Be Sure of Your Agent’s Qualifications

A colleague and I were talking last week about how real estate actually works in this region. We’re both Canadian, both licensed agents, and both still caught off guard by how little regulation and oversight actually exist here.

She told me about a social media influencer she knows who decided, seemingly overnight, that she was now a real estate agent. No training. No sales education. No real estate background of any kind. I had my own version: a restaurant owner who made the same jump.

Neither situation is unusual here. In this economy, people who’ve built a living doing something else entirely suddenly start looking at real estate and seeing easy money. It’s an understandable impulse. It’s also a misguided one.

What Fiduciary Duty Actually Means

Real estate isn’t sales in the way people assume. It’s representation. A licensed, trained agent has a fiduciary duty to their client, whether buyer or seller, and that duty means the agent’s job is to protect that person’s interests, not their own.

Agents with real training and professional education understand this. It shapes how we negotiate, what we disclose, and what we hold back. Most of the people flooding into this market from other careers don’t have that grounding. They’re not operating with a fiduciary framework. They’re operating with a commission target.

That distinction matters more than people think.

The Bottom-Line Question

Here’s a small example that plays out constantly. As a listing agent, I regularly get buyer’s agents who ask me point-blank what the seller’s bottom line is. What is the lowest number they’d actually accept?

I can’t tell them that. My fiduciary duty to my seller means I’m not supposed to, and I’m not obligated to. But agents without proper training don’t always realize that’s a line they shouldn’t cross. They ask because it seems like a reasonable question, when in fact it’s up to the owner alone to decide. Not the listing agent.

That’s not a minor gap. It’s the difference between someone protecting your position in a negotiation and someone who doesn’t understand what protecting your position even requires.

The Biggest Purchase of Their Life

For most investors, especially those coming from Canada or the US, this purchase is the largest one they’ll make outside their primary residence. It deserves the same care, the same scrutiny, and the same respect for fiduciary duty as any major transaction back home.

Which raises the real question: how do these people end up trusting an influencer or a former restaurant owner with a decision this size? What made the follower count, or the friendly personality, more convincing than a proven track record?

What to Actually Ask

Before you work with anyone here, do the research most buyers skip:

• How long have they actually been working in real estate—not just living here?
• Do they belong to professional organizations such as AMPI?
• What’s their track record with buyers or sellers like you?
• Do they have an established reputation in the community, independent of social media?
• Are they licensed? Ask to see it.

Work with people who’ve built long-term, credible businesses here—people whose job is to look after your interests, not their own bottom line.

Do the Math

Here’s the part that should give any buyer pause. In this state, around 3,000 people work in real estate and market themselves as agents. Only about 300 of us actually hold a license.

I’ve held mine since 2016. Quintana Roo License #730I0BBDMR008000083. Member of AMPI and NAR, with CIPS and RSPS designations.

The law here requires anyone selling real estate to be licensed, just as it would in most other places. The difference is enforcement. That gap is exactly what lets unqualified people set up shop and start selling.

Do your homework. Ask the right questions. Verify credentials. Your future will thank you.