Saskatchewan Realtors Association to come into effect January 1 2020
Mario Toneguzzi
Mortgage Broker News
A new era for real estate is coming to Saskatchewan in 2020. Realtors across the province have voted overwhelmingly in favour of forming a single association for the industry.
The decision brings together members of the Association of Saskatchewan Realtors (ASR), Association of Regina Realtors (ARR) and Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors (SRAR). The new entity will be called Saskatchewan Realtors Association and will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
“At that time, members told us they were in favour of one association but you don’t have a good enough plan,” says Dave Markus, co-chair of the provincial reorganization working group and also the president of ARR. “So, we went forward and we built the best plan we possibly could. We hired some external experts and consultants and we worked our way through building the best plan we could.”
Markus says the plan will lower membership fees. In addition, “It eliminates redundancies. It’s going to give us a more credible and influential association. This was not a staff-cutting measure. Our commitment is to give our members equal or greater service than they had before. We will be taken more seriously as a larger association when it comes to things like lobbying.” He says the new association will create “economies of scale with 1,600 members with buying power.”
In the successful vote, Saskatoon had 96.6 per cent approval, the ASR had 81.4 per cent approval and Regina had 72 per cent approval.
For the provincial association, 415 approved and 95 were against. Saskatoon had 261 approved and nine against and Regina had 306 approved and 119 against.
The new association will have two physical offices, in Regina and Saskatoon. They will take over the space where the current associations have their offices.
Now the business of putting together the new association will unfold as it gears for its launch at the beginning of the new year.
“We have a 12-Realtor working group that built this plan and brought it to the members and now those 12 Realtors are going to become the transition committee and for the next nine months they will be building out all the details to get us to where we need to be on Jan.1,” says Markus.
While there will be one single provincial association, the Realtors Association of Lloydminster and District will not participate in the amalgamation, due to its dual-provinciality in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Markus says the group sought the assistance of external consultant MNP LLP and legal advisor Miller Thomson LLP. It engaged members from the onset through surveys, interviews, meetings and informal discussions.
“It’s a win-win-win solution, where associations will no longer be duplicating work, members will see increased services for fewer dollars and home buyer and sellers will benefit from consistent practices throughout the province,” says Steven Bobiash, past-president of SRAR and working group co-chair. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to get a new organization ready to go in the next nine months, but we’re up to the challenge.
“It’s a pretty major decision. We’re very happy with the engagement and connection we had from members across the province. It was a very decisive decision by Realtors.”
Bobiash adds, “Things just keep getting more expensive. This gave us the opportunity to come together to try and save some money for our members, to shield them from inflationary pressures for a few years and to basically have the focus of where we’re spending our money on member services and to cut hopefully a whole bunch of overhead out. It was a good business decision.
“But as well, real estate is always evolving. Saskatchewan has had a long tradition of working together.” He says he wonders if that’s because “many of us grew up in small communities where you learned at a very young age to work together to achieve goals. Maybe that’s just part of our heritage or the development of our province that people grew up learning that.”
3 COMMENTS
- Nelson DeHoey
Purple Bricks, Google, Zillow and Zolo will be ecstatic over this move as will all the MLS Data Access Dreamers in Canada. Congrats once again to CORE who fails to look at how our Businesses can be attacked for decisions we make.
The benefit to Attacking Businesses for Provincial Aggregation of MLS data is huge!. Imagine simply paying provincial registration fees for a Virtual Brokerage and joining one MLS to gain unfettered access to an entire Provinces MLS information. Not only for sales but also sold data which is what all these boards have decades of.
You folks in Ontario and BC and Quebec it is too expensive to join all the MLS systems to get their Sold Data but not in Saskatchewan as of this announcement.
In Ontario the crazy decision of Connect has allowed Moving Companies to get lists (legally) of every family that sold their home across a massive area. Oppps no one thought of that? Hey I remember not too long ago a simple sales rep being charged for doing just that but today it is 100% endorsed through Connect.
Look I think this is great for consumers. This will REVOLUTIONIZE the brokerage business as we know it. In Sask, today you no longer need to be affiliated with any major Franchise Brand….as a matter of fact from a technical standpoint your Franchise Fees and affiliation is now damaging to the long term outlook for your Brokerage.
Hey what else is new. Board Staff brings in Governance Consultants whose sole goal is to hand over MLS control to Staff through Fear and Intimidation of potential lawsuits. A couple of years later some crazy idea about changing the system appears. Remember the crazy DDF goal of CREA which as now has been proven to only be used to attack your local brokerage business?
You are pawns in pool of SELF-SERVING board paid staff whose Job Protection is the only goal and the Top of the food chain makes sure they remain employed with more power after the job is done.
ComFREE/Purple Bricks is laughing all the way to the Bank as any Aggregation of MLS system data only saves them money running a Single Provincial Brokerage Strategy with KIOSKS that do not have to comply with provincial trading legislation by offering bait and switch non-agency bait.
I thought Prairie Canadians were smarter than this. I guess they are as foolish as all CORE continues to prove itself to be each and every day.
Carolyne L
Nelson,
You wrote: “In Ontario the crazy decision of Connect has allowed Moving Companies to get lists (legally) of every family that sold their home across a massive area. Oppps no one thought of that? Hey I remember not too long ago a simple sales rep being charged for doing just that but today it is 100% endorsed through Connect.”
Do you recall? What was the sales rep charged with? And what was the penalty? Was the rep in Ontario?
Respectfully Carolyne L
I love it; and i wish Ontario had done the same rather than breaking down the boards even further…
© 2019 REM Real Estate Magazine