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26 May 2011

Allison lAmpert alampert@ montrealgazette.com www.twitter.com/RealDealMtl

THE GAZETTE

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

“I have gradually been divesting myself of things I don’t absolutely love.” 

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