Michael Murphy is the division director for the Florida Real Estate Commission, the part of the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation that oversees all Realtors and appraisers.
A veteran of Florida government work, he joined DBPR four years ago and took over the FREC last year.
FREC is made up of five Realtors and two “public” members, and meets monthly in the division’s offices in downtown Orlando.
A native of Nebraska, Murphy moved to Florida 22 years ago.
He heads the FREC staff that oversees staff that handles all application and records maintenance processing, customer service activities, license verification inquiries, all testing vendor duties, exam development, scheduling, and posting and reporting of scores.
He recently spoke with Michelle Newbern Gillis of Realty/Builder Connection:
Question: What is DBPR doing for the state and licensee to make it easier to renew?
Answer: We send the renewal notices out 90 days in advance and they can send those back anytime up to the renewal deadline and they can pay their renewal fees online or through the call center. The call center has extended their hours until 6 p.m. to help the Realtors through the renewal process.
Q: What changes are there planned in continuing education?
A: (Members of) the Florida Real Estate Commission talk about it every month. Are continuing education standards sufficient? Are the course materials prescribed sufficient? Do they need more hours? They openly evaluate whether or not continuing education is meeting the needs of their profession. So far, they haven’t identified anything that needs to be changed. Whether they (Realtors) are learning anything or not, I really couldn’t make a statement about that. What I can tell you is that the Florida Real Estate Commission continues each month to talk about continuing education and ways to improve continuing education and whether or not the current requirements or course material is appropriate for the current environment that we are operating in.
Q. How about the scholarship program?
A. They (FREC commissioners) are looking at the Florida Education Scholarship program, which they fund each year to try to encourage persons interested in going into real estate to go through a state university program and to get a four year degree. We are looking at scholarships and getting information out to the public about how these scholarships can be used if persons are interested in going to a state university that offer programs in real estate.
Q: Do you think there are too many Realtors?
A: The market generates what the needs are for Realtors. I don’t know whether that is the right number or not. I would say for anyone who feels the standards need to be tougher, simply needs to go to the FREC meeting each month. It is an open and public meeting and there is an opportunity for persons to make public comments. They have an opportunity to interact with the FREC who would make decisions about those kinds of things.
Q: Have you had to increase staff?
A: Eight unlicensed activity investigators were hired in July of 2004. The recently announced budget also recommends $709,963 to provide additional funding for the Division of Real Estate. The division has regulatory responsibility for over 340,000 real estate agents, appraisers and related entities. The additional funding will improve the quality of the division’s services thereby ensuring the integrity of the profession as well as the protection of citizens interacting with real estate professionals.
Q: Have there been more complaints filed? If so, what were their nature?
A: If I recall correctly, the growth in complaints statistically is about the same as the growth in the number of licensees. While there may be more complaints being filed, that’s simply because the public is more aware of how to file and what their rights are and there are a lot more Realtors in the profession. Statistically, those numbers don’t seem to be out of line.
Q: What is the trend in discipline?
A: FREC imposed fewer fines during fiscal year 2004/2005 than in previous years. The commission typically seeks to impose penalties such as revocation, suspension, probation, or education, in addition to, or in lieu of, fines. These types of penalties are meant to impress upon the licensee the necessity of adhering to the applicable license laws, rather than simply paying fines and continuing with the conduct.
Q: Is there a trend to what Realtors are doing wrong to get into trouble?
A: I wouldn’t categorize anything as “getting into trouble” or not. There are some fairly common themes. Generally, it’s management of escrow accounts, contractual issues where the contracts disclose all the information about the property or not and completing their continuing education that come up on discipline issues.
Q: What do Realtors need to look at?
A: Stay up to speed on Florida Statutes, know the FREC rules and review regularly the FREC meetings. They are public meetings and they are available on the Internet — anyone who couldn’t attend the meeting could at least observe and hear the meeting online.
Q: Do you think Realtors understand the law?
A: That is a subjective assessment that I don’t really have enough knowledge and information about. But, I would say that, obviously, given the large number of real estate licensees in the state of Florida and the relatively low number of disciplinary cases that we have in comparison, they seem to do a very good job of understanding how they need to operate in a professional and legal manner.
Q: What can FREC do to educate them?
A: FREC is continuing to do things such as including information in their newsletter that we send out for them. They are partnering with the DPBR to look into an education and information scholarship. We are putting together an initiative for the 2006-07 fiscal year to get information out about the profession and help the licensees become more professional and more informed.
Q: What would you like to tell Realtors to make your life easier?
A: It’s not really about making my life easier, but I would continue to encourage any real estate license holder to maintain their continuing education, be informed on what is going on with the FREC and make sure they are aware of what the current statutory requirements are for their profession. That way everyone’s professional life will be much better.
Q: Has it become easier or more difficult to regulate Realtors?
A: I feel the innovations that the department has put in place over the last few years and our relationship with the FREC has make it much more effective and efficient to do our jobs which is to regulate the real estate profession.
Q: Anything new happening?
A: One of the big things will be electronic fingerprinting. The department and the commission are working to have everything ready for July 1. I think that will speed up the application process. The application process is taking about 27 days to complete. The electronic fingerprint process will speed that up significantly. Persons interested in getting a license in real estate should keep their eyes open for locations around the state where they will have the opportunity to have their fingerprints taken electronically. It is a great innovation for our profession.
Q: How did you get into the licensing field?
A: I came into licensing as the director of Professional Licensure for DPBR in Tallahassee. That meant I managed the application, renewal and processes for the department in Tallahassee. That’s how I came into licensure in general. Because real estate is the single largest group of licensees, my interaction with division of real estate was pretty extensive, so when an opportunity opened up down here (Orlando,) I came down to work with the division directly, the real estate commission and the appraisal board.