ronnieg's Blog: General Real Estate

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) and US Department of Justice (DOJ) have different opinions on how home listings should be owned, managed and displayed. Supposedly at the core of this debate is consumer rights, and benefits to the public. But which consumers? And what part of the public?

From the very beginning, NAR and its Realtor Association members have primarily supported the interests of listing brokers, the real estate agents and their companies that serve home sellers by marketing their homes. Historically, all brokers truly represented only the sellers in a real estate transaction. It has only been in the last couple of decades that the issues of home buyer rights, especially their right to equal and independent representation in the… Read Full Post

This question is often discussed in local and national news articles, but I never see a "grass roots" explanation of why creating such an "all inclusive" database and allowing consumer access to it is such an issue. I hope this information will help people understand why this is so.

First, it must be realized that a property listing is legally just like any other written creation. It has an author, and that author owns the publication rights to their creation. In the case of a property listing, the author is the listing broker. In turn, the listing broker must have a valid listing contract with the seller, in which, and during the limited term of the contract, the seller grants the listing broker the authority to disclose certain non-public information… Read Full Post