President's Perspective

Two-part article:
I. Are we doing anything in Washington?
II. So, what's happening with these MLS fines?

Chris Reese
President

Since we have a combined July/August In Contract, I'm going to address two different issues - one for July and one for August!

Part I (July)
Report from Washington D.C.
Not only are we changing people's lives by advising them in one of the largest financial decisions they make, but we, as REALTORS®, are also the voice they need to represent their homeownership interests. Recently, I found out first hand how our 1.3 million national members carry a voice that can't be ignored in Washington.

Representing our Board as President, I attended the National Association of REALTORS® Legislative Conference in Washington D.C. in May. This conference was designed for four main purposes:

1. To brainstorm & problem-solve membership concerns with other state & local REALTOR® leadership;
2. For national committees to meet, discuss and implement policies;
3. For NAR to inform us of concerns and pending legislation affecting our industry; and
4. For your REALTOR® leadership to actually meet with their Congressional Representatives about issues facing our members, as well as the economic importance of the value of homeownership, and protecting the mortgage interest deduction.

We did meet personally with Representatives Pat Tiberi, Deborah Pryce and Steve Hobson to discuss all of our issues. They were all in fact very agreeable to our concerns. One of the major concerns is the importance of affordable health insurance. Did you realize that, because of the cost, over 18% of NAR members are not insured AT ALL? There are also over 46 MILLION other citizens who work for small businesses who do not have health insurance.
The pending legislation would enable a trade or professional association to band together with small businesses to negotiate lower health insurance costs, giving us access to the same quality and affordable group insurance plans that are available to union workers and employees of large corporations.

Another important issue we will always protect is the ability to deduct mortgage interest on your taxes. This is a key deduction for all primary home owners. In addition, almost 40% of sales last year were investment and second homes. These secondary home owners are also counting on that mortgage interest deduction. We must keep pushing our representatives to defend this.

And you can help! Please respond to every call for action sent by NAR when they ask us to send and email letters to our Representatives. They've made it very simple - just to point & click. When our email is sent, you can be assured that those letters are COUNTED.

Part II (August)
So, what's going on with MLS fines?
Remember why we started all of this in the first place? Members were trying to get an edge on the competition by manipulating data. The MLS committee would sit for hours and hear violation after violation. Finally a task force was formed to explore this problem and find a solution. After many months of research they recommended a fining system for those who violate. The fining system is in place to punish those violators, not those of us who try to obey the rules. Yes, occasionally all of us make innocent mistakes, and I would agree that it is does not seem fair that mistakes made without intent to violate the rules should be fined. But, how do you draw that line?

After the fine policy was in place for 2 months, I called on a new task force, made up of different MLS committee members and directors to review and recommend any changes. The new task force reviewed every detail. Their recommendation was that, because we do not want to penalize innocent mistakes, in certain fields, a one-time 24 hour correction notice would be given before a fine would be imposed. A member then should be educated in that field not to make the same mistake again.

In Washington, I also met with our vendors at Realist to see about auto-populating many of our fields such as Municipality, City, Area, Parcel Number (the correct way), and so on. They do realize the importance of this and are working to have this system up and running soon. This should make it easier for all of us. Many offices have gone to a policy to avoid mistakes by printing out an "agent full" report, then having that agent proof-read it carefully & sign-off that it's good to go.

By the way, I met with other large Board Presidents in Washington and every single one of them has a fining system in place and has had for YEARS!

Finally, some have said that CBR is doing this to "make money". There's only ONE reason that CBR is doing this -  to ensure ACCURATE DATA for its members. And speaking of members...that's who CBR is made of! Any fine money collected will go first to pay the staff person required to administer the system, then to be disbursed right back to us, in the form of system enhancements, better technology, and/or dues reduction!

The mistakes have dropped dramatically, the purposeful violators have been curtailed, our organization has become more professional, our data is more accurate, and now we move on... Happy Selling!