[Warning: This post contains cartoons. Lovers of discursive prose will do best to look away. You have been warned.]
I read this statement on a blog:
The purpose of these (licensing) laws is to artificially limit entry into the real estate business, with the objective being to artificially raise the prices paid by consumers. (emphasis added)
My prose response:
To effectively limit entry requires a difficult test and stricter licensing requirements, or admission quotas (there are no quotas–you pass, you’re in). The consensus is the test is too easy (like Geico, even a caveman can do it) and the barrier to entry very low, causing an OVERSUPPLY of (starving) agents and no corresponding reduction in costs to consumers, based on any study I’ve seen. Unless you can cite such a study, I believe, sir, your argument is doggie doo-doo.
Housing costs are primarily related to supply and demand of product, relative cost of renting, wages, unemployment rates, mortgage interest rates, confidence in the US economy, as well as consumer choice of competing business models in the marketplace.
Since the Stone Age, the purpose of licensing is to establish a basic level of competency to reduce the incidents of complaints and provide consumer confidence in the profession, provide documentation for statistical study, as well as to raise revenue for the state.
(BTW, I notice you have some alphabet soup designations—pray tell why? To justify your worth and right to your compensation, I suspect. Do you think that is artificial?
Now, the cartoon version (I’m not good at stick figures or video –yet).
Cartoon created via ChatFu.com (h/t: HTSAA)
Technorati Tags: real estate, marketing, real estate agents, licensing
Thanks for not giving that publicity hound more publicity. Lar
Greg Swann isn’t merely against licensing, he’s against the entire notion of having a State.
Just Google “Greg Swann Anarchy” and sift through it.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
Your counter point to the writen prose is beautiful and nullify’s the writer of the written prose.
The test for the Real Estate license is not as difficult as say the State BAR test.
The BAR exam is a big barrier for entry which now gives the person who passed the bar the right to charge 300 dollars an hour.
Man walks into a lawyer’s office and asks: “What do you charge?”
The lawyer answers: “$300 for 3 questions”
The man, in shock, says: “$300 for 3 questions!! Isn’t that a bit steep?
The lawyer replies: “I don’t think so, what’s your third question?”
Athol,
I love all these anarchists who say government does not do a good enough job, so let’s get rid of it. That’s not a solution. That’s like saying these pants are too tight, I think I’ll go pantless.
It’s ironic that he quotes the Greeks all the time. If he really knew his historia, he’d know to blame them for the city-state–and while he’s at it, for Western civilization. Damn ancients!
I guess the benevolent dictator is more his style. They usually get to wear all those fancy medals and have buildings and airports named after themselves.
Yes agree with the point on Greeks and the City-State.
I’m also amused that according to Anarchists, with no State to botch things up, man is meant to unify into a kind of Rotarian Socialism.
Well Put. I deal with this kind of wackiness in Wisconsin as well. Apparantley we should be dealing like it’s the wild west again and truly “caveat emptor” is the underlying theme for some of these people.
Are you kidding me?! Getting a real estate license is almost 1/100th as hard as getting a license to cut hair! That’s right folks…2 weeks of classes and $400 for a real estate license in Virginia versus 2 years of full time/5 days a week (about 100 weeks total) and thousands of dollars for hair school and a cosmetology license to cut hair. Check out the November 2006 archives on my blog for the “Buy A House Or Get A Haircut” post related to this subject, one of the first posts I ever wrote.
And did you know that NAR sent out a proud notice several months ago saying that they were now requiring a high school diploma or equivalent in order to be a realtor? WOW! Now that’s helping the barrier to entry…
Whoever wrote that statement is a moron and your response is hilarious! And the cartoon is the icing on the cake!
Can’t even comment…still laughing at the “doggie doo doo”
Brilliant - simply brilliant
Easy Aye? Not sure about other states but PA’s agreement of sale is now 20 pages long. When signed by both parties it is a binding contract (albeit standard 72 hours remorse time granted).
How easy is it to give someone $250,000?…and do it without attorney revue? I am not an attorney but I’ve seen these type of deals happen all the time in PA. Perhaps there is some additional legal mechanics that I’m not aware so hold your letters of damnation. I maybe wrong but I was always under the assumption that if both parties signed and 3 days passed…it’s basically a done deal in PA.
Puts a bit a pressure on the person telling you “do it, it’s a great deal!” And in fact, it may be the greatest deal of your life. You may buy it for 250 and sell it for 400…but no…you had to wait, for you had a monkey giving you real estate advice and therefore you felt as though a monkey was giving you real estate advice.
Real estate advice for the most part is not about “legality”, it’s about timing. A good real estate agent advises clients regarding issues related to timing. When and where to buy or sell. Knowledge of the market. But I digress…
My kids and I saw Joey Chitwood drive a car on two wheels the other night at our local fairgrounds, on the way home I tried the same and crashed the car into the local Dunkin Donuts shop…the cop said “what the heck were you thinking son?” I said “monkey see monkey do!”
Just for the record…
You can really do some damage to people if you screw up the dying/bleaching chemicals etc on peoples heads.
I’m seen a couple nasty - permanent - scars from that by unlicensed people botching the job on friends.
All that crapping on hairdressers we do. Well… it’s not all 100% fair.
Getting your license and being a competent, knowledgeable and honest agent are two different things - please don’t mistake the two. The former is cake, but being good at the latter is a completely different story.
Unfortunately, what you learn during the 2 week process of getting your license and the state and national tests don’t equip anyone with much of anything to make them a good agent. I have yet to use 90 percent of what I learned in those real estate license courses and learned everything to make me a comeptent agent through tutoring, asking questions, role playing with other members on my team, a great training course given by the team I joined and trial and error.
Funny. You must have found a post somewhere written by a cynical blogger.
This blogger thinks real estate licensing is a “criminal conspiracy”by the government. The licensing laws are so lenient, it’s a crime who is allowed into the profession.
If I lived in Arizona, I’d be against the idea of having a State, too.
Must be the dry heat….or being indoors too long breathing freon gas pumped through the a/c.