The year was 1927. The city was Greensboro. And the Commission was in session, 30 years
before the founding of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission as we know it today.
This short-lived licensing and regulatory agency bears much resemblance to our current
Commission in Raleigh.... And there are many differences.
Executive Director Phillip T Fisher who heads up a staff of over 40 employees, which
serves close to 80,000 real estate licensees, who are regulated by seven Commission
members - recently came across a bit of history. It was the 1927-1928 Annual Report and
Roster of Licensed Real Estate Brokers and Salesmen for the North Carolina Real Estate
Commission.
The 32-page booklet makes for interesting reading. Prefaced with an open letter to the
then Governor of North Carolina, the Honorable Angus W McLean, the booklet was dated March
20, 1928.
It reports the ratification of the Real Estate License Law by the North Carolina General
Assembly on February 28 of the previous year. The law sounds familiar, requiring
licenses.for anyone who "for a compensation or valuable consideration sells or offers
for sale, buy (sic) or offers to buy, or negotiates the purchase or sale or exchange of
real estate, or who leases or offers to lease, or rents or offers for rent, any real
estate or the improvements thereon for others. . ." Not only were brokers, salesmen
and corporations required to be licensed; unincorporated firms were, also.
However, the law applied to only eight counties: Buncombe, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford,
Henderson, Lee, Rowan, and Wake.
Buncombe County led the state in the number of licensees - 290 - of which 57 were firms or
corporations, 119 were brokers, and 114 were salesmen.
In Lee County, there were only two licensees - one firm and one broker. The total number
of licensees for all eight counties was less than 1,000.
Application fees were $ 10 for brokers and $5 for salesmen, with renewal fees at $5 and
$2, respectively.
Like today's Commission, the members were appointed by the Governor. Unlike today's
Commission, its members totaled only three.
One Commission member was chosen to fill the salaried position of Secretary, and his
personal office in Greensboro served as the official Commission Office.
A clerk-stenographer was paid $85 per month, a salary which the Report said was approved
by the N.C. Salary and Wage Commission.
The Commission also selected an attorney to "advise it on legal matters and to assist
in the preparation of forms." And the legal matters were many. The Report cited facts
and figures in various cases in which the Commission played a part in regulating the real
estate industry of its day.
In closing, the Report stated the Commissions purpose in issuing it: ... as an account of
its more important activities for the past year for the consideration and judgment of the
Executive and Legislative Departments, and all citizens of the State, but more
particularly for those citizens of the eight counties affected by the Law . . . "
The Report proved prophetic in its statement when the citizens of the State realize
the value of a Law of this kind, all the remaining counties will want to adopt it."