Relocation Issue

I am just writing a mindless blog to express my frustration with a relocation situation that I have recently experienced.  I met a customer, potential client, at one of my listings not too long ago.  I showed my listing, a lovely home situated perfectly on a 5 acre lot in Souther Douglas County, Larkspur, Colorado, and met this wonderful family that I will not name.  In my opinion, we hit it off fairly well and they expressed interest in the property as a potential for their home due to their relocation move with Lowe's.  They had asked if I had worked with relocation in the past and I had, but not with Lowe's.  I gave them my card and we went about the rest of our day.

I received a phone call with questions from Mr. & Mrs. Buyer about other areas in and around the listing I had met them at.  I told them of my familiarity with the areas and planned to send them information and set up showings for a later date.  I was asked for recommendations for a place to stay during their weekend trip and to preview some homes for them.  I was in the next couple of days told that there could be a problem with them working with me because of Lowe's policy that they use a certain company as their relocation agent representative.

I understand that businesses utilize a company to make effort to maximize the services to their employees, but this particular employee had identified an agent and was happy enough with me to work on my behalf to keep me as their agent.  Obviously to no avail.  I would not wish any ill will toward that buyer that "got away", but I do have some ill feelings about this company that is a sponsor of our National Association of Realtors.

In my opinion, this company that is making their pitch to get the business of real estate professionals through our National Association is interrupting the very essence of our industry, competition.  The fact that a member of the public could not use an agent that they wanted to use because of this company's policy makes me not want to endorse them as an accepted sponsor of my National Association.  I am sure that if I were to do something to make an effort to keep a real estate company other than mine from conducting business I would face losing my broker license.  I guess that our National Association doesn't have any issues with this, at least that is what I gather in the reply from our President Elect from an email I sent to him asking for his position on this.

We have been spending money in our local board PSF to keep the practice of real estate from entering in the realm of the large lenders, but this is occurring all around.  Don't believe it, look at the production builders that have their own in-house lenders which afford potential customers to save "thousands" on closing costs, points, etc.  You think that this is not having an impact on the resale market, think again.  Now with big businesses putting the "Mom and Pop" type stores out of business and the practice of their relocation network of agents the independent real estate company is facing an up hill battle.

I can't bring up an issue without a possible solution, so here I go.  Have these businesses establish their relocation network with the Realtor Associations.  Let the different boards (local, state, and national) offer a designation of certified relocation specialist and have the buyer and seller leads become dispursed through that.  This way all agents can take the required courses for the designation and have equal opportunity to compete.  I don't mind missing out on an opportunity because I didn't meet the required qualification as long as I am afforded the opportunity to obtain the required qualification.  That is the spirit of competition in my opinion.  What do you think, and trust me, I have thick skin so let your opinions fly.

I apologize for the lack of graphics in the blog.  I am not as blog savvy as some and I am sure that because of this my post will not be read to completion as often as the fancy ones.  That is the spirit of competition and the reason that this will not make a feature listing.  I promise that I will learn how to spruce it up and submit a posting that has some eye candy within the next 30 days.