Residential Finance Specialist (RFS)

For information purposes, I felt the need to assist the community in the understanding of the Residential Finance Specialist designation "RFS". ALthough rarely seen amongst REALTORS, The Residential Financing Council for years has been offering instruction to the financing community and also the REALTOR community, and offered the original "Certified Finance Specialist" (CFS) designation to those REALTOR's who successfully took the course and passed the exam. Over the years, the CFS designation was claimed to belong to the Certified Financial Planning community and after several years of legal wrangling, the Residential Financing Council decided to end their defensive fight and change the designation to RFS. To me, it's more appropriate as the CFS designation was rather ambiguous. I have always encouraged my agents to get educated about the mortgage financing process to make them more knowledgable and successful in buyer representation.

Although the RFS designation is not officially yet recognized by NAR, it is becoming a powerful tool and if successfully utilized, provides a great value added service to the clients that one serves. For more information about the Residential Financing Council and the RFS designation, visit www.rfcouncil.com or www.rfsweb.net .