How do I become a verified agent?
Open Verified agent in the CRM, upload your licence and identity documents, and pay the review fee. The Housing Market Group team checks every application, and the check is repeated every year.
The verified agent badge says that Housing Market Group has checked who you are and that you are licensed to do this work. It appears beside your name on your listings and on your public agent profile on the portal, and it is only ever shown for an application the review team approved.
Applying
- Choose Verified agent in the menu, under Profile. If it is not there, applications are not open for your account yet; the page appears by itself when they are, and there is nothing you need to do in the meantime.
- Add your documents. PDF, JPEG, PNG, WEBP or HEIC files, up to 15 MB each and at most 10 files in one application.
- Give each file a Document type: Licence, Identity document, Agency registration, Phone bill or Other.
- Add a note for the reviewer if there is anything they should know. It is optional.
- Choose Pay and submit, and pay in the Stripe checkout.
Applying through the CRM costs 19 USD per year, and the page shows you the exact amount before you pay. The fee pays for the review and not for its outcome, so an application that is not approved is not refunded. It buys no part of any plan: Pro and Business are separate, and an agent on the free plan can apply just as well.
Your documents are saved when you choose to pay, so a payment you cancel costs you nothing and you can come back and pay later — the application waits, and says on your screen that it has not reached the review team yet. Once the payment goes through, the application is submitted by the payment itself rather than by your browser, so closing the tab does not lose it.
Two accounts cannot apply: a support session signed in on your behalf, and an account with no home portal — a verification has to be reviewed somewhere, and the CRM says which of the two it is rather than failing silently.
While it is reviewed
The page shows where your application stands, from Waiting for review through In review to Approved or Not approved, and we email you when there is a decision. We do not publish how long a review takes, because that would be a promise about a queue of people rather than about software.
Renewing
Verification lasts a year, and the page tells you the date yours runs to. The fee is charged again each year, and that renewal payment is what opens the yearly re-check: a fresh application goes to the review team carrying the documents they saw last time, so there is nothing for you to upload again. Sending every verified agent in every country away to start their own re-check by hand was the alternative, and it would never have happened.
If the renewal is not paid — you cancelled it, or a card failed — no re-check is opened and the badge lapses on its own date, exactly as it would have if you had never renewed. Applying again starts a new application.
Verified agent is separate from the three free badges for your licence, your agency and your telephone number, which cost nothing on any plan. See "How do reviews and verification badges work?".