Why doesn’t the DRE require non-residential agents to have a non-residential license. It makes no sense that a real estate license allows one to sell commercial, investments, residential, mineral, oil, multihousing, and conduct lending practices. There’s too many people out there misrepresenting cliets. Who agrees that the DRE should mandate a separate license for non-residential real estate?
The real estate license law in each state is different, but they should specify that agents should not perform outside of their area of expertise. Everyone receives the same basic education, which is tough enough to track and regulate. If the agent is a member of their local board of REALTORS, they can be fined or kicked off the board if a comsumer complains that they were damaged as a result of the agent performing outside of their scope of expertise without help.
There are industry certifications for most investment specialities, so consumers have a place to go for commercial or other real estate specialists, etc. Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals have a general license and then you can be board certified in specialty areas. Same thing in real estate.
Ok, that’s common knowledge…Don’t you think there should be a different license for Commercial Vs. Residential?
Not all agents take part in real estate boards, and there’s no formal certification that’s mandatory, unlike law,medicine,etc… You can’t rely on the public to patrol misrepresentation.
I think the DRE is lazy and doesn’t want to put the effort into creating different licenses.
They just clumped them all together, which ultimately leads to client misrepresentation.
As a hypothetical residential broker, would you feel comfortable selling a 1000 unit apartment deal?
I don’t think most consumers understand that there are certifications in the industry for most specialities or that they should not use a generalist when in real estate. If they did, you wouldn’t have needed to post your question.
To answer your follow-up question, yes, I’d love to see mandatory educational requirement or certification by the states for specialities. The industry is too easy to get into and agents can really hurt our clients. In the meantime, I get certifications through related organizations, who police their members a little, but not very much.
Right now, consumers have to rely on CCIM, RLI, IREM, CIPS, etc.
Separate residential and commercial license for agents, similar to appraisers may not be a bad idea. However as long as there isn’t a huge epidemic of agents misrepresenting themselves as being qualified to sell commercial RE, it probably won’t happen in any state. Having a separate license or not having a separate license, it would take the same due dilligence on the clients part to research the qualifications of their agent.
If I owned a 1000 unit apartment complex, I wouldn’t just open the phone book and go down the list of agents. I’d make sure I pick the right person for the job, regardless of what the state licensing agency says. If property owners are being misrepresented by agents, it’s the lazy clients fault they didn’t research the person who they chose to be their agent. I’d make sure I wasn’t calling a divorce lawyer if I was facing murder charges. I wouldn’t go to a gynecologist if I broke my arm. Most of all, I wouldn’t call a residential RE agent to sell a 1000 unit apartment building. If you rely on the state government for anything, your doomed!
Well Said!!
One of the problems in this country is that everyone is waiting on the government to regulate and watch everything, especially when it comes to consumers. Then you have other groups get upset when the government tries to regulate and watch what we do.
I’m all for protecting the consumer, but the more watchdog we become, the less effective we seem to be. I’d rather educate the consumer on how to choose the right real estate professional because I know that the government isn’t going to be as good of a watchdog as we’d want.
I do, however, wish we had some sort of standard for specializations, like doctors and lawyers.
My fiancee and I have this argument constantly. She sells resi and I specialize in rather narrow sectors of the commercial industry. I agree there should be a separate license for commercial and residential agents.
A residential agent with 20 beachfront condo listings and a single 50,000 square foot industrial listing is probably doing a tremendous disservice to their commercial client. Apart from the fact that a lot of these agents are way over their heads to begin with and have little to no marketing network for such properties, I find it just as puzzling that someone smart and wealthy enough to own a 50,000 square foot facility would even think of listing it with a residential agent. It does happen, though, and quite a bit down here. A lot of these listings expire over and over again, too. Part of the issue at work here is consumers/property owners cannot make the distinction. Real estate is real estate, right? Whatever you say.
I’ll just say I believe this part of the business is specialized enough that I find myself over my head when it comes to multifamily land/property. I don’t specialize in it - it’s really a science all its own - and it’s pretty obvious to the people who do that I’m out of my league. Most commercial brokers specialize in certain types pf property.