2018 ADRE Interview: What’s Making the Phone Ring?

During a recent interview, Arizona Department of Real Estate Commissioner Judy Lowe spoke with Arizona REALTORS® 2018 President Lori Doerfler. Video highlights are available on YouTube, but below is an excerpt.

WHAT’S MAKING THE PHONE RING?

Lori Doerfler: What’s making the phone ring at the Department of Real Estate?

Judy Lowe: The phone rings constantly. Many times it’s licensees who have questions — what’s their password, how do I get into adre.gov? However, we do take constituent calls from our Arizona consumers.

They are asking questions about the real estate transaction. They’re also questioning maybe some of the activities, one of the primary things that we’ve had the phone ringing about recently was cold calling.

We call it cold calling in real estate, but it’s really prospecting calls being made to individual consumers who are on the Do Not Call list and our real estate licensees are forgetting to check.

It makes a seller pretty angry when they get a call at 2:00 a.m. wanting to relist their property because it expired at midnight. Those are the types of things that we really have to think about, walking in the shoes of the consumer.

Right now, we’re hearing about all of the investors who are stepping into real estate. Those investors, many times, are forgetting about the consumer on the other side of the transaction.

Our real estate licensees, who are actually acting as either a buyer of a property or a seller of a property, are sometimes forgetting about the disclosures that have to be made as a real estate licensee.

Lori Doerfler: In fact, that was one of the questions we wanted to talk about because as licensees, we have that opportunity to be investors, but isn’t there something in terms of being an investor and representing your own self? How does that fit in in terms of representing the buyer as well?

Judy Lowe: An agent who is acting as the buyer or seller really should not be representing the consumer on the other side of the transaction. That consumer really needs representation of their own, independent of the real estate licensee who is acting as the buyer or the seller.

Otherwise, it’s dual agency and how can that real estate licensee who owns the property…represent the buyer on the other side when they’re representing themselves to get the best opportunity for their own portfolio?

Every property that you own, if you’re going to market it, it must say agent-owner. In the ad, on the sign, whether it’s outside of the brokerage — of course with your designated broker’s blessing, but no matter how you’re marketing that property or talking about that property in writing or verbally, you must disclose it.

During a recent interview, Arizona Department of Real Estate Commissioner Judy Lowe spoke with Arizona REALTORS® 2018 President Lori Doerfler. Highlights will soon be available on video, but here is an excerpt.

Lori Doerfler: What are the positive things that you’re hearing in terms of the calls that you’re receiving?

Judy Lowe: When I took over the Department of Real Estate nine years ago, I had come from the industry. I remember looking around the office when the bulletin came out from ADRE, and everybody immediately went to all of the violations at the back…anxious to read about the violations of their co-licensees.

We thought about it and decided there needs to be something positive there too. We created the Broker Audit Honor Roll. That has grown from a half a page to — I just counted in our last bulletin, there were six pages of those on the Broker Honor Roll.

What a success to see how dramatically it’s all changed. The number of pages for violations has actually diminished. We’re seeing fewer violations and more audits coming forward on the Broker Honor Roll.

Lori Doerfler: Wow, that’s really good to hear! Thank you.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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