Renewal Roundup

The Industry – An Update

The latest annual renewal period is behind us, and overall, the industry outlook remains positive.

The Numbers

Year-over-year, the number of individuals licensed in Alberta remained stable. Real estate professionals increased by over 5%, with both mortgage professionals and appraisal decreasing slightly.

As of October 7, 2017, there were 12,112 real estate professionals; a year-over-year increase of 646 people. Mortgage brokerage professionals decreased by 13 people to 2,150. The real estate appraisal sector showed decline this year, decreasing by 55 individuals to 578. That’s a 9% decrease. The number of new appraisal professionals is down over the last three years, and is below the five-year trend.

This year the industry continued to see an increase in new professionals, and also saw fewer individuals leaving the industry. Between October 1, 2016 and September 30, 2017, 1,365 people joined the industry. Last year, 1,348 people joined.

Renewal Experience

During this year’s renewal period, RECA staff received thousands of calls and emails, and worked diligently to resolve any issues that arose, ensuring industry professionals were able to renew on time.

As in past years, this renewal period saw more than half of renewals taking place during the last week. On September 27, with only three days remaining in the renewal period, only 55% of professionals had renewed. RECA staff, the myRECA licensing system, and RECA’s education platform successfully accommodated the higher user volume in the last week.

This graph shows the renewal percentages throughout September, along with Real Estate Update 2017 completion percentages.

RECA departments completed internal reviews of this year’s renewal, and will talk to brokerages in the coming months to identify opportunities for further improvements in the annual renewal process.

Helpful Tip

Sixty per cent of renewal applicants who answered ‘yes’ to a suitability question, therefore halting their ability to process their own renewal, didn’t need to.

The renewal suitability questions are in regards to judgments, decisions, charges, or bankruptcies that have happened to applicants in the time SINCE their last renewal or licensing application, or last notification to RECA.

If an industry professional already notified RECA about the incident that resulted in the ‘yes’ answer, they don’t have to answer ‘yes’ again in their renewal application.

Helpful Tip

RECA had numerous calls about forgotten usernames and passwords during this year’s renewal process. It is a good idea to keep your username and password on file for future reference.

If you do forget your username or password, there are options on the myRECA login page to have your username sent to you or reset your password. Simply go to myreca.ca and you will find the forgot username and forgot password beside the login.

RECA would like to take this opportunity to thank industry professionals for their support and cooperation throughout this year’s renewal.