Have you even sold a property yet? When you get “your feet wet” you may have something to say… should you ever make any money as a Realtor… with an attitude like yours you’ll probably end up working with the Real Estate Board… they are rife with no talent!

Doubtful there is a but a handful of Canadians or foreign real estate byers, even those from the US, who know or think about CREA, or OREA, or any local MLS®, much less NAR.

The argument made is the brand has been irreparably damaged and rebrand is crucial. That seems unnecessary overkill. The brand may, and only may, have been weakened. The anti trust issue is resolved by court correction. The serious staff indiscretion is obvious personnel and not professional performance related behaviour.

Loss of a major, yet fractional market share player, is unlikely to kill a brand existing since 1916.

Even so, there is pressure from the anti trust, commission rulings.

Because a rose by any other name will smell as sweet, one should really expect that a rebranding will be seen as only an attempt to put lipstick on ‘one of those’.

A rebrand is more than a name reboot. It must include new standards, ethics, certification, licensing, and public trust — it’s far larger than a new advertising strategy. Credible national revision of the brand is $40M to $70M by some estimates. The complexity of our organization arrangements in Canada likely impacts these costs up not down. And massive, necessary, advertising campaigns suggest these costs could be double. Costs is not the argument running contrary to the suggestion, it is that spending is not the panacea, rebranding our behaviour to the name is.

For instance, some data suggests the CPA Canada rebrand was upwards to $50M, and that is 13 years ago. NAR annual advertising, without a rebrand emphasis is nearing $50M annually,

Words, as the columnists rightly points out, carry meaning. Changing the brand is not for the feint of heart, one has to have deep pockets and trust the outcome is a yellow brick road to return home. Supposition the issue that drives us being ‘one of those’ is the word REALTOR® misses that perhaps it is not the word and is the way we have behaved. Getting better, proving we are better, and serving the public better is really the solution.

Better to put our tens of millions towards those improvements. A new name is not necessary, getting organizational bureaucracy (as one person notes) out of the way and our professional conduct in the heart of service to clients is the solution.

Though the NAR association had good intentions it become flawed with bureaucracy that turned the organization towards chaos after the Antitrust fiasco in the early 1990’s, followed by selling the word REALTOR.com to a 3rd party for profit, and the recent commission scandal. Maybe CREA should rethink their recent “for-profit” stance for our Canadian association.

As a keen observer at the NAR events along with our REMAX European conferences abroad in Berlin, Amsterdam and Lisbon, I still think that Canada has the BEST organized real estate in the world for us REALTORS, bar none.

The deal that CREA has with NAR about owning REALTOR.ca, is the BEST for Canada owing the trademarked name. If it isn’t broke, why fix it; because you don’t like it! The NAR, US woes, is about their organization, and it is theirs to muck-up.

It is NOT Canada’s [CREA] responsibility, and certainly NOT yours either, to FIX their Sh!t. In time you will see why we Canadians ARE a BETTER fit for the word, REALTOR. Continue writing Lauren; I look forward to your next REM piece.

Signed: Rod Doris, Real Estate Broker.
Licensed in Ontario on October 24, 1989.

Every industry has its bad apples, but removing a title doesn’t erase them. The solution isn’t to run from the word “Realtor®️” — it’s to continue restoring pride in it through professionalism and accountability.

To anyone new coming into this business: don’t try to redefine or dismantle what’s been built. Learn it. Respect it. Improve on it. Cancel culture does not belong here! Many of us have spent years cleaning up this industry, continuing to do so, and rebuilding trust with the public. You don’t earn credibility by throwing stones at the foundation others laid — you earn it by adding value and doing better work.

The Realtor®️ name still means something. It stands for service, trust, and commitment to doing right by clients and our communities. That’s not baggage — that’s legacy.

If you want to use different tools in this profession, have at it. But don’t try and change the landscape that has been our system for ever. Instead, build on the legacy, show the world that YES – A REALTOR®️ IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUST!

I mean if REM is looking for engagement, this article is certainly one that should be doing that. 🙂

Canadians should not be tainted by misdeeds that occur at NAR or elsewhere in USA. One bad person does not ruin years of accomplishments and fairness.

Not all licencees are “realtors” as this word can only be used by those who belong and respect rules of conduct from their local, provincial and national associations.

Rather that looking for a new name and branding it, CREA could use OUR advertising money to promote the distinction between realtors and non realtors. There are costs and reasons to be a realtor and they should be protected.