License Law Passes House and Senate from IAR

License law rewrite clears Illinois House and Senate; now headed to governor. IAR’s Real Estate License Law rewrite (SB 1894) was approved on Oct. 15 by the House and on Oct. 29 by the Senate. The bill now goes to the Gov. Quinn for his approval. In terms of timing, the legislature has a maximum of 30 days to transmit the bill to the Governor, and then the Governor has 60 days to act on the bill. However, IAR anticipates that the bill will be acted upon relatively quickly. If approved, the section of the bill containing the Real Estate License Act is effective December 31, 2009. The bill gives licensees until April 30, 2012 to go through the proficiency exam or coursework requirements. Read IAR's License Law talking points and Q&A to help clear up any misconceptions about the proposal.

Don't Mean to Harp, But...

Illinois requires that every prospective agent take and pass a prelicense course (currently 45 hours) and then pass a State exam, the uninformed would believe they were prepared to sell a home. Not true of course, the process is not unlike taking driver’s education and then the driver’s test. The new agent is no more prepared to service a real estate client than the new driver is to handle rush hour in Chicago. Illinois Senate Bill 0571 which proposes increasing the required hours and some other improvements in continuing education, etc. was apparently shelved again (session sine die) on January 13th, but change is coming. It remains true, however, that the real training needed to become a real estate professional will come from the broker with whom you associate: choose carefully. At Prudential Starck Realtors we have a mandatory 60 hours additional classroom training for all new agents.