As you might expect, it was a full house last week as board and association leaders from across the country eagerly participated in CREA’s Oct. 18 special general meeting and open forum on the future of REALTOR.ca.

The meeting came on the heels of CREA’s PAC Days, where leaders and government relations representatives from across Canada made the annual voyage to Ottawa where we meet with Members of Parliament and advocate for common priorities to enhance the Canadian real estate industry.

We actively participated in all of these various activities and continued to share our voice and perspective on behalf of CREB^® members, including the need for regular and ongoing engagement and transparency in the process, as I noted in my CREB^®Chat article on Sept 19.

Essentially, at this stage, CREA’s Board of Directors was seeking directional endorsement for the next stage of business planning to flush out how REALTOR.ca could transition to becoming a taxable entity.

It was emphasized at several points in the presentation that it’s early days and that the priority right now is gathering all the ingredients to bake the proverbial cake. The presentation outlined three guiding principles for the work ahead, including REALTOR^® ownership of REALTOR.ca, revenue reinvestment in REALTOR.ca and an entity that is guided by a governance excellence model.

There were a series of four broad questions to understand the extent to which CREA has directional support for their work on this initiative and they received strong support on each. To learn more and view the results in a follow up message from CREA, please click here.

As part of the open forum, in-step with many of our colleagues from around the country, we expressed the need for a fulsome business plan and opportunity for regular consultation along the way, and that while we know CREA’s hope is to have the full plan communicated and ready for approval at their spring 2024 AGM, our focus is about getting it right, whether that happens by the AGM or further down the road.

There was a strong message that the new company should remain 100 per cent CREA owned.

For now, we wait to hear more, and continue to stay closely connected. Our commitment is to keep CREB^® members informed and engaged as much as possible, so please stay tuned for more as new information and developments come our way.