The Virginia Association of REALTORS^® Commercial Advisory Council and the Commercial Alliance have developed a white paper addressing the need for a special real estate license or certification process for commercial practitioners in Virginia. While they realize the first choice of commercial brokers would be to implement a separate license structure for commercial brokers, they recognize the immense legislative challenges in achieving that goal, given that no state in the country has passed separate licensing for commercial practitioners. Instead, VAR's Commercial Alliance has proposed a certification process for commercial licensees.

Enclosed, is the letter you should have received outlining the Commercial Alliance's proposal and request for our association's support and GWCAR's response to that letter. In short, GWCAR stated it appreciated VAR's Commercial Alliance efforts to differentiate and acknowledge the special skills of commercial brokers, but strongly disagreed with the proposed certification plan and any other proposals that would increase the number of continuing education hours needed for licensing.

This proposal is still being debated in the Commercial Alliance committee at VAR. If and when the committee approves the proposal, it will then move forward to VAR's Public Policy Committee and VAR's Policy Board for approval by the entire association. If and when the VAR Policy Board approves this proposal as a legislative initiative, it would then become part of VAR's Legislative Agenda, which VAR would then begin actively lobbying in support of at the State House in Richmond.

This process could move quickly or very slowly. However, rest assured, GWCAR will continue to monitor and voice the concerns of the membership.

If you have any comments or suggestion on these proposals, please feel free to contact, Ed Krauze, Vice-President of Public Policy at ekrauze@gcaar.com.

 
Commercial Alliance/VAR's proposal      GWCAR's response to the proposal