Portland Real Estate Agent Awards and Designations Summarized

For our real estate agent readers or general public who are curious, I thought I’d list out the majority of our awards in one place with a brief explanation and at the same time, for expediency sake, introduce a few more we earned this year. There are a surprising number of awards given out in the real estate industry, so it can be a bit to wade through. If you are interviewing a real estate agent to work with, you may see a number of awards or certificates on their resume, so this article might help explain what some of them are.

Customer Service Awards We Earned

Five Star Professional Award is published in the Portland Monthly Magazine. An independent company conducts a survey calling thousands of home buyers and sellers that completed a transaction in the previous year with a local real estate agent. Then the top 7% reviewed earn the Five Star Professional Award.
3 Best Rated Award is given out by an independent company that uses a 50 point inspection process to find the top three reviewed real estate agents in each metro area.
Zillow Five Star Professional, to earn this award you need to collect at least five, five star reviews and you need to keep a highly rated review average on Zillow. We prefer to keep most of our reviews on Zillow because they actually attempt to ensure that the reviews are left by real customers. This is not the case for Yelp, Google reviews, and others, where anyone can leave a review (your mom, your friend, someone who wants to comment but never actually worked with you, etc.).

Sales Awards We Earned

Masters Circle, Diamond – Platinum is a sales award given out by the Portland Metro Association of Realtors. This is the largest Realtor association in the Portland metro area (there is one other much smaller Realtor association nearby). No, I did not make up Diamond – Platinum, though it is a bit humorous to me. This is the highest level award they give out in their Master’s Circle, which is simply determined by sales volume. It used to be called the Million Dollar Club.
100 Most Influential Agents is an award given out by the Real Estate Executive Magazine. They say through, “comprehensive research” they determine the top 100 influential real estate leaders in each state. I’ve yet to be able to find what their criteria is for comprehensive research, but I heard from one of their staff it is based on sales volume alone.
Mega Icon Agent at eXp Realty. This is a Realty company specific award given out to their highest producers. eXp Realty is the 4th largest Realty company in the U.S. and the fastest growing in the world. We run their number one selling team in Oregon and SW Washington.

Additional Education Certificates We Earned

Seller’s Representative Specialist, SRS, requires additional online training in represnting sellers as a specialty and includes regular continuing education opportunities.
Earth Advantage Broker, we earned this through attending a serious of lectures on green building materials and green home features like appliances, solar panels, triple pane windows, etc.
Energy Trust Trade Ally, was also eared through attending a serious of lectures on available green home features.
Certified Negotiations Expert was earned through attending a series of lectures on negotiation tactics.
NAR’s Green Designation was earned through online training on green building materials and green home features.
Accredited Buyer’s Reprentative was earned through online training on specializing in representing buyers.
Strategic Pricing Specialist was earned through online training, advanced tips and tricks to get the correct home value.
Certified Short Sale Agent was earned through an online course on navigating a short sale with a distressed home owner. No longer available.
Certified Foreclosure Agent was earned through an online course on navigating a buyer through a foreclosure purchase. No longer available.
Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource Certification was earned through online training on advising buyers in purchasing foreclosures and short sales.

Principal Broker License in Oregon

Kami Price (my buyer’s team leader) and myself, Stephen FitzMaurice, listing agent and team leader, have both earned our Principal Brokers license. The official licencing term for any real estate agent in Oregon is Broker. A Principal Broker must take additional education courses and pass a higher level state approved exam. It is a higher level of state licencing than Broker. We also get to pay more taxes than our fellow Brokers.

If you’re in the Portland metro area and need real estate assistance, we’d love to talk.