“We had 66 real estate salespeople and 20 real estate brokers whose names matched names on the sex-offender list,” said Susan Hofer, a Department of Financial and Professional Regulation spokeswoman.
“We acted on all of them,” Hofer said. Several already had been disciplined by the state, some have since been through the process and the others are awaiting hearings, she said.
– From Mary Umberger’s article in the Sunday Tribune about the lack of mandatory background checks for real estate professionals in Illinois. The 86 people Hofer mentions were found during a cross-reference of a million Illinois licensees with the state’s sex-offender registry.
It’s good to see a state department do something useful. I interned under the IDFPR under Bago, and man… Made me bolt for the private sector.
I’d like to see the state raise the bar in education (which they have in some ways this past year) and background checks etc, and not just raise fees.
It’s been too easy to get a real estate license in terms of education in the past. I don’t want to create more barriers that would be unfair, but It took about a week for me to get my license from start to finish (not including time to schedule the state’s final exam).
I think if something is important enough to require a license, more stringent education in the model of a college associate degree should be used. There can be waivers for those with college educations etc…