By Kathy Bevan
Michel Beauséjour (right, with CREA CEO Pierre Beauchamp) was presented with the AEC Award of Excellence in 2007.
After almost 11 years at the helm of the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board (GMREB), Michel Beauséjour announced he is retiring as GMREB CEO – he will also be stepping down as CEO of the Québec Federation of Real Estate Boards (QFREB). In the June 30 news release announcing his resignation, effective when his replacement is named, Beauséjour says a change in leadership is necessary to help support the ever-changing landscape of the real estate industry. “I have developed and implemented all of the necessary tools to ensure the success of the industry and of real estate brokers as they face these essential changes,” Beauséjour says.
While Beauséjour is only one of a number of long-serving real estate CEOs across the country who have either already retired or are engaged in transition planning at their boards and associations, the announcement of his impending departure follows closely on the heels of an online petition signed by over 2,100 GMREB members, calling for his resignation.
The petition, launched in May, took issue with comments Beauséjour made during an interview with Quebec newspaper La Presse, published on May 1, the date the new Quebec Real Estate Act was implemented. La Presse quoted Beauséjour as stating the new act meant a Realtor in the province “cannot be a peddler. And that is what the new law is coming to say: you cannot do this part-time anymore. You could try, but you will not last a long time. This is a profession and people have to make the required efforts.”
While Beauséjour has been outspoken in the past about the need for professionalism in the real estate industry, his use of the word “peddler” linked to part-time real estate agents drew immediate criticism and the online petition was launched, demanding he step down as CEO of the Montreal board.
In response, GMREB president Patrick Juaneda issued a letter to board members, telling them that, “while also disappointed with the tone of the article”, he and his board of directors were “100 per cent in support of the CEO” and they were “to say the least, dismayed and frankly appalled at the tactics being used by some people to undermine an individual who has always had the industry’s best interests at heart.” Juaneda added, “We publicly stand behind him and will not allow him to resign, nor does he have any intention of doing so.”
The ensuing June 30 announcement of Beauséjour’s departure caught many by surprise. However, GMREB vice president Diane Ménard told REM that the decision was fully Beauséjour’s own and says that most of the board’s members continued to support their CEO.
“I can tell you that the majority of people are behind Michel. We’re hearing comments from people who are praising Michel and the good work that Michel did and what he brought to the Montreal REB, but they respect his decision,” says Ménard, who downplays any impact the online petition might have had on the timing of that decision. “At the Montreal Real Estate Board we have over 10,500 members – or close to that – and as I said to you before, the majority of agents are all behind Michel,” Ménard says. “There’s a petition of 2,000 – which is not that much, when you have 9,000 people behind the CEO. So the majority of agents were very satisfied with Michel and with the work that’s being done.”
Ménard and others praised Beauséjour’s board leadership over the past decade, which saw, among other things, the consolidation of nine different MLS systems into a single, province-wide MLS, the standardization of professional practices throughout Quebec and the creation of the Collège des immobiliers, which now trains almost 35 per cent of all new Realtors in the province. Beauséjour also oversaw the April 2010 launch of a new provincial property search website, centris.ca, which complements Realtor.ca by holding the largest database of properties for sale in Quebec. The centris.ca site carries more than 65,000 listings – updated with new MLS listings every hour – and includes real estate advice as well as extensive community and lifestyle information for consumers.
In addition to these achievements, Beauséjour says he is proud of a number of successful communications initiatives. The QFREB set up its own market analysis department, with three full-time economists, to explain market ups and downs, which Beauséjour credits with helping to stabilize the real estate market during the recession. A five-year advertising campaign, targeting Quebec’s historically high FSBO (For Sale By Owner) market percentage, promoted the benefits of using a Realtor’s services.
“We have been able to reduce the FSBO market by 50 per cent – it’s now 15 per cent instead of 30 per cent – which means, if you do a quick calculation of the math on that, it’s about $150 million of new commissions every year in the industry right now that we didn’t have before,” Beauséjour told REM in an interview.
As for his departure as CEO of GMREB, Beauséjour confirmed that he will remain until a successor is named. GMREB has hired a headhunting service to look for candidates and in the meantime, Beauséjour has begun working with board officials at both GMREB and QFREB on the eventual transition to their new CEOs.
“After 10 years, you need probably to rethink and say, what do we want now? Will there be one or two CEOs? How do we want to link between the federation, the Montreal board, Centris and the college?” says Beauséjour, adding, “I think it’s a great opportunity for elected people to rethink and re-adapt this industry to the new reality right now.”
