The AREA Interactive Contract resource, made possible through a grant from the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, is being deployed to assist new REALTORS® with their understanding of real estate forms.

The interactive contracts are actively increasing the professionalism of REALTORS® as they engage with their clients.

In Alberta, the vast majority of residential real estate transactions are facilitated by REALTORS®, using the AREA forms. These forms are copyrighted for the sole use of REALTORS® and contain all the required legal and regulatory terms, while being written in plain consumer-friendly language. There are 144 forms in total, but the ones that get the most use are: the Purchase Contract, the Exclusive Buyer Representation Agreement and the Exclusive Seller Representation Agreement.

These three are the forms that got the interactive contract treatment, in both common law and designated agency formats. Each form now alsolives in the AREA learning management system, where REALTORS® can interact with the forms by clicking on a particular clause and receive a video popup explanation, hosted by AREA’s practice advisor. These videos can be viewed on mobile devices or on desktops. They can be viewed consecutively or piecemeal, as needed.

This resource is available to all 15,000+ REALTORS® in Alberta but is mandatory viewing for new REALTORS®. Within their first six months of licensure, new REALTORS® will be required to log a certain minimum number of hours with the interactive contracts.

In the future, the work done to create this interactive contract resource can be applied to forms updates and additional forms.