RESPA has been a mine field on the Real Estate landscape since 1974.  It is legislation that was created to keep us all honest and protect the consumer.  Since that time, there have been a number of changes to the rules of RESPA - many of which have been met with resistance from one segment or another of the real estate industry...if not the industry as a whole.

Well, on January 1st, 2010 the rules changed again and there is now a 'standardized' good faith estimate and a new HUD-1 - both of which are intended to further protect the consumers of America when buying a home.

I wrote a blog post on the topic, which was featured and consequently drew a number of comments both in favor and opposed to the new rules.  I'll admit, I did not know much about the new rules until I saw a CAR (California Assoc of REALTORS) email on the topic.  At that point I did some research and rehashed some of what I found in my blog post.

Well, the comments that came back were very enlightening and I definitely learned more of what the rules do and don't do and how they will effect everyone of us in this industry.

Then, I wanted to research this further, here on ActiveRain and realized I could not find a GROUP that focuses on such an important topic to all of our careers. 

So, I started one.

The name of the GROUP is simply RESPA and it can be found at http://activerain.com/groups/RESPA.  The introduction to the group, reads as follows:

RESPA has been a very important minefield in the Real Estate Industry for professionals from every aspect of our industry since 1974. I'm certain that we have a very small segment of our industry that was practicing prior to this date.

This Group is for all of us - agents, lenders, escrow, title, attorneys and vendors...and even the consumer. This group should be transparent at all times - as we should never have anything to hide from each other and the public (other than a few marketing secrets - but that is another group). Use this group to post all of your articles that have anything to do with RESPA so that it may become an educational resource for us to grow and learn.

This is not a bashing group where one segment of our industry has license to bash another anymore than one individual has the right to bash another.

I'll say that this group will be lightly monitored - so please do not abuse it and lets self police - if anyone has a problem, please contact me directly.

Please add this as one of your GROUPS to both post to and research if you ever have a question on RESPA rules.  This is a very large topic with many moving parts that effect each segment of our industry differently.  Together, we can work to letting each other know how this works for us as professionals and how it benefits the consumers... and thereby having a positive impact on our industry, as a whole. 

 

Remember, United We stand and Divided We Fall.  Not sure who said that first - but they knew what they were talking about, didn't they?