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 are below and on the following pages. Take a look and see if you agree with these choices, and then let us know who we missed. Add your comments to the stories on REMonline or drop an email to [email protected].

The Consumer

“I think the consumer has had the largest impact,” says Richard Silver, senior VP-sales for Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in Toronto. “Technology has allowed the consumer access to more information than ever and it has changed Realtor’s relationships to a more consultative one. Realtors have had to react to this change to survive and new models have opened to reflect that changed relationship.”

Laura Leyser, past-president of CREA and sales rep with Re/Max A-B Realty in Stratford, Ont., says, “The consumer, without knowing it, has rounded the sales reps in ways no one 25 years ago would have imagined” because they have become more educated about the real estate market.

Penny Dutkowski, a sales rep with HomeLife Bayview Realty in Toronto, says her vote goes to “all the buyers and judges of the ʼ90s who challenged the status quo that all Realtors were considered sub-agents of the seller and therefore acting only in the best interests of the seller.” This resulted in organized real estate adopting buyer representation, she says. “There’s still much to be done on that front, since many consumers today don’t understand the concept or appreciate that it was buyers before them who demanded equal protection to sellers.”