The cry for ‘Raising the Bar’ is well meaning, but mostly misguided.
There are those with very good intent who want the industry to make it more difficult to become an agent or a broker, and/or want continuing education to be more rigorous. I understand their thinking. I’m almost 50. Been hearing the ‘raise the bar’ mantra since I was a teenager. How’s that been workin’ out for us? Don’t answer, it was rhetorical. But if we all take a few steps back so as to view the big picture, maybe we can begin to come together on a different approach. The big picture? It comes down to two realities merged into one prototypical person — and they represent, easily, around 70-85% of currently active licensees to one degree or another.
They work for a brokerage without producing much if any business. Also, regardless of the many classes they may have been coerced into attending, they don’t know much about the law, procedures, and general practice of real estate agency. Combine those two — lack of production and general industry ignorance — and you get the periodic outcry for ‘raising the bar’. Hey, I have a idea, why don’t we insist as broker/owners that our agents be producers or be gone? Producers generally know what they’re doing on all fronts.
What a concept! The vast majority of all listings/sales of 1-4 units is done by far less than 20% of the licensees out there. Said another way, if tomorrow all brokerages were suddenly operating the broker-centric model, the merit based culture would be the natural result. The huge majority of agents out there who take up space more than anything else would, like steam, heat the air then disappear. They’d never return either, because bottom-line production requirements would be the barrier they’d never be able to navigate.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Now I got to get back to “The Family”
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