Giving credit where it is due, let us acknowledge that the California state legislature recently passed Assembly Bill 2429 (Negrete McLeod). If signed by the Governor, effective October 1, 2007, this bill would eliminate what is known as the conditional real estate sales license.

Most of those who obtain a new real estate license receive what is called a "conditional license." This allows a person to postpone taking two of the three required "college level" courses that must be completed in order to obtain a salesperson's license. Instead of completing all three courses prior to obtaining a license, it is possible to do so after only completing one. (One still needs to pass the license examination.) A conditional license is issued, and the licensee then has an eighteen-month period within which to complete two more of the courses.

Having a conditional license in no way restricts the real estate sales activities of the license holder. That is, he or she may engage in sales activity just the same as if a full salesperson's license had been obtained. There is no special supervision or apprenticeship required of a person who has a conditional sales license.

A little less than a year ago, a working group of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR) recommended that the association work to bring about legislation that would have the conditional license eliminated. The recommendation arose out of concerns about the proliferation of new -- by definition untrained and inexperienced -- real estate licensees.

As CAR put it in testimony supporting AB 2429, "Our members are concerned that the ranks of real estate salespersons are being overwhelmed by inadequately trained entry level salespeople."

The Senate's legislative analyst rendered the argument in support this way: "According to the author's office, the real estate marketplace is being put at risk by the very large number of minimally trained salespersons entering the field. DRE [Department of Real Estate] has licensed more than 100,000 new licensees in the last three years and 85 percent of them came in with a conditional license."

There was no registered opposition to the bill, and it passed overwhelmingly in both houses. This is somewhat surprising. Last year, when the directors of CAR adopted the proposal of the working group, I wrote this:

"Organizations such as CAR have tried before to strengthen the educational and training requirements for real estate practitioners. Such initiatives are typically met with resistance as being "industry protectionism" and an attempt to erect barriers to entry against others who are seeking economic opportunity. Often, the resistance to more stringent requirements is accompanied by an ironically condescending claim that it would be discriminatory to invoke higher standards.

In short, trying to make it harder to get a real estate license is likely to be treated as politically incorrect. So it probably won't happen."

Well, it looks like I was wrong -- at least at the legislative level. The bill still has to be signed by the Governor. Earlier in his administration, the Governor let it be known that he didn't want to see legislation that would make it more difficult for people to realize the American dream -- which, in that context, mean he didn't want barriers erected to the opportunity to earn a healthy income. Given that, one might expect the Governor to be opposed to AB 2429.

One the other hand, though, the Governor is very much in a get-along-with-the-legislature mode. Given the overwhelming affirmative votes for this bill, one might, then, expect him to sign it.

Published: September 20, 2006

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Bob Hunt is a former director of the National Association of Realtors and is author of the recently published book, "Real Estate the Ethical Way." A graduate of Princeton with a master's degree from UCLA in philosophy, Hunt has served as a U.S. Marine, Realtor association president in South Orange County, and director of the California Association of Realtors, and is an award-winning Realtor. Contact Bob at .