And you should also remember that Realtor.com is NOT a part of NAR. It is
operated by Move Inc...with an operating agreement given to them by NAR to
use the Realtor trademark. It is not YOUR website...it is simply a
commercial website ALLOWING NAR to publish its listings on it under the
operating agerment. The DOJ had good reason to tell NAR they could not
restrain Move, Inc. from accepting listings (paid listings only for now)
from other sources. -- Steve Ervin
---
This is not entirely accurate Steve... the contract, as I understand it,
granted Move the right to manage the realtor.com website, and the right to
display MLS listings... Saul actually helped get the local MLS organizations
to sign on to this, travelling around to push it... but it is not ALLOWING
NAR to publish its listings, but rather allowing Move to publish them... at
least that is my understanding, and it is a big difference... IF it is as
you say, then NAR signed an even worse contract than I had thought... Which
way is it?
But either way, the difference is far from Semantic, and the contract far
from beneficial to most agents and brokers... it was a lousy deal from the
beginning, as far as I am concerned, and unfortunately, I don't believe it
has any renewal and review clauses that would give NAR the active ability to
manage what Move does with the site.
We have had this discussion before, and it went nowhere... now Move will do
as it pleases, and we will have NAR Leadership supporting it, for some
strange reason.
Also, please Note that there is a conflict of interest for Saul, who argues
in favor of syndication of listings for at least one reason: he is the CEO
of a company that syndicates listings and wants to compete with Move, and
other listing display companies... it is only reasonable that he supports
it... but he has his agenda there... fair, but should be pointed out that
Saul is not basing his decision to support this in a vacuum.
Have a great day!
Best regards,
Paul Silver
Focus Professionals, Inc.
Editor's Note I am not sure I know what you think my position on this is Paul. So, to be clear, I do not think that for "sale by owners" should be able to capitalize on the critical mass of REALTOR listings on the Internet.As for the operating agreement and Realtor.com being the Official Website of NAR...In the beginning, there was no MOVE. NAR owned and operated REALTOR.com. It has morphed into what it is today, but is not the original value proposition.How it got to where it is today I have written about many times over the years. Yes, I was the first www evangelist in the real estate industry and worked hard to explain and socialize to brokers, MLSs and associations that they should accept the www as a marketing tool. The years were 1996 through 1998 and I still think the message was valuable and the the Web has benefitted brokers, agents and consumers. I am proud of the role I played in shifting a major information paradigm in the real estate industry at a time when hiding the data from the public was the norm.As for Realtor.com, NAR owns the web site, MOVE operates it. NAR has seats on the MOVE BOD. NAR still holds some stock if I am not mistaken, in MOVE or R.com.In fairness and full disclosure, I have no financial interest in MOVE or REALTOR.com. In some ways, Realtor.com may be considered a competitor to Point2 (I am the CEO of Point2), but as a REALTOR, I would not be in favor of a FSBO web site partnering with REALTOR.com, and I believe Errol Samuelson, the President of REALTOR.com and NAR when they tell me that there is no such arrangment.Saul
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