Thanks to an innovative series of videos recently made available by the National Association of Realtors®, it will now be easier for real estate brokerages to conduct in-office training on the Realtor® Code of Ethics.

The local, state, and National Association of Realtors® are rightly proud of the Realtor® Code of Ethics, and survey after survey shows that the promotion and enforcement of the Code are one of the primary perceived member benefits of those organizations. Regrettably, though, agent familiarization and training on the Code of Ethics tends to be sparse. Mandatory training takes place at new-member orientation and in a short course that must be completed once every four years. Other than those, few courses on the subject are given. Moreover, while many Realtor® newsletters and magazines may contain columns on various aspects of the Code of Ethics, it is not apparent that the readership of those publications is very high.

Certainly, the most effective venue for providing agent exposure to teaching on the Code of Ethics would be at brokerage office meetings. Yet, while most real estate companies profess the importance of the Code of Ethics and ethical behavior, not many include those topics among their on-going training regimes.

It is somewhat understandable that not much ethics training goes on in real estate offices. It is not that the brokers, managers, and trainers aren’t ethical; it is more due to the fact that most of those people would feel uncomfortable and/or unqualified if called upon to teach these subjects. There is a reason for this. For years the national, state, and local Realtor® organizations have represented themselves both to their members and to the public as, so to speak, the guardians of professional morality for the real estate industry. They have, with great sincerity, taken on the tasks of defining, teaching, and enforcing the rules of professional ethics for real estate practitioners.

One unintended and unfortunate result of the associations’ “guardianship” of the Code of Ethics has been a tendency to treat the Code as something like a sacred text or a particularly obscure body of law. “Laymen” such as office managers and everyday agents defer its interpretation to the “experts.” Few would dare to try to teach it, and, as a result, the Code is liable to become isolated from the everyday routines of the brokerage office.

The availability of the NAR video series should help to change all that. The result of action by NAR directors in 2006, the video series consists of fifteen videostreamed training modules discussing ethical principles. To date, ten have been completed and are available to be downloaded from the NAR website in the Law and Policy section. Generally they run from 6½ to 8½ minutes in length.

The videos and supplementary materials are designed for use in an office meeting environment. Each follows a similar format. A speaker discusses a section or sections of the Code of Ethics -- some are devoted to a single Article from the Code, others cover as many as three. The discussion isn’t merely a recitation of the Article. It contains elaborations and explanations. Implications for consumers and Realtors® are discussed. The videos also contain an explanation of the history and the structure of the Code of Ethics. It is shown how particular articles are interpreted through the Standards of Practice and the Case Interpretations.

The videos are accompanied by a variety of supplementary written materials that may be downloaded as well. There is plenty of material there for any instructor who might want to venture beyond the content of the video itself.

Particularly useful are discussion questions that accompany each video. The questions go beyond the abstract. They invite discussion about the firm’s practices with respect to the duties imposed by the particular article. They invite a review both of office policies and of individual behaviors. They don’t beat around the bush.

NAR’s Code of Ethics Video Series has the potential for vastly expanding Realtor® awareness and understanding of the Code of Ethics. The potential is there. One hopes that individual firms will take advantage of it.

Published: February 25, 2008

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Bob Hunt is a 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 .