Real Estate Professionals?
The swell in the ranks of licensed real estate agents reached its all time high in 2006 of around two million licensed agents nation wide.
With the slowing market and the heated competition over the remaining customer base, many real estate agents are moving on to careers outside of the business.
Even with the remaining agents, many with only two years or less experience, there is still considerable concern over the level of knowledge and skill these people bring to the transaction. Unfortunately, in far too many cases these agents are working in companies that use the old system of "if they have a car, a drivers license and a real estate license", the are hired.
In a so far unsuccessful attempt to compensate for this training weakness, many state real estate regulatory bodies have added layers of continuing education requirements on licensees. State like NY require twenty two and a half hours of continuing education every two years. Other states, like Florida for example, require licensees to complete a forty-five hour post license course after initial licensing plus fourteen hours of continuing education every two years thereafter.
Kentucky is in the process of gaining legislative approval for adding additional training requirements in the form of a post-license course on top of the current six hours of continuing education every year.
Other groups, such as the Central Wisconsin Board Of REALTORS, have taken a much more proactive interest in improving practitioners in their market place by setting up their own localized training program for its members. Long time member there, REALTOR Mary Vils, of Direct Line Home Marketing , applauds their efforts and says that "she is happy to be a member of such a progressive organization".
The fundamental flaw in the current system is that every state has its own set of rules and licensing requirements. While the solution is not a national real estate license, standardizing factors may be.
Derek Eisenberg, broker with Continental Real Estate in Connecticut, a strong opponent of a national real estate license prefers the current system but more reciprocity between the states.
The unsuspecting public though, fooled into believing that because a person has a real estate license, they actually know what they are doing, often become the victims. Although every state regulatory body mandates that the principal broker is responsible for the supervision and training of licensees under their charge, most have no formal training program to offer.
In 2006, the Kentucky Real Estate Commission (KREC), which ran radio spots state-wide under a co-op agreement with the Kentucky Association of REALTORS, claimed that all Kentucky licensees were "trained negotiators". When in fact, there is no licensee training cover that topic.
The National Association Of REALTORS (NAR) is in a unique position to be a solution in this issue. Rather than focusing the membership money on ventures like forming credit unions and running nationwide ad campaigns that attempt to put a "smiley face" on the county's economic situation, they should reinvest in members.
One way to do that is to become a sponsor of more localized training by returning some of the millions in reserve there in the form of GRI and CRS scholarships to members instead of investing millions in lobbyist, ad campaigns and risky ventures like credit unions.
State regulatory bodies could become more aggressive at enforcing current laws that require principal brokers to take full and personal responsibility for the training of their agents too. In view of the fact that most real estate commissions are made up of brokers (usually from large firms) , this idea may be "dead on arrival" though.
Localized training on such things as agency law (which is too complex for even the average lawyer to understand), negotiation skills, contract writing and other topics are best presented at the company level….everyone in the business know this.
The NAR's campaign to "paint" real agents as "professionals", while ignoring the obvious fact that many are untrained, unskilled and even working on a part-time basis is a major contributing factor in the publics mistrust of real estate agents.
First published in the Shortt Real Estate Report, http://blog.ClassesFormingNow.com
Great post! Most Brokers and "Team Leaders" think of it as a numbers game, they're more worried about the number of transactions, commission dollars and production than quality of service. In this business, agent turnover is so high, many Brokers don't take the time to extensively train. "Show them the basics and push them out of the nest" is what it seems like.
What's the answer? It's hard to say, I believe an increase in mandatory education is the only thing that will work. Even with the ridiculously low 6 hours required by Kentucky, there are so many agents that scramble at the end of the year to meet the education requirements. If agents want success badly enough they need to invest in education because that's the only thing that will work long term.
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I must agree wholeheartedly with Terry on this. However, as an instructor for Flagler County Florida, and member of the Florida Association of Realtors - I find sales associates will do the minimum in whatever education credits are required, and unfortunately their brokers cannot do much more than suggest they attend classes during down times or even up times due to the "independent contractor" status. Until sales associates see and appreciate the lessons in networking, attending conventions, learning, and understanding that although we are independent, we must work together to ensure that we represent the best for the business and those we work for - I believe that most don't learn these important lessons until the professional regulators or professional standards people slap them and their licenses are at risk. The education is out there . . . there's just not a lot of horses drinking . . .
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