This is a good read. Most real estate agents are bad.
http://allrealtorssuck.blogspot.com
http://www.realtorsucks.com/2009/06/may-20-2009-search-engines-and-mls-data.html
Real Estate (sales) used to be old housewives' industry. With the real estate bubble during the early to mid 2000's you get tons of people who just want to get rich quick. Real Estate sales attract the wrong crowd.
Anyone under 50 years old should really not be in real estate sales. The qualifications to be a realtor was a mere 45 hour course until 2008. http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lcns/realestate/july108req.html
After July 2008, 45 hours increased to a whooping 75 hours. That means a new realtor went to an amazing 1 week (9 hours per day) education! I think my cat knows more about real estate by staring out the window.
Extra 75 was long overdue. This qualifies a person to be a salesperson. Note the course to get a salespersons' license does not cover anything about selling your house. It merely covers what laws not to violate. And the names of parts of a house. Yes, this is where a lot of agents first learn that your house has a soffit. And the part that most realtors get wrong are the math questions. Guess what kind of math? Area of a rectangle!. Yes that's right. Area of rectangles and calculating percentages actually gave exam candidates the most amount of trouble.
The requirement to be a broker is only a few more years of experience and selling a few houses or rentals.
For someone in the position to negotiate one of the larger chunks of your moneys, it is pretty absurd in how little qualifications a person need. That's why real estate sales attract all the bad people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/realestate/28cover.html?ref=realestate
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Barrier to entry into real
Barrier to entry into real estate sales is essentially non-existent.
Here is all you need to get a real estate salespersons license.
How do I become a real estate salesperson or broker?
Real Estate Salesperson:
In order to qualify for licensure as a real estate salesperson, an applicant must have satisfactorily completed a 75-hour salesperson qualifying education course in real estate approved by the Secretary of State, and have passed a qualifying examination administered by the Department of State. An applicant who completed the 45-hour salesperson qualifying course prior to July 1, 2008 may complete the 30-hour remedial course in order to qualify for licensure.
Real Estate Broker:
In order to qualify for licensure as a real estate broker, an applicant must have at least two years of experience as a licensed real estate salesperson or at least three years of experience in the general real estate field (e.g., buying and selling your own property, managing property owned by your employer), have satisfactorily completed both the qualifying salesperson course of 75 hours and an additional 45-hour real estate broker course as approved by the Secretary of State, and have passed a qualifying examination administered by the Department of State.
The entire course consists of
The entire course consists of basically one webpage's worth of information.
See here http://www.dos.ny.gov/licensing/re_salesperson/re_sales_curric.html