NYS real estate data on agent license revocations should be open

If New York State wants to help combat Long Island's ugly strain of housing discrimination, it has to start with the real estate agents who remain the front line of most home sale transactions. But weeding out the bad apples and maintaining the highest ethical standards require tight enforcement, strong laws and regulations, and open records that allow everyone to see into an often too-opaque world.

When the state revoked the licenses of real estate agent Himanshoo (Raj) Sanghvi in 2021, officials made an appropriate decision based on disturbing comments Sanghvi made to a white tester during Newsday's important Long Island Divided project on housing discrimination. After Sanghvi appealed, Special Deputy Secretary of State Daniel E. Shapiro rightly said Sanghvi's remarks “demonstrate that he is unfit” to work as a real estate agent, and once again revoked Sanghvi's licenses.

Sanghvi had told Newsday's white tester that Huntington is “a mixed neighborhood … a mini, mini United Nations.” Sanghvi told the tester: “You don't want to go there.”

But just six months after his licenses were revoked, Sanghvi applied for — and got — a new license that remained in effect for more than a year, until Newsday asked questions.

Sanghvi's success at gaming the system exposes its enormous holes. It illustrates the need for a closer analysis of every real estate license applicant and stronger punishments for those whose licenses are revoked; in 12 states, agents must wait longer than New York's one-year standard before reapplying. And the state needs clearer standards for licensing after a revocation.

But there's a larger problem. New York residents can't easily access state data necessary to evaluate and assess real estate professionals. That includes an online search-by-name directory with license status information — something available in 45 other states. In most of those states, the data contains disciplinary history, including license revocations. Nor is New York a member of the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials, which keeps its own public database of disciplinary information, license status, and other details for its 39 member states.

Instead, as is customary with too much of New York's data, the state's real estate agent details are kept in incomplete archives that are difficult to navigate. It's another manifestation of the state's antiquated technology and cloudy record-keeping that hurts the public, the housing market, and our economy as a whole.

This should be simple. The public, the industry, and government officials must be able to access relevant, updated and detailed information — the good and the bad — about every real estate professional who holds the keys to one of the most important transactions people make. That would help level the playing field, eliminate the scourge of housing discrimination, and establish a housing market that is open to all.