Preparatory courses, cost of exam both more difficult and expensive than in 2010

At one time, recruiting new real-estate brokers in Quebec used to be as easy as waiting for a prospective agent to walk through the door.

But higher fees and a tough new entrance exam stemming from a change last year in the law governing Quebec’s real-estate industry are turning new real-estate brokers into increasingly rare commodities, some agencies say.

Fees have more t han doubled, discouraging parttime brokers from staying in the profession, agencies say, even as the success rate of the real estate licensing exam has plummeted from 78 per cent before the new law, to 42 per cent today.

As a result, agencies are working harder and offering more incentives to lure recruits in a province that’s gaining the reputation of being the toughest place to become a real-estate broker in the country.

“Before, franchise owners could just get interviews with prospective brokers,” said Dominic St-Pierre, director of Royal LePage Quebec. “This is not the case anymore. It (the new law) has discouraged people from becoming real estate brokers.”

Lorraine Brien, owner of a Century 21 in Brossard, said she now offers goodies such as increased home staging services to brokers who join her agency.

“We have to offer a lot more gifts now than before (to new recruits),” Brien said. “The negotiation period is much longer.”

This week, Royal LePage and Via Capitale parent company Brookfield Real Estate Services Inc. reported a net organic attrition of 106 brokers during the first few months of the year, primarily from its Quebec network, following the introduction of the Real Estate Brokerage Act in May 2010.

There are just more than 16,500 licensed regular and chartered real-estate brokers in the province, according to statistics from the Organisme d’Autoréglementation du Courtage Immobilier du Québec, or OACIQ, which applies the real estate law.

The OACIQ couldn’t say how many licences were issued during the first few months of 2011.

The number of licences has risen and dropped over the years, largely in a direct correlation with the amount of activity in the market, agencies say.

“Every time the market is a sellers’ market, people think it’s easy to become a real-estate broker,” St-Pierre said.

But the residential resale market, while not as strong as it was two years ago, is still considered to be a sellers’ market, St-Pierre said.

OACIQ president and CEO Robert Nadeau said the organization is not trying to reduce the number of brokers in Quebec, but rather to improve the preparation of brokers working as real-estate professionals.

“We cannot offer discount (real-estate) licences,” Nadeau said in an interview with The Gazette.

“Some people would come out of the school and they didn’t know how to do a promise to purchase. There was a big weakness (with the old system).”

The old exam offered before May 2010 was multiple choice and only three hours long, Nadeau explained. Candidates could fail certain sections but still pass the exam as long as they obtained a 70-per-cent grade overall.

The new exam takes six hours and is based on a problem-solving approach, as opposed to multiple choice, Nadeau said. Test-takers must now pass all sections of the exam.

The new exam is also more expensive to take – $500 compared to the old one at $188 – because the process of correcting it is more labour intensive, he said.

But even the cost of preparatory courses to take the exam, students say, has soared from less than $1,000 before the new law to thousands of dollars now, the amount depending on the college offering the necessary courses.

Part of the challenge for students is that the colleges are adapting to the new exam, including the preparation of new pedagogical materials.

“The colleges are also adjusting,” Nadeau said.

He doesn’t see the exam as a barrier to becoming a realestate broker in Quebec, he said.

“I think that a lot of people underestimated it (the new exam),” he said.

“The people who were serious and worked hard passed the exams.”

NEW YoRK – What do you wear to Carnegie Hall? I tried a sporty brown jacket and open collar on Saturday night because Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra were closing the Spring for Music Festival, a series aimed at cultivating a new, young public with oddball programming and $25 seats.

Imagine my surprise to discover a Carnegie crowd that looked pretty much like any other, apart from about 150 visiting Montrealers who were spinning purple MSO hankies in the air like towels at a Canadiens game.

This was, in many respects, the oddest of the 25 concerts given by the MSO in this hallowed temple. Certainly, it was the least economically viable. Even with most of the 2,804 seats sold, the gate could not have been much north of $65,000. (Heck, I got that on me.)

Never before has a DJ from the classical radio station WQXR warmed up the crowd. Never has a former premier of Quebec (introduced as Looshen Bouchard) provided a keynote address.

Then there was the strange program, starting with two sonorous Gabrieli brass Canzonas, Webern’s braincramping Symphony Op. 21 and Stravinsky’s asymmetrical Symphonies of Wind Instruments, all broken up by conciliatory solo Bach Sinfonias played with drawing-room elegance on a Fazioli piano by Angela Hewitt.

Yes, yes: very interesting. But the true novelty of the evening was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, perhaps the last score a New Yorker would expect to hear from the for merly French-flavoured MSO.

Well, bingo. As hot as the iconic masterpiece sounded in Place des Arts last week, this performance was hotter. The pace was fast, the voltage was high, and the execution was stunning.

Acoustics? Oh la la. Strings, even with vibrato limited to meet historical demands, sounded warm and urgent.

The mix with the sturdy brass was natural. Oboist Ted Baskin filled the room with sweet loneliness. Is this how our orchestra will sound every week, starting in September?

Nagano was an inspirational figure on the podium, his gestures ranging from heroic to minimal.

The symbiosis of conductor and orchestra was complete. As my guest for the evening succinctly observed: “They seem to be in the zone.” Musicians concurred. “A lot of concepts are starting to cement,” violinist Marc Béliveau said outside the stage door, where a party atmosphere prevailed. “It’s really a different style from what we did before.”

The public, domestic and imported, rewarded the Beethoven with a thunderous ovation.

We did not need the encores – Fauré’s Sicilienne and Berlioz’s Le Corsaire – even if the latter was played very, very well.

Forget Webern and the Evolution of the Symphony. The real point of the night was the Fifth. The MSO a Beethoven band? You

In the flea markets of SaintOuen in Paris, I too, was drawn to the vintage linen – specifically, to the dishtowels. They were white or coffee-coloured, with stripes or checks in red or blue or green; even though they were modest and workaday, many were monogrammed because they had been included in dowries. 

At the table, I am happiest with simple food: find me the freshest ingredients, ideally those that have not travelled too far to my plate – and leave the plate unadorned. 

Among the noted chefs, people such as Susur Lee and Marcus Samuelsson, and the food writers who contributed to a collection of essays on unforgettable dining experiences in Creating a Meal You’ll Love (Sellers Publishing, 2010, $18.95), several described uncomplicated dishes, unfussy food and family meals. “At home, I like to keep it simple,” wrote Louisville chef Michael Paley. 

“I have grown to love cooking more meals that are simple and straightforward, and that I can make without the use of fancy gadgets and by using only a handful of seasonal ingredients,” food and wine writer Tracey Ryder observed. 

Skye Gyngell, a Londonbased chef, recalled a lunch with her father one hot summer day years ago in a small trattoria just outside Florence: for dessert, they were servedpeaches–“ripe,downy and sweet – sitting on top of shaved ice … I was struck by the rightness of just one thing – one perfect ingredient, unfussed with – pure and perfect in its beauty.” 

It was Laura Ingalls Wilder, the American author who based her Little House series of books on her childhood in a pioneer family, who observed: “I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things in life which are the real ones after all.” 

Simple, real – and unadorned. 

sschwartz@ montrealgazette.com 

Kitchen, bathroom and renovations important in reaching fair evaluation, expert says

How much is your piece of paradise worth? When you need to find out the value of your home – for a family estate, for a bank to offer a mortgage, for a divorcing couple to figure out their assets, or for a property owner to contest taxes – you get the services of an appraiser. This is the person who will take a good look at the condition, renovations and surroundings of the property, and give it a dollar value.

                                                                                                                                                  John Kenneythe Gazette

andy Dodge is busy now doing appraisals for property tax purposes, but these professionals are also important for estates, mortgage applications and in many other areas.“I worry about the value of the house on the market,” says Andy Dodge of Andy Dodge and Associates, who has been doing appraisals since 1982, “and right now property tax appraisals are taking up all my time.”

The most important rooms to evaluate are kitchen and bathroom, Dodge says, and the age of improvements. “If you go into a kitchen and find an old sink with washboard and a plug-in stove, you know that the kitchen is not going to sell very well,” he says, “compared to a kitchen with a Sub-Zero fridge, the latest appliances and huge cabinets. Or if you look in a bathroom and the sink has rust stains, compared to bathrooms with whirlpools and steam showers and double sinks.”

The renovations affect the value, Dodge says, as do the age of windows, furnaces – the overall condition of the home.

And while it’s true that people can put in a new toilet without renovating, or you have to guess whether the fireplace works, there are usually telltale dates on furnaces and toilets, so a good appraiser knows the age.But sometimes, even old has value.

While new windows have advanced technology that makes them airtight, some of the old classic style – leaded windows, ornate woodwork and gingerbread – can increase the value of a home.

The construction of the house is also a factor. In central Montreal, where he does most of his appraisals, there is virtually no wood construction since the Montreal fire of 1852 that destroyed almost half the buildings in the city.

But some old houses have settled on what might have once been swampy ground, so one of his tools, Dodge says, is a marble. “You can put it on one side of the room and see if it rolls. This does affect the value; it’s not very comfortable to live in a house that slants.”

Location also matters. There are clearly some locations where the value is higher, Dodge says, and it’s not realistic to do major renovations in a house that will never sell for a high value.

Because value is what appraisals are about – an appraisal is by definition the most likely price that a willing buyer and willing seller would agree to in an open market. “That’s what our expertise is supposed to tell you.”

A huge factor in the appraisal of a property is the demand in the marketplace, says Dodge, who is certified by the Appraisal Institute of Canada.

Make sure you can afford your dwelling since interest rates set to rise, says Kinsley

In 1981, Karen Kinsley was fresh out of university and thought she was a pretty tough negotiator after sealing a mortgage on a two-bedroom condo in Ottawa’s east end.

“I negotiated a vendor takeback mortgage and then negotiated a one-percent discount on the rate. I thought I got a great deal at 21 per cent,” says the University of Ottawa Commerce grad, who has risen up through the ranks at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and recently signed on for a second term as president and CEO of the crown corporation that oversees financing, new design and research initiatives to promote housing across the country.

“I was in my 20s and thought the condo was a palace,” says Kinsley, who has been named one of Canada’s most powerful women for the past three years by the Financial Post Magazine and Ottawa’s top CEO by the Ottawa Business Journal in 2009.

CMHC was also named one of the National Capital Region’s top employers by MediaCorp, a Toronto-based publishing company which collects data on employee benefits.

She calls herself a perfectionist who has a habit of dribbling a bit when sipping water or coffee. Two traits that help explain her dedication to the industry and an impish nature that bubbles up during a wideranging interview.

“I probably paid $80,000. It was 1,200 square feet, open concept and absolutely perfect for a young person,” says Kinsley, who stayed in her St. Laurent Boulevard palace for about three years before leaving for Toronto and a senior financial job with Bill Teron and his international development company.

The job and Teron changed her life, planting the seeds that have grown into her passion for the housing and development industry and a career that has her at the head of a complex organization with 2,100 employees at 700 Montreal Rd.

Just as Teron was returning to the private sector after his own stint as president of CMHC in the late ’80s, Kinsley was offered a six-month contract with CMHC in Ottawa. “I said, ‘Great. Something short term and maybe a bit of a break from the pace of working for the private sector.’

“I was wrong on both counts. Twenty years later, I am here and I never did get a break. I have to tell you, I have never regretted a day. It has never been boring and there is always a challenge or two.

“It’s a passion for me,” says Kinsley, who says her enthusiasm for the real estate sector has broadened through her career at CMHC.

Yet her concern for fiscal control and prudent buying has never varied, even as mortgage rates rise and dip.

“It doesn’t matter if mortgage rates are 21 per cent or three per cent. The bottom line is you’ve got to make sure you can afford what are getting into,” Kinsley says.

Interest rates are going to rise, she says, and there is room