Pierre Titley
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 jim@remonline.com.
Pierre Titley
In the early 1980s, Pierre Titley heard about a new real estate brokerage called Re/Max that would give agents a larger share of commissions. At the time, as Titley recalled in a radio interview, most of the brokerage business in Canada was controlled by large trust companies “and they were very hard to compete against as an independent broker.”
After meeting with Re/Max co-founder David Liniger, Titley became founding president of Re/Max Quebec in 1982. Flash forward 32 years and Titley presides over more than 3,500 real estate brokers and 136 agencies in the province as well as Re/Max New York.
According to Re/Max, while its brokers represent only 19 per cent of brokers in Quebec, almost 50 per cent of the properties sold annually in the province involve Re/Max brokers.
Titley’s lobbying was instrumental in brokers obtaining the status of self-employed workers. Re/Max Quebec has also pioneered exclusive programs, such as Tranquilli-T, which protects sellers in certain situations, such as the death of the buyer or his or her spouse, and offers legal assistance after the signing of the deed of sale.
Re/Max chairman and co-founder Dave Liniger told REM in 2005 that Titley and two other Canadian ownership groups represented “three of the most successful partners we’ve had.” – Danny Kucharsky
