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freds@sempre.com

Date: January 1, 2008

>>Dave Mehta wrote:
>>(quoting someone) "As far as the IDX- our multiple listing services need to stop allowing membership to non-Realtors and the rest of us need to stop buying the leads. No customers- no lead pimps."
>>I support you whole heartily. How can we encourage our directors (NAR, MCAR) for this? Directors will get less perks.!<<

You may want to reconsider disparaging other business models. Solicitation is a licensed activity in California and, in my opinion, it would be improper for NAR to direct business from one business model to another. Some lead providers (e.g. HomeGain) are Realtors.

<http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/HowtoJoin?OpenDocument>
"NAR is composed of REALTORS® who are involved in residential and commercial real estate as brokers, salespeople, property managers, appraisers, counselors and others engaged in *all aspects* (emphasis added) of the real estate industry."

<http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/narmission>
NAR Mission: "The core purpose of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® is to help its members become more profitable and successful."

<http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html>
Excerpt from California Business and Professions Code Section 10131:
"A real estate broker within the meaning of this part is a person who, for a compensation or in expectation of a compensation, regardless of the form or time of payment, does or negotiates to do one or more of the following acts for another or others:
(a) Sells or offers to sell, buys or offers to buy, solicits prospective sellers or purchasers of, solicits or obtains listings of, or negotiates the purchase, sale or exchange of real property or a business opportunity."

Fred
fsalzer@sempre.com
Poway, CA

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Jackie Hawley Home Buyer / Home Seller, Clarkston, MI

Date: January 1, 2008

Jackie Hawley wrote:

As far as the IDX- our multiple listing services need to stop allowing membership to non-Realtors and the rest of us need to stop buying the leads. No customers- no lead pimps.

Dave Mehta wrote:

I support you whole heartily. How can we encourage our directors (NAR, MCAR) for this? Directors will get less perks.!

John Johnson wrote:

To deny MLS membership to a non-REALTOR® would probably violate Anti-Trust laws. I believe that our Directors are volunteers that donate a great deal of their time to the benefit of members. Which perks are you referring to?

My reply:

If the MLS is open to non Realtors, how are disputes to be settled? When a Realtor puts a listing in the MLS they (we) have to abide by NAR's code of ethics. A non-Realtor doesn't.

And please, I don't want anyone to take this as me slamming non-Realtors. I do some business in the Thumb area of Michigan where quite a few agents are NOT Realtors. And for the most part they are some of the most honest, ethical, moral agents to work with.

But as an example of a non-Realtor having the ability to use the MLS. In Realcomp (the MLS my company belongs to) the co-op commission is published. Say a non-Realtor publishes X commission to the buyer's rep. I write an accepted offer and get the settlement statement prior to closing and it shows ZERO commission to my broker. What is my recourse? If that listing agent was a Realtor, I believe they would have to participate in arbitration if I chose to go after my commission. A non-Realtor would not be required to arbitrate. I believe (but not sure) that you have to be a Realtor to put your listings in Realcomp MLS. I know that was the case when the MLS was board owned (NOCBOR).

Jackie Hawley
Keller Williams Realty
Clarkston, MI
Jackie@JackieHawley.com
www.miRelocation.com

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freds@sempre.com

Date: January 1, 2008

>>Jackie Hawley wrote in part:
>>If the MLS is open to non Realtors, how are disputes to be settled? <<

Disputes can be settled by mandatory arbitration. Please see Section 16 of Sandicor MLS Rules and Regulations to see the detail of how we settle disputes.
<http://www.sandicor.com/rules-regulations/november272007rules.pdf>

Fred
fsalzer@sempre.com
Poway, CA

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Ellen Alley Licensed Real Estate Broker, Wheatland, WY

Date: January 1, 2008

Jackie Hawley wrote:

As far as the IDX- our multiple listing services need to stop allowing membership to non-Realtors and the rest of us need to stop buying the leads. No customers- no lead pimps.

Jackie, Most MLS don't allow one to use it unless they are REATLORS, it a provision of membership. If a MLS allows non-REALTOR members to use the services, then the by laws can state that the non-realtors are bound by the Code of Ethics. Check with your MLS to see what its by-laws state.

Ellen G. Alley
Instructor~Broker~GRI~ePRO
COLDWELL BANKER 1st Wheatland Reatly
1203 16th St - Wheatland Wy - 82201

http://EducationByEllen.com Ellen@EllenAlley.com
1-307-331-1660 (direct line)

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donnamarine@comcast.net

Date: January 1, 2008

Jackie Hawley wrote:

If the MLS is open to non Realtors, how are disputes to be settled? When a Realtor puts a listing in the MLS they (we) have to abide by NAR's code of ethics. A non-Realtor doesn't...Say a non-Realtor publishes X commission to the buyer's rep. I write an accepted offer and get the settlement statement prior to closing and it shows ZERO commission to my broker. What is my recourse?

I imagine that your MLS has rules that participants must follow. Would any of those rules cover the situation above? Although these rules wouldn't help a Realtor get their commission, they would serve as a strong deterrent if the MLS system enforced rules governing usage of the system. Also, just curious, (I practice in a different state), is it common practice in your state to use a contract of cooperating broker compensation? In PA, a licensed agent automatically hands this in with the offer. If we had reason to believe that it wouldn't be signed and returned, the agreement would likely not be finalized. Most brokers in our area expect that we agents become a Realtor. That way they have more leverage in settling disputes by going to the other broker before things get out of control.

Although your point is well-taken (Realtors are at certain disadvantage with regards to non-Realtor who do not have to abide by the same ethical code), I don't see how non-realtors can be denied access to the MLS system under present circumstances and regulations. Someone would no doubt sue the MLS system... Licensing is required to practice real estate. Becoming a Realtor is voluntary. If there were no National Association of Realtors, licensing laws and state regulations would be the basis for settling disputes. If agents were easily able to dupe other agents out of commissions, there would be a rash of law suits, and the state legislature would probably pass laws which would prohibit such actions at the urging of state lobbyists. That's why PA now has state regulations regarding buyer representation. Consumers were getting taken advantage of, agents were arguing over commissions, and brokers were continually fighting lawsuits. Voila...buyer representation was born.

Rather than having an MLS provider restrict membership, a better approach would be for the MLS system to have strict membership requirements with regards to usage and fraud. Also, brokers should put a little more pressure on their agents to become Realtors. They hang the license of the agent and should be concerned about the consequences of unethical behavior and enforcement of ethical issues.

Donna Marinelli

Long and Foster Real Estate, Inc.

Phone: 215-801-4777

Fax: 215-489-1637

bucksmonthomes@comcast.net

www.thinkrealestatenow.biz

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Robert King Licensed Real Estate Broker, Saint Petersburg, FL

Date: January 1, 2008

This is a great explanation from Jackie Hawley:

"But as an example of a non-Realtor having the ability to use the MLS. In Realcomp (the MLS my company belongs to) the co-op commission is published. Say a non-Realtor publishes X commission to the buyer's rep. I write an accepted offer and get the settlement statement prior to closing and it shows ZERO commission to my broker. What is my recourse? If that listing agent was a Realtor, I believe they would have to participate in arbitration if I chose to go after my commission. A non-Realtor would not be required to arbitrate. I believe (but not sure) that you have to be a Realtor to put your listings in Realcomp MLS. I know that was the case when the MLS was board owned (NOCBOR)".

In our area PRO (Pinellas Realtor Association) the way they circumvent responsibility is they allow anybody who can pay dues to be a member in order to avoid breaking Anti-Trust Laws. Anyway that's how they explain it. Unfortunately what we have is a raft of "members" who work for Marketing Companies who sift through the MLS for (((information))) at will. Most of these outfits list their properties under Exclusive Right to Sell (Limited, Non-Represented) Listing Agreements. I've yet to find the logic in how you arrive at an Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Agreement and fail to represent the Owner. But it's in there in black and white written by none-other than Attorneys for the Association of Realtors!

Most of these Rouge Agencies are nothing more than Flat Fee Marketing Brokers who get paid Upfront in exchange for Limited Service. After all they are not representing anybody! The problem you have with these kinds of agreements is if a Selling Broker has difficulty in a transaction and the seller refuses to pay the Selling Broker because they felt they were being short changed, the only recourse for the Selling Broker is to get the Listing Broker to litigate for the commission you can forget about arbitration. Guess what, the Listing Broker didn't Represent the Owner, they already got paid!!!!! So guess what? The Selling Broker's only recourse is to hire an Attorney to go after the seller directly. Yea Right? I'm sure the Attorney is going to ring this dry rag out with a pro-bono tell after settlement which doesn't include collection. Then again maybe the Selling Broker could go after their client the buyer? Yea right! I don't think so!!!! Maybe we could all just enter a class action law suit and go after the deepest pockets, NAR, REALIST, MLS, how-bout them there WWW vermin better known as Lead Generators, who sift through every freely provided agents website! After all isn't that why all of us have websites, THERE FREE!!!! Right? The problem we have as professionals is the fact NAR COE does not apply to the Marketeers and Pirates of the Internet World who sell us our Leads, who use our statistics and get away with it through disclosures and licensing agreements. When's the last time you got a website provided for you for free and you didn't have to sign a "disclaimer"? If you spent the time to actually read disclaimers of responsibility you'd probably not agree, but what the heck, IT'S FREE!!! Right??? Personally I don't think NAR, The Boards of Real Estate have a clue as to what's going on! I think the MLS sales and expiration statistics tell the story, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Actually I just pulled up today's HotSheet 1/1/2008 for PRO Board of Real Estate. The Score was 129 to 3. Whoa! What a score on New Years Day! 129 Expired to 3 New Listings, No Sales! Whoa 129 to 3 doesn't that tell all of us something about what IDX (Internet Data Exchange) has gotten us for the past 2 years??

Robert King

Broker/Consultant

Charles Rutenberg, Realtors

Clearwater, Florida

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Luis Vazquez Licensed Real Estate Broker, FL

Date: January 1, 2008

“To deny MLS membership to a non-REALTOR® would probably violate Anti-Trust laws. I believe that our Directors are volunteers that donate a great deal of their time to the benefit of members. Which perks are you referring to?”

Frankly, the MLS is one of the main reasons agents join the local boards of realtors in our state.

How can the use (exclusive) of an exclusive benefit be a violation of the law? Sounds defeatist.

As to the matter of our directors, volunteers or no, they should do well to protect that which we all entrusted them to: if non-realtors can get the same advantages and benefits as realtors do, then why do we pay our dues for? Remember, an “R” by your name does not make you ethical, and the Real Estate laws in our state do “force” licensees to behave professionally with regards to the public and the deals we make.

Just my 2 cents,

Luis Armando Vazquez

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Jackie Hawley Home Buyer / Home Seller, Clarkston, MI

Date: January 2, 2008

I believe our MLS (Realcomp) requires one to be a Realtor and we don't feed data from exclusive agency listings to public sites (Realtor dot com and our local board site). We did get sued and the case was recently dismissed. The FTC came after us as well as a handfull of other multiple listing services. The rest caved under the pressure and we fought it. Realcomp felt since we were in compliance with NAR policy there would be no problems with E&O covering. Last year NAR changed their policy (stabbing us in the back). Realcomp stuck to their guns anyway. I don't know if our E&O covered. You can go to www.realcomp.com for details. But the case was dismissed so at this point WE WON!

If I deal with someone who is a non-Realtor I get a commission agreement signed before showing the house (or land) prior to showing. But the majority of agents are Realtors. When you get a little north of my normal market area, it's not uncommon to be a licensee who is not a Realtor. In Michigan if the office is a Realtor office every agent must also be a Realtor. I don't know if that's a state thing or a board thing, but that's how it is at least in southeast Michigan.

Jackie Hawley, e-PRO
Keller Williams Realty
Clarkston, MI
Jackie@JackieHawley.com
www.miRelocation.com

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Lindy Hall Licensed Real Estate Agent, Houston, TX

Date: January 2, 2008

Ellen wrote:
Jackie, Most MLS don't allow one to use it unless they are REATLORS, it a provision of membership. If a MLS allows non-REALTOR members to use the services, then the by laws can state that the non-realtors are bound by the Code of Ethics. Check with your MLS to see what its by-laws state.
------------------------------------
Lindy writes:
Ellen, you must be in Uptopia, our MLS allows appraisers and inspectors and anyone with the remotest connection to real estate.... that can work out nicely, it is more convenient for us when they have Supra lockbox access..... but I have always felt that MLS should be much more restricted. But once they started letting the general public look at listings (with semi-limited-info), then it's obviously no longer a proprietory entity. I can no longer feel smug about my precious MLS books or my precious MLS web-site.... because it's open-season, no-one really needs me anymore :o} ...... of course, of course, the PollyAnnas will say how we bring so much more to the table.... sure we do... not the point.

Lindy in Houston.

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freds@sempre.com

Date: January 2, 2008

>>Luis Vazquez wrote in part:
>>Frankly, the MLS is one of the main reasons agents join the local boards of realtors in our state.
How can the use (exclusive) of an exclusive benefit be a violation of the law?<<

For California, please see Marin County Bd. of Realtors, Inc. v. Palsson
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/ca/cal3d/16.html> (Free subscription required)

Fred
fsalzer@sempre.com
Poway, CA

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