Leading professionalism and innovation in real estate

0:00 – Greater Vancouver Realtors Rebrand Introduction

0:00 Craig Munn: Well, thanks very much Ryan for the opportunity. Both Kat and I, who Kat will join in a few minutes, we're really happy to be here today and to talk with all of you. Now, you know, in preparing for this presentation we recognize there's kind of a diverse cross-section of people involved in real estate. So some of you may know us, some of you will no doubt be our members, some of you may not know us at all.

0:24 And we've tried to put together some information here about some of the stuff that we've really been kind of focused on of late that will be of interest hopefully to everyone, whether you know us well or you don't know who we are at all. Because we've undergone a lot of change over the last probably year, two years: new CEO, some new leadership. And obviously real estate in general is undergoing significant change and innovation and disruption, and we're really trying to take some purposeful steps to modernize rapidly, stay ahead of the curve, really be thinking about what the future looks like.

1:09 And so that's really what we've tailored our presentation on today. So let's kind of get into it. I mentioned the word our brand, the title, our brand and our future. So that's a crux of it, because we did recently rebrand the organization, haven't done that in decades, and I'll get into that in a few minutes about why, and who we used to be. But you know, starting: Greater Vancouver Realtors, who we are.

1:36 Well, we're the professional association of the 15,000 plus Realtors in the Greater Vancouver region, as well as the more than 500 real estate brokerages, all the offices you see around the region are also members of ours. We've been around since 1919, so in the immediate aftermath of World War I we were created to really represent the real estate profession. And so we in some respects are the quintessential professional association.

2:08 We do education, we provide technology and a variety of services, and public relations and advertising and government advocacy, as well as discipline, member-to-member, enforcing our national Realtor code of ethics, and dealing with Realtor to Realtor complaints and things like that. So a lot of that will sound familiar to anyone, if we have say accountants and lawyers and other professionals in the audience today, where you have your own respective professional associations serving those kinds of functions.

2:40 But kind of what makes us different, and this is kind of a little bit of a jumping off point, is that our real estate boards, and boards across the country, have this thing called the MLS, the multiple listing service.

2:47 – How the MLS System Works

2:51 Craig Munn: So that certainly makes us unique. And this will be a pretty sophisticated audience so I don't need to really go into huge depth about what the MLS is, but I will just kind of give you our take on the whole conception of what it is. And if you think, 50, 70, 75 years ago, even in our region there was no MLS. Other parts in Europe there is MLS quite often, and it's a really critical kind of system behind the scenes that kind of brings order to an otherwise kind of chaotic market.

3:26 And so what it really is, is that all of our member brokerages and members kind of agree to submit their home property listings and data to us as a third party, to kind of feed into the MLS engine, in order to ensure kind of transparency in the market and consistent reporting of homes for sale, real estate information, real estate statistics, that we can kind of report out regularly and consistently to help try to inform the marketplace about what's for sale, what's happening with prices and the market and all of this.

4:07 And you know, when you delve under the hood of the MLS system, we have rules and accountability to make sure that all the information is correct and in the right format, to ensure the process and the transaction goes well and people get paid and things like that. There's all kinds of various dimensions within the MLS system to really try to make for a smooth, protected real estate transaction for the consumers and the professionals who are representing them.

4:35 So that's what makes our organization unique from just any professional association across say the economy. So that's us, and we've been doing this since 1919. In recent years especially, probably since about 2016, 2017 with the housing crisis being kind of defined as such, and politics being what they are and the scrutiny on the market, things have really come into focus about our industry and profession and the market.

4:52 – Why the Board Rebranded

5:06 Craig Munn: And we looked at our brand, which was the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. I'll have a look here, this was our names over the years, and taking a look at what the public and our different audiences knew about us. So we were originally called the Vancouver Real Estate Exchange in 1919. In the post-World War II era we changed to the Vancouver Real Estate Board. In 1970 we were the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

5:34 And so for the last kind of 53 years this has been our logo. And you know, if you were a member of the organization you knew us well, otherwise you'd maybe be taking a guess. What's a board? Is it kind of like a school board? Are we the government? Are we a disciplinary body? What are we exactly? And with that kind of naming trouble that we found with our brand, as well as an outdated logo and so on, we thought, why don't we be a little bit more plain spoken about who we are, who we represent, and what we're trying to do in the marketplace.

6:13 That's where the concept came to make the shift in our brand to Greater Vancouver Realtors. Just to bring that clarity about, yeah, we represent the Realtors of Greater Vancouver, that's who we are. Whenever we're out doing anything, whether it's around the market or the MLS or reporting or talking to government or any of those types of things, it's clear that we're the Greater Vancouver Realtors, that's who we represent.

6:37 We added some kind of colour and dimension to it to try to represent some of our focus on innovation, that Kat's going to speak to later. And so this is what we came out with in our rebrand just recently, in the first quarter of this year. So I'll just show you some of the imagery, just so you know who we were. I'm just trying to kind of set the stage here.

7:02 You know, when you go to our site, it's us every month who put out, the second business day of each month, all the housing market reports and our analysis of what's going on in the residential market, what's happening with prices.

7:17 – New Mission: Professionalism and Innovation

7:17 Craig Munn: Our economist Andrew Lis, actually right before this call I was setting up a media interview for him to speak about market trends. Here's our website where we convey all of our reports, but we've changed them, and our colour scheme, and different things. So everyone can kind of know, they're just kind of bringing you up to speed on where we are at. But when you do rebrand, obviously it's not just a name change, it's not just changing the colour of your logo and those types of things.

7:46 It really, if you do it well in our opinion, it really comes with a strategic shift, a new mindset. What are you trying to achieve? What are you trying to stand for for your audiences, and tell your audiences? And that's where our leadership and our board of directors came together, and this was the new mission and vision for the organization. I really like the mission because it's clear.

8:12 There's two things that are our focus: we really want to lead professionalism and innovation in real estate. And kind of underlying all of that is public trust and transparency. We really want to convey to our audiences, on behalf of our members, to the public audience, that we really do want to elevate professionalism. We want to take a very thoughtful approach to it and see, okay, what does the next generation of home buyers and sellers need from real estate professionals, and how should they be equipped and qualified in order to best serve them?

8:49 And so that is kind of what we have embarked on with this new brand. And so now I'm going to take you through the one side of this new mission, our efforts to elevate professionalism in real estate. And then again, as I've mentioned, Kat, my great colleague, is going to talk more about innovation and tools and data that you can watch out for shortly. So, first and foremost, when you kind of take on a bold initiative like this, we wanted to really just take a step back and say, well, what is professionalism, and how is it attained?

9:28 Is it attained through education? Is it in how you conduct yourself, how you look, how you talk? Is it an ethical thing, is it an academic dimension? Because the word is said a lot, but what is the real meaning behind it? We really wanted to give some thought to that. We hired consultants Brian Friedrich and Laura Friedrich, two brilliant individuals from the accounting world and legal world as well.

10:02 Brian was a doctor as well, or rather a lawyer as well as an accountant. Sadly he passed away recently, but right prior to writing this paper for us he was working with the International Monetary Fund in Europe trying to help enhance accounting standards in developing nations and countries around the world, and really had a passion for ethics and professionalism and helping industries and things like that. So we're really grateful for Brian and Laura for doing this work for us.

10:33 And what they really did was look at different industries, similar industries, of how they define professionalism, what kind of standards of practice they have, what qualifications they have, what rules and accountability and discipline, and pretty broad criteria, and compared it against our Realtor community to see, where do we do well, where do we fall short, and what kind of actions can we take to enhance professionalism? So that was the point of this document.

11:06 – Entrance Requirements and Continuing Education

11:06 Craig Munn: And since we released it last year it's really been kind of the playbook that we're following to elevate professionalism in real estate. And so I'll walk you through the key themes. There's 10 of them that I'll kind of take you through. So first and foremost, if you want to talk about what is a profession, and being called into a profession, there needs to be some sort of entrance requirement, some sort of qualification, to enter the profession.

11:40 And so this was a key theme throughout the research, is this hasn't been explored in some time in real estate. The regulator obviously in each of the provinces is that kind of bar of entry, of what you need to be licensed to sell real estate. But we did think this is an area where we could work with perhaps regulators, work with industry, work with the academic community, and take a look at what are the entrance requirements for Realtors, how have the needs of the job changed, and maybe how can this be adapted?

12:20 Would the public be better served with people with a compulsory degree? Would it be some other training, some articling, different things like that? So this one came up and was a key theme for us. And we've embarked, with partners the BC Real Estate Association, and we're talking with the Canadian Real Estate Association, and beginning to reach out with regulators and so on, to say, hey, why don't we take a look at this, and with the long-term in mind see what should the qualifications be in 5, 10, 20 years to enter the real estate profession, given how the landscape has changed.

13:03 Another is around education. Once you enter a profession, the job of educating yourself, of maintaining that kind of expert, knowledgeable practitioner status, it doesn't just end. You don't just kind of freeze in time with what you learned before you come in. You need continuing education, which Realtors have. We have a professional development program that's province-wide. They have to meet certain criteria and take a certain number of credits and courses.

13:36 However, we think there's more room to move there as well. Testing competence, and just more scrutiny, more rigorous kind of training in certain areas that surfaced, especially things that are evolving on the regulatory front, around contracts, language proficiency, different things like that. We really zeroed in on that and said, this is an area that we could strengthen over the long term. So competency-based education is the second there.

14:08 Then the third comes in around accountability.

14:11 – Accountability, Ethics and Government Advocacy

14:16 Craig Munn: So people are, you try to get them qualified, you try to ensure that they're continuing learning and growing as professionals, but this falls maybe, perhaps, it's competence but it's also ethics. What happens when people breach the rules? And we do have a code of conduct, we do have rules and all those, I don't want to suggest that we don't, but is there room? Certainly the public clamour for it and our members clamour for it, when we see the headlines.

14:43 We don't like the occasional time where there's unethical behaviour, and so we want to make sure we have all the right tools at our disposal to deal with those kind of circumstances where people are flouting the rules of the profession. And so we want to make sure that that's taken really seriously. So that's under review as well, about how we handle that both in our region and in our province.

15:11 The next is, I mean this is another calling card of any profession, is you need that kind of streamlined body of knowledge. You need to have ready access to the resources and information to do your job well, to correct any behaviour that needs changing, or anything you need to become more knowledgeable in. So this is kind of ensuring that there's the resource infrastructure in place for anybody in the real estate profession to get the access to the information they need.

15:45 And so that's a longer term kind of major capital investment perhaps, but another area that we think is a critical foundational piece. So this is an interesting theme that came as well. Since, I would say, the last decade where real estate has become very political, the affordability crisis has kind of pushed that, and it's much more, real estate is much more a focal point in the news today.

16:16 Politicians are much more involved, and regulators, and there's just a much greater scrutiny on the market, on the housing market, on the real estate profession today. And we just believe the best positioning for our industry on behalf of our members, as Greater Vancouver Realtors, is to be a helpful partner to government, to provide context and information. Nobody wants to lock horns and tit for tat in media and fight and any of those kinds of things that maybe people might think that an industry is inclined to do.

16:51 We're not. We want to be a good partner and help develop good evidence-based policy when it comes to housing affordability, when it comes to regulation. Anywhere where we can help we're really trying to dig in and roll up our sleeves and be that helpful partner to develop the right kind of policy. And this, seemingly would be a smaller item, is address the courtesy question. But it's not, it's one of the biggest things for our members.

17:21 – Courtesy, Cooperation and the Professionalism Oath

17:23 Craig Munn: In real estate it's kind of unlike any other profession, where you need the cooperation of another practitioner in order to be successful with your clients. You can't just kind of sit in an office and write some contracts and serve your clients. You need to go engage, if you're a buyer's agent you need to go engage with the listing agent and work out, negotiate and execute on a deal.

17:46 Now if you don't have a great partner on the other side to cooperate with in that transaction, it makes you look bad in front of your clients, it causes disharmony, it causes mistrust. So even small things like returning phone calls and being very clear in communication and things like that are critical. And making strides in this can go a long way for the industry, because when it's not done well it leaves a really bad taste in the consumer's mouth around their experience.

18:23 And so we're looking at implementing timely communication requirements, kind of better articulating what this courteous behaviour is and what the expectations are, and what you can't do in today's market. So that's a big one for us. Theme seven here is finding kind of symbolism within a profession. We saw some great examples of this in the research. My favourite one is the engineers who have the ring, that is just kind of that reminder of the commitment they took to entering the profession and the importance of the work that they do.

19:08 Other professions have pins, universities and schools have songs, those kinds of things. They're not going to cure all the troubles that might plague you, but they are important for kind of setting culture and a tone. And we thought that was important, and there were some good areas to mine there. So one of the first things we've done since releasing this white paper was we created an oath of professionalism that all new Realtors must kind of publicly say and state.

19:47 And we do it at our AGM as well, you know, the hundreds of members who show up stand up and recite this oath. And the idea is kind of along the lines of when you do marriage vows, or an oath of citizenship. When you say it out publicly in front of your peers or family and friends, you're more likely to commit to something. And we think that's important, and we think it just sets a cultural tone.

20:16 If you have people just doing that over and over again, saying the right words, committing to it, putting their hand in the air and doing it, you know, we don't think it's a cure all, but we think that'll put us in a better place.

20:27 – Minimum Practice, Mentorship and Public Perception

20:33 Craig Munn: Theme eight, minimum practice requirements. Real estate in any part of North America, if we go to a conference and talk to our colleagues, is very similar in that there are always a significant number of practitioners who don't do any activity at all in a year. Real estate has just long had that. They do either other jobs, or maybe they're in more like analytical roles or something, but they're not conducting transactions.

21:01 I think it's about a quarter of ours, 25%, don't do deals. And you know, within a kind of two-year period, our last analysis I think that Kat did. And so, given that fact, we are looking at minimum practice requirements. And if you haven't been practising, how can you demonstrate competence? So just in the event you do get involved, that you can live up to the standards of the profession, you know the rules, you know what's required of you.

21:38 If you think of an example of a mechanic or something like that, you wouldn't want a mechanic who hasn't worked on a car since 1985 working on your 2023 Tesla or something like that. The technology has changed. You need to be up to the standard, you need to make sure you can perform the right tests and work on the car so that it can drive safely and get the people home safely, and that kind of thing.

22:01 And so we're applying that kind of thinking here, and looking at potential solutions around, okay, how do you demonstrate that you're still competent, you understand the current practices, and don't present a risk to the profession and reputationally. Theme nine here is exploring an articling and mentorship program. Obviously in the legal profession articling is prominent, has been for a long time. The accounting profession we know has a pretty strong mentorship program in place.

22:33 And when you have experienced people teaching and guiding and leading newcomers to your profession, we think that's a good thing. And so we really kind of want to work out a program that makes sense for real estate, that maybe incentivizes mentors to get involved. This provides a little bit of structure to that idea, but that one was another one that really came to us clearly through our research.

23:01 The last one I'll touch on here that we're working on is this whole notion, I'm in the communication kind of PR side of our organization, and sometimes you'll hear, well, that's just a public image issue, or that's a professionalism issue or those kinds of things. And we really want to draw that distinction between, is it a perception issue? And if it is, then we need to do education to make people understand the correct perception of what's happening.

23:38 But if it's not a perception issue, it's a real issue, and we need to address it. They're not the exact same thing. So we need to be doing the things internally long term to enhance professionalism and strengthen it, and at the same time be taking purposeful action to educate the public about what it is they can expect when they work with a Realtor, when they get involved in a real estate transaction, the risks involved and all those things, so there isn't any misunderstanding or miscommunication going on with the public audience.

24:09 So we kind of built that theme in here as well, to just kind of, they're similar but they're distinct as well. We want to think about these two kind of elements in these ways. That's kind of the overview of who we are and our branding, what we've done over the last year, and our professionalism initiative that we've implemented and that we're working on.

24:36 – Innovation, MLS Data and Industry Trust

24:39 Craig Munn: I think now I'll hand it over to Kat and she can speak more to innovation and the technology side. So over to you Kat.

24:47 Kat Newel: Thanks so much Craig, and thank you for that great introduction about our new brand and logo and our professionalism initiatives. Also thank you to Ryan Grant for giving me and Craig the opportunity to talk to everyone on the call today. So I am the VP business innovation, and so I lead some of the fun initiatives that we have on the go. And also, with the people on the call today, I'm going to try and make sure we cover more than just what we have for our Realtors.

25:25 Craig introduced our MLS, and that's one of the things that really drives our organization and many of the things that we do here at GVR. And as part of the rebrand exercise that we had earlier this year, we also have been trying to introduce, and continue to introduce, more of a shift in how we view the world around us. We are trying to be more open and introduce more trust into the industry: trust in Realtors, trust in the data that you see, trust in the information that is around us, and support our members through opening up for a more trusting relationship.

26:17 And so that ties in with our MLS data, where our Realtors enter in all the details for the property that goes onto the market. That is crucial for the transaction, both when it comes to residential transactions but also for commercial transactions. And so what we also find is that we need to provide a bit more industry trust, from that perspective. And so one of the things we've heard a lot of is like, well, I was looking at this property and now it's gone, I can't find it anywhere.

26:56 And so we've been working on initiatives to ensure that we work through those aspects that consumers have when it comes to, or consumers' opinion when it comes to, transparency into the industry and how a property goes through a transaction. And so this all started back in the fall.

27:22 – New Listing Statuses and Transaction Transparency

27:22 Kat Newel: For the Realtors that are on the call, they will know that transactions now require a bit more details once the transaction finalizes, when there's a purchase of a property. And so what we'll see is that there's now a lot more statuses or dates surrounding the transaction. And it doesn't seem like much, but actually what we're trying to do, and what we will be doing over the coming months, is actually introduce transparency into the industry through a variety of ways.

27:55 So the status that we are asking Realtors to log is around whether there's the dates around offers that come in on a property listing, and also what are the dates surrounding the closing of the sale. And so we're introducing some statuses into the industry, or into our MLS system, that Realtors can use. So these tie in with the dates that have been logged for the past five, six months.

28:35 And so the status is, there's going to be a status that not everybody wants to use, but it's a status that says it's active but it's under contract, which means that there's a conditional offer on it. It is not something that everybody has to use, but it'll say to the consumer that is looking at the property on realtor.ca, or on any other website where we have these listings, that this property is undergoing a contract, and if you want to go see it you have to be quick.

29:05 Once the property goes into an unconditional offer, what we'll see is that it moves into more of a pending status. The sale hasn't closed yet, and there can still be things happening as part of the final contract negotiations that might influence the actual sales transaction. And then once the property is closed it'll move into a closed status. And so what will happen, and specifically around, we look at realtor.ca as a good example, is what we'll see is that status will be closed but the property will persist.

29:46 So one of the things that we see when we look at apps like realtor.ca, to stick to that example, what we see is one of the biggest feedbacks that they have on the app is like, I was looking at this property and suddenly now it's gone, I can't find it in the app, the app doesn't work. Well, actually the app does work, it's just because it has now transacted and it is now off market and it's no longer for sale.

30:15 And so one of the things that we're doing when we talk about transparency is to actually tell the consumer, actually this is closed, and it's still here, here's the property. And so we'll have the listing still, this listing will be gone, but there'll still be a Google Street View of the property and some basic details around that property that the consumer was following. So hopefully what we're trying to do is put some people at ease, that you know, properties still exist just because they're not available on realtor.ca.

30:50 They're still there, and so we're getting them to persist on realtor.ca, to beyond the actual transaction.

31:01 – Partnerships With CREA and BC Boards

31:01 Kat Newel: Now if we go to the next slide, whoever is controlling the slides, there we go. And so what we'll also find as part of our rebrand and our future sort of mindsets and vision is an increased collaboration and partnership within the industry, but also outside our industry. From within our industry, we are working a lot more and a lot tighter with our national association, the Canadian Real Estate Association, as an example.

31:30 We are working with them on this whole initiative to increase transparency into the industry, and so that is one of the biggest partnerships that we have on the go. And we continue to evolve. We also are increasing our collaboration with other provinces in the country, so we work on innovative initiatives together and partner together when it comes to interesting opportunities we have in the industry for vendors.

32:00 And provincially, for those Realtors that are on the call, you'll know that we have eight different associations here in BC. And the boards have not evolved as the market has evolved over the past many years. And not all real estate associations in BC work on the same system, and so we're trying to reduce the barriers that members find when they are working with us and our partner associations within BC.

32:42 And so what we'll see again from a provincial perspective, we're trying to increase the trust in the industry and increase the transparency that both members and consumers will see within the industry. And so that partnership goes across many of the associations here, and that will come to fruition over the next 12 to 24 months as we start to roll out new initiatives based on the partnership and the increased collaboration that we have for the provincial associations.

33:20 Locally, we are working with a lot of our members here in the Greater Vancouver area to look at what kind of opportunities are out there in the market, what are they seeing, what are we hearing, what are we seeing. And so we're looking forward to establishing a lot more partnerships with our members and vendors that support our industry here in BC. Outside of the traditional national and provincial associations, we're also partnering a lot more and collaborating a lot more with other associations, companies outside of real estate.

34:03 There's a huge interest in our industry from both ancillary and auxiliary industries, on the opportunities within real estate and opportunities to look at our industry and what are the trends in our industry, and how can we support other industries and how can other industries support us and our market to increase the transparency and the trust from the public. And so with those collaborations and partnerships we continue to evolve, and we hope to have a brighter future for members, and for companies, and for ourselves, where we can see how we support other industries that have a vested interest in real estate.

34:58 – CCIM Commercial Education Partnership

34:58 Kat Newel: In terms of partnerships, an interesting one that we have formed, and I think we announced earlier this year or late last year, is a partnership with the CCIM Institute. So CCIM is an education organization that provides very detailed and very high quality education and certification for commercial Realtors that are looking to deepen and strengthen their knowledge and capabilities within commercial investments. And so we see that collaboration has been very fruitful for us and for them, as we expand our brand and our professionalism, tying into what Craig was talking about regarding our relationships and our professionalism.

35:55 This is a huge initiative for us, to strengthen the professionalism in our industry together with the CCIM Institute. In other news, we also have, and again tying into our new brand, so Craig touched upon it briefly, when you look through our website, so if we have the next slide please.

36:22 – Economics Site, Chartbooks and The Lead

36:22 Kat Newel: Economics and real estate. So if you have been to our website recently you'll see the QR code there, it'll take you straight to our new economics site. We actually have a very good and informative economics site dedicated to real estate, not just residential, also commercial. And what you'll find here on this site that we've launched is a new tool we called chartbooks. So these are simple and downloadable charts, they get updated regularly as the market evolves, and it shows the residential market, both actuals and trends.

37:01 So what are the trends, what are we seeing in the industry, is it going to be a seller's market, is it going to be a buyer's market? We've been in a seller's market for years and years and years. And did the interest rate have an effect on the Vancouver market and the Vancouver market pricing and sales? All of this is presented in our chartbooks. It's really, really interesting to see, and it's free to download, available for everyone.

37:34 You just go over to the QR code and start playing around with it, and feel free to use it for yourselves in your work. There's also very good blog posts in there, articles around commercial and residential real estate. There are forecasts, both again from the commercial and the residential, and really forecasts also on what does it mean when the interest rate goes up and down. Which leads me to the next one, which is the video series called The Lead.

38:11 This is our economist Andrew Lis, who creates these videos on a frequent basis where he talks about policy implications on the housing markets, price matrix and all sorts. So really a good view into the real estate industry for our Realtors, but also for non-Realtors, or for those that are not members. This is a website that's completely available for everyone, and again tying back to our transparency that we want to introduce into the industry.

38:45 This is a really good view into how policies affect, interest rates affect, what we do as part of the real estate here in the West Coast. And lastly, another one that we're quite proud of, if we do the next slide please, and I'll take some water.

39:13 – Commercial Edge Sales Comparison Tool

39:13 Kat Newel: On commercial real estate is our last one before we go over to Q&A. For commercial real estate, if you look at the QR code it'll take you to a tool called Commercial Edge. This is a tool that's been around for a while, so for those of you who follow us will know that it's there. But the Commercial Edge tool is a sales comparison site that is based on actuals, and it has a lot of historical data, and it covers all of BC and all of Alberta.

39:54 And besides the actuals it also provides some basic information around the property, and there's quarterly reports that's available for you to download and use. You don't even have to have a subscription to it. The Commercial Edge tool that we have is available for everyone. You don't have to be a member. There is a subscription fee to it of course, but it's a really interesting tool because it turns out it is a very crucial tool for people to use that are not necessarily in commercial real estate.

40:34 We actually have oil and gas companies in Alberta that use it on a very frequent basis, together with municipalities that use it for evaluation as well, and comparisons. We have appraisers in there, and really big commercial firms of course. Commercial firms, as you know, do not necessarily have to be members of the real estate associations, but we do have the biggest commercial firms actually using the platform.

41:07 We also have another tool, so another tool that for those that are Realtors and they're on the call, you might know this, but we have a tool called commercial broadcast email service. This is for Realtors that deal in commercial real estate, and it is a commercial Realtor to commercial Realtor email service that provides a quick way for commercial Realtors to advertise whether they have a leasing opportunity or a sales opportunity, based on the asset class and based on the economic region that it's in, and is able to reach a huge market just through this tiny email service.

41:44 – Commercial Broadcast Email Service

41:57 Kat Newel: So this email service, just some stats from last year. This is, you send out an email with your listing, or something that you have a client that wants. But last year we had over three and a half million emails received. And for those of you who look at your open rates on your email, the open rate was over 40% for emails, which is very, very high. So this just shows how dedicated this platform is to the commercial real estate space.

42:31 It is also increasingly popular between the big commercial houses because they don't have to maintain their own CRM email lists and all of that. And so that is another tool that we have that's available. We're also looking to, if you know of anybody who is interested in both Commercial Edge, commercial broadcast email service, let us know. We are absolutely in business. And going back to talking about industry transparency and collaboration with companies and organizations, we are absolutely in business.

43:09 Please feel free to reach out to me. And with that I'm going to pass it back to Craig.

43:18 Craig Munn: Thanks Kat. I will unmute, and just one last thing we wanted to touch on before taking any questions you have is, we're having a conference of our own October 1st and 2nd, in partnership with the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board and the BC Real Estate Association, called Pacific West.

43:29 – Pacific West Conference and Closing Q&A

43:36 Craig Munn: It's October 1st and 2nd at the Vancouver Convention Centre. And so it'll be an opportunity to connect. We are expecting about 1,400 to 1,600 Realtors, real estate professionals, a lot of great, big trade show floor, a lot of great presenters and speakers. So I just want to throw it out, if anyone is interested in either sponsoring or presenting or attending or somehow being involved. It's year two and we're really striving to make it one of the top real estate conferences in all of western Canada.

44:17 Please join. You can email us at info@pacificwest.ca. A plug for our great conference that's coming up, in case any of you folks want to be involved or join us. That's it for our presentation, so we really appreciate having this opportunity, and hand it back to you Ryan.

44:50 Ryan Grant: Thanks Craig. Now it looks like there are a couple of questions. You can check the private chat there and just kind of go through and see which ones may be more applicable.

45:00 Craig Munn: Okay. So, with respect to stratas, is there a plan to ensure more accurate disclosure on the Strata Property Act pre-purchase or at purchase, because each owner is responsible for strata governance once they purchase but are rarely informed of this legal fundamental.

45:22 I mean, a little outside of our kind of wheel of expertise, but I'd say we work very closely with the Strata Property Owners Association, and a lot of focus with our members around, you know, it's always a big thing of getting the right documentation to the right people at the right time, so you understand the risks and everything involved, so you understand what you're buying basically, what kind of shape the property's in.

45:47 So it's a big issue, and I think I can say there's a lot of focus to make sure that those documents are available to everyone involved as soon as possible. That's our goal. It should be in place kind of now, all the time, but we know the reality doesn't quite match that expectation for a variety of reasons, on the strata side, on different parties' side.

46:10 Kat Newel: And yeah, so I just echo that comment, but unfortunately I don't have much more to add than that.

46:17 Ryan Grant: Looks like we don't have any other questions there. So then with that being said, I guess I will thank you for coming. Again, I'll bring Kat on stage. Thanks again Kat and Craig for your presentation, and hopefully we'll bring you back on again in the future sometime.

46:37 Kat Newel: Thank you so much for having us Ryan.

46:39 Craig Munn: Sounds great, yeah, thanks so much Ryan.

46:41 Ryan Grant: Thanks everyone, take care.