the Property Monger Real Estate Blog

Something stinks.

I knew it would be happening eventually, and I can’t say I’m opposed to the idea either, less agents would mean less competition.  But anyway, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in a bill essentially making it tougher to become a Real Estate Agent in California.

In the article they quote:

“There has been quite an influx of new agents into the marketplace over the past several years which has eroded the quality of service, the level of services and the professionalism in the industry,”

Ok, understandable… since it’s soooo easy to become a Real Estate Agent (which in all fairness it is, I got my license by taking a 9a.m.-9p.m. Saturday and Sunday class -24 class hours, and just had to pass the test),   any unqualified person off the street is becoming an agent, and it’s degrading the quality of service.  Good move Governator, way to protect the people’s interests.

Now let’s see who did say that quote anyway? Oh it was ”Alex Creel chief lobbyist for the California Association of REALTORS, which sponsored the legislation.”   Hmmmm… Something smells funky, and I showered today.

Ok so, REALTOR “sponsered the legislation” to make it more difficult for new agents to enter the field.  But don’t they make their money off the dues of agents?  And wouldn’t more agents mean more capital to support further legislation sponsoring?

My only two thoughts are:

1) Lets see “eroded the quality of service, the level of services and the professionalism in the industry”   Redfin didn’t seem to have a REALTOR emblem on their site.  Oh my, and look at that link, they also just happened to move into San Fran 3 months ago.

2) Personally, we are a younger company which took advantage of the ease to enter into Real Estate (which is probably something REALTOR lobbied for a few years back to increase their dues, but instead of looking it up I’m just going to assume I’m right), we are NOT REALTOR’s, and I think the fact that we are young and more in tune with the technology of the times, gives us a competative advantage that some dinosaur REALTORs are not to happy with.  I can only assume that we are not the only company like this.

Any other guesses?