Every two years the Banff Western Connection conference is held at the historic Banff Springs hotel. This “kum ba yah” is hosted by the Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Coloumbia real estate associations. (These associations represent their members and are not to be confused with the regulatory bodies). While it's hosted by the western provinces it is anything but a western affair as it has grown into one of the best little real estate confernces anywhere. There were plenty of people from eastern provinces, as well as a smattering of Americans.
One of the things we love about this particular conference is that its not brand specific (which doesn’t mean brand loyalty doesn’t exist here). The presenters were exceptional with my favorite being Benjiman Tal. When describing Ben Bernancke's obsession with printing money he described it more humourously then I’ll do justice to here, but he basically said that Bernancke is thinking that if he blows hard enough, the pig “US economy" will fly.
With the conference not being brand specific it's an opportunity to talk to a lot of people you wouldn’t normally get to chat with. For example, we posted recently about needing someone for a showhome for our project in Sherwood Park, so who better to ask some construction questions than Vince Laberge who was at the conference and is the incoming President of the Canadian home builders association?
Among the more notable conversations I had was one with the always enlightening Bill Buterman with Axess Capital. Bill’s company is a MIC (mortgage investment corporation) that has somewhere between 250 – 300 million dollars of syndicated mortgages under management. Bill has an MBA from Harvard (I have nicknamed him “the money man”) and is one of the council members for the Real Estate Council of Alberta, the provincial Regulator for real estate and other related industries. Mortgage backed securities or syndicated mortgages are extremely complex and until recently were not regulated. Maybe in short order I’ll do a post on this or better yet have him do it.
Then there was Wayne Moen with Remax River City who is also the president elect for the Canadian Real Estate Association. Last year he hung up on me over a year ago during a heated discussion on title insurance. To Wayne’s absolute credit he called me over and we cleared things up very easily. Wayne is a huge fan of title insurance and gets it for all his properties as well. Actually once we got a couple of minor facts sorted out we realized we weren’t that far apart in our points of view. If you want more info on title insurance Stan Gallbraith of Galbraith law did a guest post about it.
Then there was Larry Aitken who I had butted heads with philosophically when he was president of the Alberta Real Association and I was at the regulator the Real Estate Council of Alberta. In fact some my dear friends from RECA were at the conference. The one thing I respect about Larry is that eventhough we would disagree on certain topics he would always listen to the other side. I wish some of my dear friends would do that sometimes.
I can’t leave out Ken McCoy who had served extensively on REIX (Real Estate Insurance Exchage) who provides our errors and ommissions insurance and also replaced yours truly at RECA. We chatted extensively in the corner of the AREA hospitality suite hosted by Lyle Magnusson the current AREA president who is from Vulcan AB (who also gave me a pair of Vulcan ears). By the way thanks for the compliment Ken.
And of course the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton president Chris Mooney, who is a much better singer than I would have guessed. And no I didn’t ask him about “external forces.”
It was great to see and talk to so many people, many of whom are leaders of the industry unlike us poor sods who were there “on our own dime.” One thing that Sara and I both agree on - no matter what ideas or conversations we have this conference it always stokes the gray matter fire. It engages you in a way that many conferences don’t because of its diversity. For the many REALTORS® that read this blog, we highly recommend checking it out in 2013!
People ask people in my current position how to explain en masse (i.e. more than one neighborhood) market anomalies. Fairly or unfairly, we are forced to look at spikes that defy neighborhood trends. These spikes are best explained by national initiatives that gain the most exposure. Which compels the greatest number of people to act. Anyway, this often makes the reasoning hard to apply to the microcosmic world in which most of us dwell. The cool thing is that we can all, as competent professionals, educate our clients on the specific nuances of their specific markets. Which compels me to thank all of my excellent colleagues, like Sheldon & Sara, for filtering the message & showing the real value behind the REALTOR® brand! Many thanks for all of the hard work that you do “behind the scenes.”