RECA has chosen to enact a rule change effective October 2019 that will prohibit real estate agents and teams, mortgage brokers and mortgage teams from using words like Agency, Associates, Brokerage, Brokers, Company, Corporation, Corp., Inc., Ltd., LLC, LLP, Properties, and Property in our branding names. Recent exclusions from this list include Real Estate, Realty, Mortgage, and Mortgages when directly followed by the words Team or Group. RECA has also chosen to mandate that brokerage names (or logos) must be similar in size or larger than other identifiers, and immediately adjacent to other identifiers in advertising. Finally, we will be mandated to incorporate a "licensed individual’s name" on ALL advertising (even if the licensed individual’s name is part of the branding name, it will need to be listed on all advertising separately).

What this means, is that a great number of industry professionals will be required to completely re-brand themselves (a large expense of money and time), and for those whose personal brands comply with this naming standard, there will still be rebranding/redesigning, and reprinting/reproduction of marketing and advertising materials to meet the additional requirements around brokerage and licensed individual names. This also means that we will do as much advertising of our brokerages as ourselves. While we appreciate our brokerages and their role, we would like RECA to acknowledge that we are generally structured as independent contractors and are running our own businesses with their own lead generation functions. We are not advertising to push potential clients to other agents at our brokerages, we are advertising to build our own businesses. 

Our recommendations, based on industry member consultation, are as follows:

RESTRICTED WORDS

We applaud the decision to allow the words Mortgage, Mortgages, Real Estate, and Realty. However, we have concerns that mandating that the words Group or Team will create more confusion for the public as many individual agents use them in their branding. We expect that a number of them will just add on one of these words, despite not really being a team or group, which would be misleading to the public about the size and success of their respective businesses. We recommend that the words Mortgage, Mortgages, Real Estate, and Realty independent of the words Team or Group. 
We also recommend consideration of the word Associates as allowable as this is the licensing class for all Realtors that are not licensed as a Broker.

BROKERAGE NAME

We recommend that Brokerage Name requirements be modified to the following:
1. Clearly indicated on all marketing material.
2. Same page as the Branding Logo/Name of the Company
3. Minimum 50% of the size of Branding Logo/Name
All Real Estate Associates are independent contractors within their brokerages. We are actively building our own businesses. While that is under the umbrella of a brokerage and often a larger brand, we are still independent. Given that our industry is not structured in a way where we can grow within a brokerage on a partner track, like lawyers for example, we recognize the need to clearly indicate Brokerage, but we also request that RECA recognize the entrepreneurial nature of our business.

NAME OF ONE LICENSED PROFESSIONAL ON ALL ADVERTISING

First, we would like to point out that all Buyer Representation Contracts, Seller Representation Contracts, and Mortgage Consent forms clearly state the Brokerage name and the Brokerage role in transactions. 
Having names on all marketing material, along with brokerage and individual brand (particularly given that a name in the brand is not considered adequate in terms of listing a licensed professional on all advertising) is logistically very difficult and from a graphic design perspective it is very cluttered. 

What we would recommend is that RECA mandate that agent names are easily discoverable:

1.    Online, we would like to see the requirement of an easily discoverable contact page with names of agents.

2.    On digital platforms (ie. Social media), we recommend an easily discoverable bio or place on the main page that has a brokerage name or link, and at least one licensed individual’s name.

3.    On promotional items or client gifts (when branded), we recommend that there is a mandatory accompaniment of a business card to supplement items branded with the Brokerage and Branding Logo/Company Name

OTHER CONCERNS

If the rules, as they are currently being rolled out, are implemented, we are concerned that there will be a significant trend towards small independent brokerages. If these new brokerages are not adequately staffed, monitored, and offering experience in a broker role, there is the potential for a significant negative impact to consumer protection. This will impact RECA in the required time/staff to police these brokerages and the complaints that may follow, and it will impact costs to clients and in a mortgage sense the rate availability to clients. None of these things are in the consumers best interest.

We, the industry members, ask RECA to further reconsider their position, to work with us and consult with us to figure out how to collectively better serve the public. Over-corrections such as what has been proposed will, in our view, do more to harm the industry and level of service to the public than help it.