Bob Wallace

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].

Bob Wallace and Brad Scott

“Bob Wallace, as CEO of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), pushed staff and volunteer leaders to be more critical and progressive in their thinking and actions,” says CREB CEO Alan Tennant. “Bob’s fingerprints were on every important file of regional and national significance during his career and he never once pushed his way into a group photo or press release. He was unselfish to a fault.”

Brad Scott

When Wallace retired late last year, his replacement, Brad Scott, wasn’t exactly a rookie. “Brad started 35 years ago in the mailroom!” says Andrew Peck, VP and general manager, Royal Pacific Realty Group. The REBGV’s chief operating officer since 1991, Scott “pushed forward thinking governance in associations, to have directors focus on organizational outcomes and not on the staff tactics to achieve them…He always asks the question, ‘Just because we do it this way and everyone is happy, can we do it better or should we strive to do it better?’”