The North Carolina Real Estate Commission, Today I Spoke To Them

     Today is December 14, 2016.  I drove from Tryon, North Carolina to Raleigh and addressed the North Carolina Real Estate Commission this morning.  If you have not read my article about my arduous process to get my North Carolina real estate instructor permit, you should read that.  http://rondclimer.blogspot.com/2016/09/my-process-to-get-my-north-carolina.html   It explains the unnecessarily difficult trial that I had to go through to get my North Carolina real estate instructor license.  It is my belief that I am not the only new instructor going through this needless gauntlet.

December 14, 2016 at the North Carolina Real Estate Commission Meeting

     Here is what I said,"Mr. Chairman, Members of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.  I am Ron Climer with First Real Estate School in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  When I received Mrs. Hamlin's email on November 15, telling me that the Commission was considering repealing rule 58 C 0605, the rule that requires newly licensed real estate instructor to submit a hour long video to the staff of the NCREC, I made my hotel reservation immediately.

     0605, video evaluation by a small committee or single person is an idea that probably seemed like a good idea at the time it was passed.  When this rule was passed back in 2000, I am sure it seemed like a good idea.  The government has passed many laws through the years that seemed like a good idea at the time.  Prohibition, slavery, these seemed like a good idea at the time.  History proved that they were not good ideas.  The government repealed these laws.  That is the situation with video evaluation of real estate instructors.  This rule needs to be repealed.

     Who benefits from video evaluation of real estate instructors?   The general public.  I don't think so. The instructor applicant.  That is a big fat NO.  This video evaluation  process does not make any instructor a better teacher.  Does the Commission benefit?  Again, no unless their purpose is to become a bottleneck as described in the Wall Street Journal article that I have enclosed with your printed material.   http://www.wsj.com/articles/breaking-down-bottleneckers-1479680470   I do not think that is what the Commission is trying to accomplish.

     The North Carolina Real Estate Commission needs to ask itself; is video evaluation of real estate instructors necessary?   The answer is no.  Free enterprise weeds out the bad instructors a lot better than evaluation by a small committee watching a video.

     Most importantly, the North Carolina Real Estate Commission needs to ask; Is this process accurate?

     I can only speak to my own experience.  I don't know the experience of other real estate instructors.  You Do.  You are the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.  This information is available to you.  Here is my experience.

     I started teaching pre license real estate classes in Orlando, Florida in 1978.  Between then and 2014, I built the largest real estate school in central Florida.  People sent their friends to me.  People sent their relatives to me.  People sent their new recruits to me.  My past students are now president and past president of the local association of Realtors, the Florida Association of Realtors.  They own their own real estate offices.  They are sales managers at time share resorts.  Three of my competitive real estate schools in central Florida are my students.  My past students have posted over 250 Google reviews on Climer School of Real Estate's website www.climerrealestateschool.com  stating that I am an excellent instructor.  They have sent me emails.  They have sent me gifts.  I have more positive Google reviews on First Real Estate School's website than any other real estate school in North Carolina.  www.firstrealestateschool.com  We just opened May 1, 2016.

     On May 23rd , I sent in my first video for evaluation.  It was rejected by the staff of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission on July 12th.  On July 14th, I sent in my second attempt.  It was rejected by the staff the North Carolina Real Estate Commission  on August 12th.  When it was rejected, I posted on Facebook that the staff of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission had told me that I was not worthy to hold an instructor's license in North Carolina.  One hundred of my past real estate students sent an email to Bruce Moyer at the Commission office and told him that I was an extra ordinary instructor.  Bruce sent me an email and told me that it  does not matter what my past students think.  It matters what the staff of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission thinks.

     On September 10, the staff rejected my third video.  On September 14, I sent in my fourth video.  On November 14, that fourth video was approved by the staff of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. I now have my permanent North Carolina real estate instructor license.

    In America, in North Carolina, we have the free enterprise system, the market.  Bad instructors are quickly weeded out by the market.  In today's world of Google reviews and Yelp reviews and Facebook etc., it is pretty easy to find out who is a bad instructor and who is a good instructor. Bad instructors can't get a job.  Bad instructors can't get students.  We don't need the staff of the licensing agency to weed out bad instructors.  The market will weed them out.  This is the system used in the other 49 states.  It works well.

     Let me spend my last minute talking about emotions, feelings.  This video evaluation process feels like HAZING.  Hazing, like sororities and fraternities and military academies do. Ostensibly, the purpose of hazing is to humble, to teach.  We all know the purpose of hazing is to humiliate.

     When I was writing my article,"My Process to Get My North Carolina Real Estate Instructor License", I turned to my wife and asked her, " Kathy what is the difference between humbling and humiliating?".  She quickly replied, " Some people need to be humbled.  No one needs to be humiliated.".

     Evaluation by a single person or small committee,  this is for beauty contests, not for worthiness to get a license to earn a living.  Is this video evaluation process necessary? Is it subjective?  Is it discriminatory?  Is it restraint of trade?  Is it hazing? Is it beneficial to the public?

     Repeal 58 C 0605.  End this video evaluation of instructors and don't replace it.

     Thank you for listening to me this morning."

     That was my five minutes with the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.  There were twenty other real estate school owners and instructors.  Most of them did not speak.  The commission will consider these rule changes until the next meeting on January 17, 2017.

     If you did not have time to travel to Raleigh to give a five minute talk, I can certainly understand that.  If you believe, as I do , that this video evaluation process is worse than unnecessary.  It is abuse.  Take ten minutes and write a letter to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.  There website is www.ncrec.gov   If you know a real estate instructor that has been through what I have been through, send this article to her.

     We have until January 17 to let the Commission know how we feel.  They can not read our collective mind.  Send a letter today. You don't have to be an instructor to write.  Anyone can let the commission know how you feel.  Send a letter to the Commission today.