Time to strengthen real estate education

As housing markets have changed and become more complex, home buyers and sellers increasingly rely on realtors to help them navigate the most important financial decision of their lives.

Yet real estate education remains stuck in the past.

To its credit, the government has updated educational standards for other professions. It’s time to do the same for real estate education in our province.

In Ontario, people who want to become registered (more commonly known as ‘licensed’) real estate salespeople or brokers are required to complete mandatory training from the Real Estate College, operated by the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA).

However, the curriculum taught to these new realtors is set by a government regulator called the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO). And RECO has not made significant updates to the curriculum in over a decade despite the rapidly changing nature of the housing market and consumer expectations.

Home buyers expect real estate professionals to be experts, whether it’s from years of experience in the market, or in the case of new real estate professionals, from their training and registration requirements. But for new trainees, education has fallen badly out of date.

There is no comprehensive, stand-alone training on condominiums, or on other specialties like rural, recreational and waterfront property, or industrial and commercial property. Most experienced Realtors learn these skills on the job, but wouldn’t it be much more sensible to make it part of the basic education?

New professionals also don’t receive up to date training on the current realities of financing, or the other big changes that are shaping the market.

On behalf of Realtors, OREA has repeatedly asked the regulator to modernize the curriculum and training requirements for new real estate professionals. In addition to updating the content and creating rigorous courses for specialized property types, we have proposed:

• New, demanding ethics courses;

• A longer and more rigorous articling period;

• A one or two-year full-time college program leading to a real estate registration or license;

• Better training on real estate forms and clauses; and

• A tougher exam, because the current one is quite simply too easy.

All of these changes would ensure anyone working with a new Realtor can be confident that he or she is practice-ready, and prepared for the challenges and complexities of a modern real estate market. And Realtors, both new and experienced, benefit when everyone shares the highest professional standards.

The only barrier is regulatory permission. RECO needs to act on rigorous training for new professionals, and it needs to do it now.