BRAC Recap: Valuing Broker Education and Experience, Team Names Cleanup

After reviewing public comments and feedback from Commissioners, the Broker Responsibility Advisory Committee (BRAC) met on April 8 to continue its discussion over the minimum experience points and education hours required to earn a broker's license. Meeting highlights also include the group reminding brokers of the timeframe for removing TREC-registered team names.

Broker License Requirements

To obtain a broker's license, applicants must complete 900 hours of education (270 hours of qualifying real estate courses plus 630 hours of real estate-related education). Currently, credit for the 630 hours of real estate-related education is given for a bachelor's degree. Applicants must also have at least four years of active experience during the five years preceding the application, totaling 360 experience points.

The Recommended Changes

BRAC recommends making no change to the existing 900 education hours required to become a licensed broker, but it did recommend the following regarding education requirements:

• Allow up to 300 hours of the 630 hours of real estate education to be substituted for experience points earned above the minimum points required for a license.
• Limit the bachelor's degree credit to no more than 300 hours, instead of the full 630 hours of real estate-related education.
• Change the property management experience calculation to per property per year (instead of just per property).
• Modify brokerage management/delegated supervisor calculation to a points-per-transaction model.

For experience requirements, members recommended doubling the experience points required from 360 to 720 points.

Next Steps

TREC staff will draft new rule language related to the recommended changes and present it to the group at its next meeting.

Don't Forget: You're Responsible for Team Names

BRAC has noticed instances of license holders not updating their registered team names with TREC. An advertising rule requires a notice to be sent to the Commission within 10 days of a team name no longer being used:

"A broker must notify the Commission in writing not later than the 10th day after the date the associated broker or a sales agent sponsored by the broker stops using a team name."

To provide more transparency for consumers and other license holders, BRAC urges brokers to help keep TREC's records up to date by closely managing the teams in their brokerage. This can be done online through TREC's Name Management Tool. And later this year, managing team names will get easier. The agency's new licensing system will allow brokers to grant permissions to others within their office (like managers or team leads) to manage their licenses, including team names, through their own online account.

Where to Find Meeting Materials

Watch the video recap and download the meeting agenda and materials.

Upcoming Meeting Details

BRAC meets again July 16 at 10 a.m. CT in Austin.