The operation of the law appears to have been extremely successful and to have been heartily indorsed by the public generally and by all the reliable real-estate dealers and salesmen in the state. The Real Estate Commissioner gives the following picture of the results of the law during the eight months it was in force:
1. It gave the realtors faith in each other, each being under bond and licensed by the commissioner with power of revocation in case of violation of the law.
2. It increased the confidence of the public generally in the realty business, for the law afforded the public a ready and inexpensive means of redress in case of wrongdoing.
3. During the eight months, some sixty complaints were filed with the commissioner, and all were adjusted without even a formal hearing up to the time the law was thrown out, March, 1918. Some twenty-five hundred dollars was returned to defrauded purchasers through appeals to the commissioner.
4. The deterrent effect of the law on wrongdoers will never be known, but must have been far-reaching.
5. So satisfactory was the law that the public, the bankers, and especially the realtors, are preparing again to present to the legislature during the winter of 1918-19 a more carefully worded law governing the realty business.
One of the services rendered by the Department of the Real Estate Commissioner was the issue of a directory of licensed real-estate brokers and salesmen in the state. The first copy was published October 1, 1917, and contained about four thousand names, as well as other material such as maps, laws, and legal opinions, designed to be of practical value to all realtors. It was intended that this directory be issued quarterly and be distributed to licensed brokers, with a subscription price to others of one dollar a year. The commissioner regarded this directory bulletin which bound together in fraternalism the real-estate men of the state, as only one of the many possibilities of extending valuable aids through his department to the real-estate profession, and so indirectly to the agricultural industry.
Although there have been attempts in other states to secure legislation, so far they have been unsuccessful. In essentials they have resembled the California law, although differing in details, such as amounts of bonds, fees, and penalties. In Minnesota, several years ago, the State Immigration Commission was instrumental in introducing a land-regulation bill which was killed by the efforts of the land dealers.