Real estate licenses too easy to get: local realtor
Posted May 11, 2016 2:19 pm.
Last Updated May 11, 2016 2:20 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – There will always be problems in the local real estate market so long as standards for getting a license remain low, argues one local realtor who blogs about his job.
A home is a massive asset. Perhaps the most expensive thing you will ever buy.
Realtor Keith Roy argues the existing short course, which can be completed within weeks, sets up all sorts of problems.
“You need to make it more of a profession, that isn’t something that anyone and everyone can get into with a couple of weeks of a course,” says Roy. “That’s how you protect consumers.”
Beyond upping the standards, Roy wants harsher penalties for those who violate the rules.
“You need to increase the amount of education required to become a realtor,” says Roy. “I would suggest it’s also worth increasing language proficiency requirements of the members so they can better understand and comprehend the contracts that they’re dealing with.”
This comes a day after the province unveiled new disclosure rules to prevent so-called “shadow flipping,” or secretive assignment contracts which allowed some realtors to sell homes for higher than an already agreed selling price, to no benefit to the homeowner.
