NAR’s side of the story May 18, 2007
It is no surprise NAR is lashing out at 60 Minutes for the story run last Sunday. John Cook has a great write up: NAR comes out swinging against “60 Minutes”
Check out these related posts:
- Redfin on 60 Minutes – Something to Monitor
- Future of the Real Estate Industry?
- Redpin and Leslie Stool on 16 Minutes
Article Tags>> 60-minutes | John-Cook | NAR
- Posted in : General Real Estate
- Author : Jon
Comments»
Forgive my laziness but I’m just going to cut and paste my comments from the PI site.
“The National Association of Realtors is a trade association and does not “govern” the real estate industry.”
“Association” implies a voluntary connection. Were it not a requirement by corporate brokerages to belong their membership would shrink to less than a 1/3 of its current membership. The lack of accountability to the folks who pay the freight does suggest a certain amount of governance with out the express permission of the members.
“Now the NAR argues that it’s their agents who contribute to the MLS. That’s their listings, and that they should, therefore, have the right to withhold them since they belong to the agent. Doesn’t that make some sense?”
Realty professionals who don’t belong to NAR (28% of us according to a 26 state poll involving 38,000 agents)also contribute and yes, we should have the right to withhold our listings from anyone we choose.
“There is no such thing as a national multiple listing service. Rather there are more than 900, which are all independently owned and operated.”
Owned and operated by the owner-BROKERS. The agents have no say to speak of in the organizations.
“All real estate commissions are negotiable and the average is 5.1 percent, according to the most recent available data.”
They have to say this to avoid possibly violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The reality is that corporate real estate holds company wide “seminars” on overcoming commission objections. I’ve been told by a broker that while commissions are negotiable his company wouldn’t negotiate below 6%. The agent doesn’t get a choice sometimes. I know of a few Windermere agents who were “fired” (strange concept when you consider that agents are a broker’s customer)for offering a 5% commission while another agent gets away with offering O% LOC if he represents your subsequent purchase over $500,000.
“Realtor” is a trademarked term and should never be used synonymously with “real estate agent.”
Etymologically speaking, the word “realtor” predates the organization by nearly 100 years. How they managed to get the word trademarked is a mystery.
Jon,
go back and look at the comments on this article. you’d get a better sense what people are saying