Consumer Group Criticizes Real Estate Commissioners

July 25, 2006 |

The Consumer Federation of America recently released a report entitled, "State Real Estate Regulation Dominated by Industry."  You may or may not remember that this is the same consumer advocacy group that charged the real estate industry with creating a comissions cartel. 

This time, rather than going after real estate brokers specifically, the group is citing what they perceive to be conflicts of intrest among the pople who sit on the various state real estate regulatory commissions around the country.  The report contends that for praticing real estate agents and brokers to sit on these commissions is a gross conflict of interest that hurts the consumer.  The report is worth reading.

My main point of contention with the report is that if practing lawyers can sit on bar associations, and practicing doctors can sit on medical boards, then why can’t real estate praticioners do the same?  In fact, the Virginia Real Estate Board is composed not only of real estate licencees, but members of general public as well (7 licensed members and 2 non-licensed members).  The minutes of all their meetings are public, the results of all their rulings are public as well.  In fact, it is all very accessible to the public.  Perhaps their are problems in other states of which I am not aware, but the system in Virginia appears to be equitable to members of the public and real estate professionals alike. 

Technorati Tags: ; ;

Posted by Daniel | Filed Under Industry Issues, News 

Comments

Got something to say?





Creative Commons License