I often chuckle at the comments and statements made across the internet calling for national licensing of originators and higher standards for real estate agents. The arguments always have these three themes:
1- Consumer Protection: Are you kidding me? I have yet seen a state licensing board that seriously polices its licensees. State licensing boards allegedly screen applicants for "moral character". All they do is prohibit people with a felony from entering the business. I wonder if denying a gal who dated the wrong guy 20 years ago from making a living is fair. After all, she did "pay her debt to society".
Licensing boards do so little to monitor the behavior of their licensees post facto. In fact, I've seen the broker cabal "outlaw" an agent who was successful in client advocacy but hopped shops. The three brokers for whom he'd worked conspired to drum him out of the business because he had "burned them" and went to work for an upstart brokerage in town.
Occupational licensing "for" consumer protection is about neither. It's about
