As this blog is designed for consumers, not real estate agents, I try to stay away from the navel gazing! After all, it's always too easy to focus on internal industry matters that don't matter at all to you!

However, there's something I came across today that definitely has a bearing on you as a consumer as well as on the industry and on me! This letter was released recently by the Minnesota Association of REALTORS to their agents members.

http://mnrealtor.hhpubs.com/1p_10112006/index.html

This letter makes the case that there are simply too many real estate agents. The volume of business can clearly not support that many agents. It's bad for the industry but it's also bad for the consumer.  And, since this is focused on you, the consumer, I'm going to focus there.

The average real estate agent clearly does this as a hobby.  If they do, say, an average of 3 deals per year, clearly they're not making a living at this. The problem is that a real estate transaction is an increasingly complex deal. Someone who does three deals a year is not well prepared for the bumps in the road, the inevitable obstacles that occur. Now, should you use a hobbyist as your agent and you have a deal that goes smooth as silk, you'll probably never know. But that's a pretty large risk to take with a financial transaction of this size! Three transactions in a year is less than a lot of professional agents do in a month!

It gets scarier! The amount of training required to get into real estate is woefully inadequate. Most agents have their license and do not know how to write a real estate contract! And, while they work under a supervising broker who should have the knowledge and experience to help, there's often too little supervision. And, the system usually puts the burden of asking for help on the agent. Let's face it; some people are great about asking for help as soon as they need it and some will wait until they're drowning! If it's your transaction they're drowning in, that's a problem!

And, it's a problem for me on many levels. If you have a bad experience with one of these agents, it will color what you think of my profession. And, when I work on a transaction with an inexperienced agent representing the other side, it can make my job a lot harder!

We as an industry should definitely continue to encourage people who are not serious about this to move on. We should also be working to require higher levels of education prior to entry into this profession.  But this affects your wallet too!  And the consumers should absolutely be screaming for higher standards!

I'd love to hear what you think of this Minnesota article and if you've had any experiences that reinforce what it's saying!