Come December, the process of becoming a certified real estate broker will be more difficult and with more educational requirements standing in the way of qualify.

Boasting that current Bahamas Real Estate Association standards have placed agents in The Bahamas among the most qualified in the region, President William Wong said by December 1, they'll be even better. And the organization is offering classes to ensure this.

"We have the C.I.P.S courses and the three parts will be coming online within the next several weeks," Wong said yesterday, while at a BREA luncheon. "We have the second part of the appraisal course that is coming online within the next several weeks and CRS courses that will be coming online in August."

To maintain their licenses and remain active in the industry many agents will have to put in either "40 hours or about 40 credits" of ongoing education.

"For you to keep your licenses there will be certain things that you will have to do over a two-year period to keep you current," he said. "So, stay tuned."

* MLS anyone?

The former Bahamas Real Estate Association (BREA) president is calling for more agencies to register for the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), with just around 15 percent of agencies in this nation participating so far.

"We need to get onboard, this is the future" said Larry Smith. "This is the way business is going to be done. You need to get in now [and] familiarize yourself with the system."

The service allows member agencies to list the properties they have for sale so other agents and homebuyers can see them. Despite the relatively low percentage of agencies signed up, the 24 participating companies have taken the service quite far, totaling 89 members who have contributed 169 active and exclusive listings thus far.

"And we have 12 pending listings," Smith said. "Please take advantage of the opportunity. Heather Joy [the administrator] is at the BREA office and is more than willing to work with you, to hold your hand to get you up and running."

For those already signed up, Smith encouraged them to get in the habit of logging onto the system daily.

"You can actually tell the system to alert you or alert your customer of any listing that are coming in a particular area [and] it will actually send you an e-mail" he said. "Or you can just refer to the hot sheet, when you log in there's a hot sheet button that will give you all the listings that have come in within a period of time and you can set the parameters."

There are presently near 350 real estate agencies registered and activated in the system.