North San Diego County REALTORS® Advocacy Bulletin is a monthly update that aims to help our members stay up to date on government and legislative issues that impact your bottom line. This month’s Advocacy Bulletin focuses on Point-of-Sale requirements:
- What are Point-of-Sale requirements?
- What these mean for North San Diego County REALTORS®
- Looking ahead: how we protect your transactions
What are Point-of-Sale requirements?
Point-of-Sale requirements often make a transaction needlessly complicated and difficult. These requirements can be put into place by local governments, water districts or the state. Regardless of a requirement’s origin, these stipulations can be harmful. In California, governments often have aggressive environmental goals and timelines, leading to legislation that may target the real estate industry to reach some of these goals.
Policies that work toward environmental goals can take many forms. For example, some address water conservation by inserting low flow devices. Other programs are about electricity and require installing solar power systems or retrofitting efficient energy appliances. These policies vary and are often determined by local legislation.
What this means for North San Diego County REALTORS®
Point-of-Sale requirements place an unnecessary financial burden on buyers and sellers and can expose REALTORS® to increased liability. Certain mandates, such as retrofits at the time of sale can increase the time of escrow and add surprise costs.
These requirements often impact housing affordability in an already tight market. The added price of these requirements often hurt first-time buyers as an extra few thousand dollars can break a sale. Also, REALTORS® and brokers face an increase in liability when legal issues arise during a transaction. REALTORS® often must verify that mandates have been completed.
Looking ahead: how we protect your transactions
North San Diego County REALTORS® support the goal of ensuring an environmentally friendly future. We understand that California must continue to work towards sustaining and improving our environment. However, the Government Affairs Team also recognizes when these requirements become policies that unfairly target REALTORS® and their clients. North San Diego County REALTORS® continue to fight for and protect your transactions while defending our industry against policies like Point-of-Sale requirements.