Business, Transportation & Housing Agency

Departments

DRE Logo

Jeff Davi
Commissioner

Department of Real Estate
For more information about DRE and its programs, go to www.dre.ca.gov.

Responsibilities and accomplishments include:

Licensing real estate professionals:

  • Issued a record number of more than 65,000 first-time real estate licenses and more than 50,000 real estate license renewals in 2005.
  • Reduced the processing time to obtain a real estate license in 2005 by 54 percent, from 175 days to 80 days.
  • Expanded online capabilities to accommodate 49 percent of license-change transactions, 50 percent of license renewals and 52 percent of examinations.
  • Received more than 70,000 original salesperson examination applications via the Internet since the online capability was added on March 1, 2005.

Investigating consumer complaints against real estate agents, brokers and subdividers:

  • Worked collaboratively with the state Department of Corporations, Department of Financial Institutions and the Office of Real Estate Appraisers to establish a central license-information Web page to improve client service for all respective organizations.
  • Issued 3,941 final public reports representing 110,791 housing units in 2005.
  • Processed 100 percent of subdivision offerings within statutory timeframes.

Educating home buyers and renters:

  • Revised the comprehensive booklet Disclosures in Real Estate Transactions and posted it on the Web in December 2005.
  • Developed college-level real estate course materials for use statewide.
  • Funded scholarship endowments that resulted in 175 scholarships to community and state college students in FY 2004-05.
DRE Commissioner, Jeff Davi

The state Department of Real Estate (DRE) provides licenses for real estate professionals and protects consumers from faulty real estate transactions. In 2005, the number of real estate licensees soared to a record of more than 476,000 - a 14 percent increase over the previous year and a 57 percent increase during the last five years. FY 2005-06 projected the trend to continue with the number of licensees climbing to 491,000 as of March 2006.

"Record numbers of people are seeking employment in the real estate profession," DRE Commissioner Jeff Davi said. "DRE remains committed to efficiently providing services to licensees while ensuring consumers are receiving the protection they deserve when engaging in the real estate transaction process."