Westchester View

My initial rant on this topic was posted both here – and on Active Rain where I have another blog.  Active Rain attracts many from the industry itself – unlike this blog which is more consumer facing.  So I thought I would paste a link over to that blog and I have put together a follow-up since that posting created such a stir.

Since there was such a debate over my blog on designations and their relative value, I thought it would be nice if I culled through the responses in order to get a consensus and also offer up some references for further reading.

There were 41 responders to the blog – excluding those who posted more than once and of course my responses.  There were three distinct camps:

1.  49% Felt designations were of dubious value (I included myself in that group.)
2.  29% Felt that having one or two made sense.
3.  22% Felt  that felt multiple designations were valuable.
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Ok – so by the  criteria in my title I could declare more designations than most – since my name is relatively long.  But recently I ran into an agent that had the following designations on her card ….”Sally Smith, ABR, GRI, CDPE, CRS, & EPro.”  Ya gotta be kidding me!  This person has more designation letters then letters in their name.  It must be exhausting to write all that after your name!

Personally, I have a problem with designations simply because the testing required doesn’t have any teeth to show that the agent actually learned something.    Much of the testing is open book – and sustaining the designation involves paying your way and has nothing to do with learning new skills.
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