If your real estate license expires this month, renew now or it’ll cost you about $250 more to renew it in July.
Effective July 1, fees for real estate licenses, license renewals and license exams are being increased to the maximum allowed by law. Hence, fees are going to double for salespersons and go up at least 80% for brokers. (See chart)
The reason? The real estate downturn is taking a toll on the California Department of Real Estate, too.
DRE, as the department is called, gets all its money for its 344-person department from license fees, license exam fees and subdivision fees (which are going up, too). But all those things are down because fewer people are taking the license test or getting licenses. And development fees? Well, homebuilding has been all but mothballed.
All these things have taken a $13.7 million bite out of the department’s $44 million budget.
For example, license exams have dropped from around 22,000 in March 2005 to just under 2,900 this past March. And the number of licensees dropped in March for a 14th straight month.
To make matters worse, the state Legislature and the Govenator have borrowed about $10.9 million from DRE reserves. If the state doesn’t repay that loan, and if the fees don’t go up, DRE projects its reserves will dry up and it’ll run out of money next year. In just over four years, DRE would be almost $88 million in the hole.
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