“When buying a home consumers are probably buying the largest single purchase they will make in their lives and we owe them more than just entry-level education,” said Illinois REALTOR® of the Year and top real estate industry instructor Lynn Madison, ABR, ABRM, GRI, SFR, SRES, owner of Lynn Madison Seminars of Lake Zurich.

We spoke with Lynn just before the banquet held in her honor April 6 at the Hilton Springfield. She says education has been a mission early in her real estate career as a top-producing agent and successful managing broker overseeing the success of the individual agents at her firm. Why? Says Lynn: “It’s not that we as REALTORS® can do what we can do independent of anyone else. My agents can’t do a good job if the agent on the other side of the transaction is not doing their part, so I got involved in doing education because I thought the entire industry needed to raise the bar a bit. We owe it to the consumer.”

Lynn is a former Dean of the Illinois REALTOR® Institute and has been honored as the National Association of REALTORS® Educator of the Year. She is a certified continuing education instructor in more than 40 states and has been active in delivering and developing Illinois education programs since 1992. In addition to holding many REALTOR® designations for advanced education, she has written many of the courses and teaches them including the Short Sales and Foreclosure Resources (SFR) certification.