Meet a Member

Whether you have years of experience or are new to the industry, REIBC is your key to career advancement and connection with the real estate industry.  Professional members have achieved the RI designation, which provide employers and clients with instant confirmation of advanced levels of education and experience.

Stanley Cheung, RI
Stanley began his career in real estate in 2008, working as an assistant for a boutique property management company. Over the years, while obtaining his degree and pursuing his real estate licenses, diplomas, and certificates, he has gained vast experience in various disciplines of real estate. This includes Asset Management, Property Management, Commercial Leasing and Development while working with various types of Landlords, including developers, institutional funds, and private equity. Since 2020, Stanley has been working for Concert Real Estate Services Ltd. as the Manager of Investments. In his spare time, Stanley enjoys staying active by playing ice hockey, basketball and badminton.

Welcome Stanley.

Michael Lount, RI
Mr. Lount is well known for his work as an assessment appeal and review specialist spanning some 30 years with his consulting firm M.C. Lount & Associates Ltd. and his well-known BC Court of Appeal case on fairness and equity in property tax assessment matters. He started his career in property tax assessments with the BC Assessment Authority in northwestern BC, producing residential and commercial assessments, attending hearings, and then later in their Vancouver office. Subsequently, progressed into Fee Appraisal assignments with a leading downtown Vancouver appraisal firm where he completed valuation reports on large ICI properties, often for expropriation or litigation purposes. Along the way, Mr. Lount obtained a BA Sc in Civil Engineering from UBC. These advancements evolved into a stint at Ontario Hydro as a Land Agent responsible for the valuation, negotiations, facilitation, and acquisition of Rights of Way for significant projects throughout Ontario. Returning to his much beloved Vancouver, Mr. Lount led the way specializing in Property Tax Reviews and Appeals. He is a long-time holder of the AACI designation and has over 40 years of membership with the Appraisal Institute of Canada (AIC). He is pleased to join the REIBC with the RI designation.

Welcome Michael.

Member News

Guy Akester, RI
Having spent more than 25 years in global corporate real estate, asset management and development, including a sojourn in regional government and land use policy, Guy has recently joined Fortinet as their inaugural head of corporate real estate. Fortinet is a global cyber security firm with a presence in over 150 markets and a staff complement of 13,000. This exciting new role allows Guy to leverage his experience living and working in Toronto, London, Edinburgh, Shanghai and Hong Kong to create and deliver a global corporate workplace and real estate platform for Fortinet out of a base in his hometown of Vancouver. While headquartered in Silicon Valley, Fortinet was founded in Metro Vancouver and maintains its largest global research and development hub at its campus in Burnaby. For a visualization of real-time cyber-attacks, Guy encourages you to check out https://threatmap.fortiguard.com/

Jon Burbee, RI
Jon was recently appointed as the Director of Business Development, Canada for Gordian Group. Gordian (www.gordian.com) is the leader in facility and construction cost data, software and services for all phases of the building lifecycle. From planning to design, procurement, construction and operations, Gordian’s solutions help clients maximize efficiency, optimize cost savings and increase building quality.

His experience as a public sector executive and leader has primarily focused on real property management and construction as a construction engineering officer in Canada’s Armed Forces and as a public servant in the federal and provincial governments. Most recently, he worked in a strategic role supporting the provincial government’s response to the pandemic and natural disasters through digitally enabled multi-channel public-facing service delivery.

Jon has been an RI since 2019 and a member of the Board of Governors since 2020.

Umesh Chand, RI
Umesh was recently promoted to the role of Senior Appraiser within the Lower Mainland Specialized ICI stream at BC Assessment. Umesh and his team are involved in the valuation of Office and Retail properties including Strata and Multifamily Development Land in the Fraser Valley Region.

Umesh has been involved in the real estate industry in British Columbia since joining BC Assessment in 2011. Prior to joining BC Assessment, Umesh was involved in teaching and undertaking economic policy research and consultancy.

Umesh became an RI Member in 2015 and has since served in the former Fraser Pacific Chapter as a Committee Member and as a Chapter Chair. Since 2018 Umesh has served on REIBC’s Board of Governors. As a REIBC Governor, Umesh strives to promote excellence at all levels of the organization. Umesh holds a Master of Science Degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics as well as Master of Arts degree.

Keith MacLean-Talbot, RI
Keith, Director of Property Tax for Grover Elliott, has recently accepted a part-time position as a Teacher at BCIT starting in January. He will be teaching ‘The Fundamentals of Valuation’ to marketing management students who chose the Professional Real Estate option. This course aims to provide a foundational understanding of residential and commercial real estate. A Past-President of REIBC, a Professional RI, designated AACI Professional Appraiser and member of the Canadian Property Tax Association, Keith was looking for a way to give back and help grow our future real estate leaders. Having presented to a number of previous BCIT Real Estate cohorts, he has seen firsthand the quality of the graduates. With over a decade of experience in real estate appraisal, both in the public and private sector, he is looking forward to helping ensure graduating BCIT Real Estate students are industry ready.

In Memory

Brent Ian Morgan
November 8th, 1954 - October 9th, 2022

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Brent Morgan. Brent is survived by wife Joanne; son Scott; daughter Kelly and brother Paul. He is predeceased by father Bert; mother Joyce and brothers Vernon and Dale. Brent will be greatly missed by his family, extended family and many friends. Brent's Celebration of Life was held on Monday, October 24th at the Senior Centre in Prince George, BC.

 

Recipient of the 2022 RI Medal of Excellence for an Emerging Leader

Ashley Bellwood

"I have taken a path less traveled to get to this point in my career, so it is such an honour to be recognized by my colleagues and the institute with the inaugural RI Medal of Excellence for an Emerging Leader. Receiving this award is a testament to the time invested in my growth and development in building my industry knowledge. However, I could not be where I am today without the people I have had the opportunity to learn from and work with, many of which I am lucky enough to consider my friends to this day. 

I am a project leader with a diverse background. I have worked in municipal and provincial government, as well as the private sector, and have experience managing various aspects of projects. I pride myself for my ability to analyze situations from multiple perspectives, question things that don’t make sense, and develop unique solutions to complex problems. I have fostered strong relationships across the industry because I approach my work with kindness and a goal of understanding, and I am committed to initiating the difficult conversations that need to take place to create meaningful change for our communities.

A leader is not someone who knows everything, but rather someone who recognizes that they do not. Someone that listens and learns from the people around them, consolidating their collective expertise and knowledge, and then effectively communicates it to the group to unite them all towards a common goal. I highly value being a member of REIBC, because as an institute it fosters these types of connection. We can make the greatest impact to the issues facing us today through connecting more, hearing the perspectives of others and leveraging our unique expertise to come up with lasting solutions." 

REIBC Grapevine

President’s Luncheon

Our annual Presidents' Luncheon is taking place on Thursday, December 8th, 2022 at Fairmont Pacific Rim. This is an opportunity to meet and reconnect with some of the industry's most prominent leaders and professionals. The luncheon will feature speaker Chief Clarence Louie, CM, OBC, Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band. Chief Clarence Louie will be speaking to us about business, as he believes “aboriginal people and government must make Economic Development - self-sustaining job creation and business growth an everyday priority".

When: Thursday, December 8, 2022
Registration opens – 11:15 a.m.
Luncheon – 12:00 Noon

Where: Fairmont Pacific Rim
1038 Canada Pl
Vancouver, BC V6C 0B9

Register Now

2023 REIBC Awards Nominations

REIBC is pleased to announce that nominations for the 2023 REIBC Awards are now open. This is your opportunity to showcase an RI who has made significant contributions to the industry and who is committed to continually elevating the profession of real estate.

Nominations are due February 28th, 2023. Don’t miss the opportunity to recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions made by RI’s.

The awards being presented are the RI Medal of Excellence for Leadership, the RI Medal of Excellence for Ingenuity, the RI Medal of Excellence for an Emerging Leader and the RI Medal of Distinction.

Please note: Only REIBC Professional members are eligible. Both REIBC members and non-members may submit nominations. REIBC Professional members may nominate themselves.

Learn more about eligibility criteria and how to nominate someone.

2024 BC Land Summit Survey

We have reopened the 2024 BC Land Summit survey as we would like to hear from you.  The 2024 BC Land Summit will be held from May 7-10, 2024 in Nanaimo, BC. Organizers are working on developing the exceptional program and some intriguing ideas have been put forward. This is your chance to help shape the program and maybe listen to a keynote that you helped to choose.  We need your input!  Please let us know who you would like to see and hear by responding to this survey by December 16, 2022. There are four easy questions that will take you just a few minutes to answer.  Be a part of the BC Land Summit from the start and then join us in Nanaimo in 2024!

COMPLETE SURVEY

Occupations & Designations Survey

Complete this survey and enter the draw to win one of three $100 VISA gift cards!

REIBC has created a Task Force to update the occupations and designations that are used within the real estate industry. The occupation titles that we have on our website have not been updated for a number of years and we are doing so now. Along with that we are also looking at what designations are in the industry and how they relate to the RI designation.

We have a survey of 8 questions that we ask you to complete so that we can get a full understanding of what is transpiring in the industry.

Each person that completes the survey will be entered into a draw to win one of three $100 VISA gift cards.  

COMPLETE SURVEY

Webinars

Civil Litigation in BC – November 17

The webinar on November 17th – Civil Litigation in BC was well received.  There were a number of questions and great information that was shared with the membership.  The big takeaway is that you must know that everything you communicate with someone digitally can be found later and that you should keep records of all your conversations, emails, texts etc., for up to 10 years.  Make sure your communications are always professional as 2 or 5 or 10 years later you probably won’t exactly remember what the gist was although if it is professional, you won’t need to.

Digitally is a good way to keep records, although understand the rules of your profession so that you do not do something against the rules.  An example of that is that lawyers cannot save anything on the cloud that is outside of Canada. 

Nils was very knowledgeable and answered a number of questions from the participants.

Thank you to all who participated and to Nils Preshaw for his presentation.

Virtual Meeting: Three Brokers and An Assessor – November 24

Our experts:  Office – Perry Gorgounis, Retail – Raman Bayanzadeh, Industrial – Eugen Klein, RI gave great overviews of where the markets are now.  The downtown office vacancy rate is 7.1% overall although the Triple A space is 4.6%.  Interesting how people look at office space downtown.  Also an interesting stat was that 42% of the office stock is owned by 7 landlords and there is about 900,000 sq ft available for sublet.  The retail overview notes that the vacancy rates dropped compared to the year before so that is good news for the retail sector.  Local business conditions seem to be doing well with consumer sales being up.  Retail sales are up with an average of $1200/sq. ft.  Owner occupier continue to drive retail strata sales up.  The industrial market has a .5% vacancy in the GVRD and .8% available for sublease.  Burnaby is the priciest at $22.00/sq ft.  Transactions are down and prices are up.

The BC Assessment presenter – Joanna Dlin, RI – discussed general market value changes between July 1, 2021 and July 1, 2022, as BC Assessment is mandated to assess property values as of July 1st of each year. This was a slightly different view than that of the brokers, whose presentations included a discussion on the current market, which has softened since July for most property types.

A Q&A was held with some great questions and then the panel talked a little more about things that were happening in their sectors.

Thank you to President Cindy Nesselbeck who emceed this great event, thank you to the speakers and to all that attended.

REIBC Events

2022 Presidents’ Luncheon
Thursday, December 8, 2022 – Doors open 11:15 a.m.
Register Now

“When Doves Cry” – An Economic and Commercial Real Estate Update
Thursday, February 2, 2023 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Register Now

Career Postings

Managing Broker - Coldwell Banker Kamloops Realty

Property Management Agent - TransLink

Property Officer II - City of Kelowna

Senior Course Specialist - UBC Sauder Real Estate Division

Property Representative 1 - Acquisitions & Sales - BC Hydro

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