Who was the FIRST Licensed Real Estate Broker in the USA and which state licensed them?
I’d have bet the farm it would be one of the original colonies along the eastern seaboard. Massachusetts? Virginia? Or maybe even Florida.
Nope.
Once again, Oregon leads the way! :)
On May 29, 1919, Oregon’s licensing law went into effect and 957 applications were received. The fee was $5 per year.
License #1 was issued on June 6, 1919, to B. Lee Paget, who then became the first, licensed real estate broker in the United States.
In the June 2009 edition of the Oregon Real Estate News-Journal, Katie Archumbault wrote about the history of the process involved in crafting the law. (*I have not been able to find the article published on the web, so I can’t supply a URL.)
