NAR Settles Lawsuit with Justice Dept

Hello Jon, you have expressed a most interesting perspective. Thank you for coming by and sharing it.

Hi Larry, that is not what the antitrust unit of the Department of Justice does :-)

Dear Paula, a fair assumption.

Hello Joe, I am sure it will become available soon.

Hi Susie, ActiveRain does provide so much doesn't it? It is an awesome resource and opportunity. I always appreciate your insight.

Christine, thanks for dropping by. It is indeed!

Hi Maureen, as all the information comes to light, all of us will get the reminders. The pursuit of real estate goes on. Thanks for dropping by.

Hi Neal, your comments are a good reminder. Thank you for sharing that valuable insight.

Hi Sally and David, for sure! e-PROs rock!

Hi Leolinda, You do not have to belong to NAR to be a member of the local MLS and to input at listing.

Hey Sam, there certainly is that possibility. We shall see.

Hi Kathy, I am so glad it is over. What happens next we shall all see. In the meantime, we all have work to do. Your head is in the right place.

Hello Lawrence, thank you so much for the links, normally I don't put links in the comments but these times may require exceptions to the rule. Thanks for dropping by and sharing.

Jim, you bet! And I think we are the lucky ones that are ahead of the curve.

Patricia, these are great questions for you and your broker to discuss. They are simply not an area for discussion that I would consider myself expert in. The answers may have legal implications and I am not a lawyer. But I do appreciate you sharing them with us as others likely have the same question. Thanks for dropping by.

Hi Lenn, Me Too! And you are so right. Whatever the local associations/MLS do to impliment the new policy, we each only have to answer to the rules of which we have each agreed to abide by our membership in that respective organization. Great reponse and I am sure glad you offered it here for others to see and take advantage of your sage wisdom.

Hi Larry, Thanks for clarifying that. I do understand your point.

Mitchell, Though it is hard to imagine,as many changes exist today that 5 years ago would have been unimaginable, we are in flux and it will be quite some time before the dust settles and a new direction for the real estate transaction transforms.

I see possibilities and yet would have no way to predict what that day in future looks like. Perhaps a hybrid version of the way business is conducted to today. The online transaction may in fact be the future. With the advent of our RELAY system for the on-line transaction, electronic signatures, the future could be some form of what we couldn't even fathom today. Yet, visionaries will tell you that we will have just such a system within a few short years and maybe even sooner.

The best way to handle all of the this as Howard Brinton would say is to " Get out of judgment and into curiosity". The future is yours, seize it.

Hi Megan, it does make perfect sense. With the advent of the internet, all generations could think of the internet empowerment as having a perfect filing cabinet delivered to your home with essentially everything in the world condensed to a tiny file. It awaits your discovery of it.

Notary, That it has!

Lonn, You aren't missing anything and I think you have it close to right. The new business models ( middlemen) are what we as an industry must learn to wean ourselves from if their valuable service ( pun intended) is expected to ever be minimized. If agents buy from them, they see the value. Teach the agent to fish better and there is no more need.

What we are doing with our efforts in localism and SEO optimization,work directly against the middle man, which is where he started out. The information and the better, the more we attract back the consumer.

SEO just because there is an unfavorable business model out there should not scare us away. It should encourage us to do it better and we will.

Hello Stephen, I can attest to what you are saying. Sometimes the costs are not just money but in many ways a sense of fair play. With RESPA that governed how you could compensate or remunerate someone else almost silent on this 3rd party referral stuff is amazing. You might find it interesting to do a little research and understand who and how RESPA came about. If you knew the story behind it, you might better understand how today the 3rd party aggregators capitalize on our system. If compensations are too high, that is an argument that others can argue. But at least for the number of years I have been involved and I have seen testimony for many decades prior, the REALTORS brought forth substantive change and protect as the Trustees of the land , the rights of private property owners. They work and are involved in the communities from which they come. Some remarkable even amazing efforts have been contributed. The 3rd party aggregators contribute NOTHING. They simply take from the system. Yet they are rewarded as having a right. It is hard to fathom something so unfair but life is NOT necessarily fair. It is driven by money and power and that goes where it will. Like a screw to a magnet. And if you can visualize that, visualize now a piece of ugly scrap metal and the magnet and you will see that the screw is greatly overshadowed. What sticks is not always pretty.

Hi Stephen, Thanks for dropping by and sharing your great insight here. Contradiction does seem to be the rule today, doesn't it? But the best way to fully appreciate it is to " follow the money".

Dean, From the perspective of Google Juice, that may be true. But until I get that Google Juice , at least with the sign rider of the site web address, I have received dozens of calls or inquires including listings, informed calls directly from the site. Unless I am missing something, and would get that activity anyway if there were no property website,  then It would seem that this is yet another arrow in the quiver of marketing tools. Direct sales from the unique property site. Yes, and I think it is useful to have it all. I certainly have no empirical evidence to the contrary but certainly appreciate your thoughts on the subject.