November after the organizations cited that member research supported a streamlined membership structure.
CREB CEO surprised by result
Alan Tennant, CEO of CREB, said the result of the vote was a surprise.
“We asked the members a really hard question, and they considered it. They were thoughtful. We had lots of questions. We actually sat in front of over 1,000 members in dozens and dozens of sessions, many calls, emails, texts, lots of back and forth with folks, and they were really thinking hard about it,” said Tennant.
“Really, there was a lot of learning between AREA and CREB and our staff teams and our leadership teams, and I think we need to sit and think (about) what we heard and saw there and also from what we heard from our members.
“We’ve got a great organization, and so does AREA. The whole premise was that these are two strong organizations that simply can see a better path, but I think there’s a lot of synergies here we can build from.”
Members considered the merger carefully
Tennant said when you ask a question like this, and the word ‘dissolution’ is in the decision, it causes people to think hard about their professional life, in a different format and without CREB.
If members had voted to merge with AREA, it would have meant the sale of CREB’s office building in northeast Calgary.
“We’re really excited about the future. It did upset a number of members that we’d be moving out of the building and the building would be sold and I can tell you for as long as I’m CEO this building is not being sold. It’s not my decision, but I’m not making that recommendation to the board. I’ve made that clear,” he said.
AREA CEO Brad Mitchell said he wasn’t surprised by the result of the vote
“The members spoke, and there were lots of concerns expressed in the last week. And their choice,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t really see anything that was paramount. I guess one of the concerns was selling the building. That one came up a lot. A lot of members wanted to keep the building.
“Realtors tend to be quite proprietary”
“This wasn’t an AREA vote . . . This was brought to us by the CREB board, and it’s really a CREB board decision whether they bring it forward again or not…The members had a chance to speak, but only (21 per cent) of them voted. I was a little bit disappointed in the turnout. But it is what it is.”
AREA is the provincial association representing the interests and concerns of more than 13,000 Alberta realtors from 10 local real estate boards/associations— including those belonging to CREB.
Corinne Lyall, owner/broker with Royal LePage Benchmark in Calgary, said she was prepared for the vote to go either way.
“Realtors tend to be quite proprietary,” she said. “They’re proprietary over the Calgary Real Estate Board even though it might not be completely the most rational decision. If the Calgary Real Estate Board is looking to do this, there’s a reason for it. It could be financial.
“So you’ve got 5,500 people who are apathetic or …too busy to vote, which means they don’t care.”
“Some of the longer-term realtors in our business have a sense of attachment to the Calgary Real Estate Board, whether it’s common sense or if it’s probably more emotional. Whenever you have that strong group of people, and it could be a minority as far as the rest is, as only 1,500 people voted. So you’ve got 5,500 people who are apathetic or …too busy to vote, which means they don’t care.
“My guess is there’s a lot of Yes people out there (who) went ‘oh, I guess I should have voted. I assumed that it would just go through.'”
Lyall said she was in favour of the merger, adding that if CREB was behind this, there was probably a good reason.
“I believe a lot of this was financially driven. I don’t believe they have the revenue to sustain their current organization,” she said. “I think what’s going to happen is they’re going to have to regroup and figure out how they’re going to create an organization that is financially feasible, which probably means they’re going to have to offload some of their services anyway.
“The suggestion that the merger was financially driven is not accurate and encourages a concerning narrative,” Tennant rebutted in an email. “The leadership of both organizations has publicly stated that both organizations are financially strong and well-run.”
CREB Chair Christian Twomey added, “With AREA, we jointly presented a solid case for the merger and established that the organizations could do more for our members together rather than competing… If the suggestion is that we’re going to significantly erode the value we provide members or even close up shop, think again.”
CREB to review initiative
Mary-Ann Mears, a broker with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in Calgary, said she was surprised and encouraged by the turnout.
“Although my personal vote is private, from the thin margins of the vote, I can surmise that there are CREB members who accept the collaboration on the one hand, while on the other hand, there are those who have unanswered questions and voted no,” she said.
CREB said it will review the initiative and reflect on the strong statements from members about what they value from the organization and their ideas for the future.
In a statement, Christian Twomey, CREB’s Chair, said: “We’ll be exploring why the consolidation plan was defeated to learn if there is an appetite for (the) continued pursuit of a different membership structure, or perhaps refocus in a new direction.”
One of the more positive outcomes? Twomey said CREB has never seen member engagement at this level.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated from it’s original version to include additional comments from AREA and CREB leadership.
Mario Toneguzzi is a contributing writer for REM. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald, covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He now works on his own as a freelance writer for several national publications and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list.
I do not know the specific financial, governance, and purpose issues impacting the perspective of merger of CREB with AREA. Perhaps such knowledge is absolutely necessary. Perhaps commentary from afar is too far removed to have merit. Yet here goes.
Alan Tennant is an accomplished and competent CEO. This is demonstrated by the humble and professional manner in which he responds to the idea of merger and comments on the outcome, respecting it and acknowledging the CREB shareholders (members are shareholders) decide. And perhaps there is a hint as to his perspective in the surprise he is said to feel.
Merger’s in ORE are inevitable. They will be driven from within or from without, slow in coming though it may be if driven from outside and like molasses rolling uphill if from within. Professional REALTORS® simply cannot cope with the myriad influences of myriad ORE. Not only does it water down influence to have multiple organizations advising regulators, often significantly differently or with nuanced differences, it means the capital available to promote and advance the profession is dividedly weaker in its parts than in its whole. Even to having the capital in bricks and mortar which means it cannot be deployed to invest for better return on investment in the profession.
I wish the leadership well in navigating the uphill road that ensues from this vote.
There is a note about the apathy of members who did not vote. Another story maybe for another day.
1) It’s NOT apathy- it’s a decision.
Same thing happens in our local area.
If the members who did not attend the meeting, thought they were needed to influence the decision – they would have attended.
2) Another solid recommendation for 2/3 to be the threshold on all bylaw issues.
3)The members spoke – no need to revisit it until at least a new election can be contested with a new set of Directors who have had a chance to run with “consolidation ” as an issue.
The problem was that it was all pros and know one shared the actual cons clearly. I felt like it was one sided from the beginning a push towards AREA. We need the full picture and a debate.
Tony, I totally agree. There was never two sides of the plan, which is one reason I wondered if there was a financial motivation. We are paying double fees to two bodies that deliver very similar services, carry the overhead of a $5 million building that is closer to empty than full, and watched the staff drop from approximately 86 to about 53 people. Even the Calgary Olympic Games question you could read both sides of the argument for and against, but with this merger/dissolution question, it was very one-sided.
Post pandemic, world trend is to be suppliers of of everything online. Real estate is a personal, people, emotional business. Selling real estate from the cloud is going back to the wild west which necessitated the formation of Real estate boards and associations starting with NAR. This trend of mergers and acquisition does not belong in the real estate profession. Local boards were built to serve the professionals who paid the dues, not to build coffers of few big organizations run by a handful of craftsy Executives earning highly.
If CREB is like many other real estate boards, then I suspect that the vast majority of their agents are not full-time active agents which would explain the poor turnout. According to many stats in our profession, the 80/20 rule is factual.. 20% of the agents do 80% of the business… meaning that really only the 20% who are actively engaged in real estate on a consistent basis care enough or have enough at stake for this to matter, which would encourage them to cast their vote, at the most. I suspect that those that consisted of the 80% non-active agents that did opt to vote were perhaps bored, retired part-time agents, which typically are apprehensive about change. The other part-timers don’t care as this only accounts for a small portion of their income and instead are focussing on their primary vocation or on familial matters. Another example of why we need to discourage part-timers in our profession as it sets the whole profession back.