I’m a member of a very active Facebook group that consists of real estate brokers and agents who would like to “raise the bar” in real estate. There are a lot of discussions in that group about licensing requirements, broker / agent actions and expectations, and other things that could be done within the real estate industrial complex to raise the bar in real estate. To change public perception of real estate agents. To ensure professionalism within our industry.
Sure, it’s stupidly simple to get a real estate license. If you live in Arizona, you can pay a “real estate school” for 90 hours of classes (some have 10 day licensing courses), take a couple of relatively simple exams, write more checks to Realtor associations, MLS’s, brokerages and the like and start a real estate career. Yep, 10 days and several hundred dollars from now you too can sell someone a home. In and of itself, the absurdly simple licensing requirements place “the bar” pretty damn low.
But raising the bar is going to take a whole heck of a lot more than making getting a license harder. It’s not easy, at all, to get a license to practice law or medicine. Or be a CPA. Of that, there is little debate.
