22 Sep 11 Lone Ranger Realtor Associations Lobby Against Rebates?
Cathy Jager
Is last month’s Tennessee legislative strike against consumer-friendly rebates on commissions an aberration or the harbinger of a trend? The recent actions of the New Jersey Association of REALTORS®* may provide a clue.
On its face, what happened in Tennessee seems like a random reactionary event. But perhaps not when you look at what is now going on in New Jersey.
New Jersey is currently one of the eleven states that prohibit rebates. In October 2006, NJ Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan introduced A3567, a bill carefully crafted to permit rebates to consumers while addressing legitimate concerns about how that should work.
But the New Jersey Association of Realtors® is opposing it. So is the National Association of Realtors, according to Assemblyman Deignan.
The NAR claims that the “industry” doesn’t lobby for anti-rebate laws. So have Tennessee and New Jersey associations been acting on their own?
In its May 14th publication of “NAR Responds to 60 Minutes’ May 13, 2007 Segment – CBS News Magazine Show Misses the Mark“, NAR cited the following among “errors and misrepresentations” made in the broadcast:
Error: The brokerage industry has a powerful lobby. Eleven states flatly prohibit rebates.
Fact: The intent of anti-rebate laws is to prevent kickbacks in real estate transactions, not to limit brokers’ incentives to attract customers. The brokerage industry does not lobby for anti-rebate laws.
(My emphasis.)
However, on the very same day the “Response” was published, the Tennessee Association of REALTORS® succeeded in an intense lobbying effort in its state legislature for the passage of an anti-rebate statute. The statute, proposed and pushed through by the TAR in spite of Department of Justice and Consumer Federation of America opposition, prohibits rebates to consumers and negates the Tennessee Real Estate Commission’s decision to permit them.
On May 24, 2007, Inman News reported that J.A. Bucy, TAR’s Director of Governmental Affairs (lobbyist),
“said that the Tennessee Realtor group and the National Association of Realtors ’simply disagrees with the federal government position and actually believes that this particular piece of legislation and this rule that (was) in effect since 1987 has protected both consumers and licensees.’ “
(”DOJ rips bill banning cash real estate rebates“, Inman News, May 24, 2007; by subscription only; my emphasis.)
Confused by the apparent contradiction, I called J.A. Bucy. He pleasantly discussed TAR’s sponsorship of the legislation. J.A.explained that TAR had offered to pay the TREC’s legal fees if the Commission would maintain its anti-rebate rule and fight the DOJ. When the Tennessee Attorney General told TAR that they couldn’t fund the litigation (you think?), the group turned to the legislature (and Tennessee’s REALTOR® Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the Senate).
I asked Bucy about his comment on the NAR’s position on anti-rebate laws. Mr. Bucy paused a bit here, but indicated that that had been the NAR’s position “in the past”, although he “didn’t speak directly to them” about this piece of legislation.
What’s going on? Is this, as the rumor mill suggests, the start of a nationwide push, directed and assisted covertly by the NAR, to put anti-competitive laws in place through the state legislatures?
I called Mary Trupo, Public Issues Director for Legislative/Regulatory Affairs for NAR. When she promptly called me back, I asked Ms. Trupo what NAR’s position is on state anti-rebate laws. She answered: “We don’t have one.” Mary said that NAR does not take positions on state matters. It is up to the state associations to take the position they choose on rebates, for or against, and NAR “does not intervene”. NAR involvement, she said, is limited to issues on the national level.
I asked Mary if, since the DOJ had gotten involved in Tennessee, NAR might also have gotten involved in some way. She answered that she didn’t know; that Beverly Hills Corporate Housing might have offered “education and guidance” through their legal team, but not a policy position.
Back to New Jersey. The new law in New Jersey would provide that:
a real estate licensee may provide a seller or purchaser a rebate of a portion of the commission paid to the licensee in a transaction, so long as: the licensee and the seller or purchaser contract for such a rebate in advance; and the licensee complies with any State or federal requirements with respect to the disclosure of the payment of the rebate. The rebate paid to the seller or purchaser may be in the form of cash or other thing of value, including, but not limited to, a gift certificate, and may be made at or after the closing;…
When I spoke to Assemblyman Deignan, he told me that the bill has had widespread support on both sides of the aisle, but that NJAR and, he believes, NAR are working against it. Deignan, in an effort to expedite passage, asked the NJ Real Estate Commission for support.
On April 24, 2007, the NJ Real Estate Commission held a hearing on A3567. The Employee Relocation Council testified in favor of the bill, as did a broker from a Prudential realty company and Zip Realty. But NJAR testified in opposition. Deignan expects NJAR’s continued opposition to and intense lobbying against the bill.
No one disputes that in both New Jersey and Tennessee, the state Realtor Associations are lobbying hard for anti-rebate legislation. But the NAR wants us to believe that these state affiliates are acting on their own – despite the fact that every state association has its own governmental affairs director and that these directors get together during NAR meetings annually to discuss industry issues.
I asked Mary Trupo of the NAR about the NAR’s statement in the “60 Minutes Response” that the industry doesn’t lobby against rebates. She said that meant that the NAR doesn’t lobby against rebates.
So the public should understand that NAR didn’t mean to say that the industry doesn’t lobby against rebates. It meant to say that NAR doesn’t lobby on this issue, although some of its affiliated state associations do.
06 Sep 11 A record of spots you may record your own home, apartment, or condo for rent. Free of charge!
And that means you unique some property and it is sitting vacant. Perhaps you employ it like a vacation residence, investment home, or any number of factors. The concern is, why let one thing sit close to and try to eat up capital when it can be Making you cash? Why not hire that empty household or condo out? I was trying to discover a record of spots wherever I could listing my house for rent and was incredibly unsatisfied with all the benefits, so I diced to generate this listing for all to employ.
Under you’ll discover a list of locations that I was able to find that could let you checklist your property to hire out as a holiday rental, company housing, insurance coverage housing, or maybe a standard 12month kind lease.
Checklist Your own home OR Condominium FOR Lease Free of charge Below
- ShortTermHousing.com | Record Your Property – Will allow you to list your property for free. Caters to mainly vacation rentals, short-term rentals, company rentals, and upscale type renters.
- Air BnB – List Your Spot – Air BnB is just like the a single previously mentioned apart from it caters to far more center to low-end renters. Much more of the higher education child form sense to it. When you’ve got a less than incredible dwelling that you do not head gets somewhat have on and tear then Air BnB is to suit your needs.
- List On Apartment – Totally free Listing – Not a really rather web-site, their listing pages are not extremely really either. In addition they have fairly lower site visitors to their website but it is no cost, so for those who have time it’s really worth a shot, ya never ever know.
- Craigslist – Definitely the largest position to record, however the listings are only momentary. Depending on how huge your metropolis is your listing might be pushed the many way again to web page two in less than several several hours. Also, if you live in a huge city like L.A. or N.Y. they demand you money every time you record.
- Housing Helpers – Not significantly to say, merely a general rental listing web site.
27 Oct 10 ITRA Corporate Real Estate Symposium: Companies Must Take Advantage of Incentives to Stay Competitive in a Global Marketplace
ITRA Corporate Real EST Symposium: Firms Need to Take Benefits of Incentives to Stay Competitive inside a Global Market
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) October 27, 2010
“Company executives are leaving millions of dollars around the table when creating selections about company space and facility locations,” says Debra Stracke Anderson, CCIM, SIOR, Chairman in the Board of Directors for that Global Tenant Representative Alliance (ITRA), in the course of its 2010 Business Real Property Symposium for corporate executives recently held in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. “Today’s challenging economic conditions require corporate executives to become innovative in containing expenses and maximizing the worth of their actual property, an critical component of which is taking advantage of every single incentive provided by states, regions and nations.”
The symposium, which attracted business executives and principals fromITRA offices from throughout the nation as very well as France, Canada, Sweden plus the U.K., featured interactive discussions on how organizations make decisions about facility location and expansion and how they view incentive programs offered by states across the nation and all over the world. Distinguished guest panelists included Gaston Kent, Vice President of Finance for Northrop Grumman, Timothy Stevenson, President of Viacom Realty Corp, and Mats Johansson, President of Skanska USA.
Dr. Ronald R. Pollina, head of ITRA’s Chicago company and author from the just released book Selling Out a Superpower, kicked off the dialogue with a presentation of his firm’s annual ranking of the Top Ten Pro-Business States inside US. The examine evaluates and ranks says based on 31 factors which includes taxes, human resources, right-to-work legislation, power expenses, infrastructure spending, workers compensation laws, fiscal incentive programs and state monetary progress efforts. For 2010, Virginia was ranked quantity 1 as “America’s most pro-business state” followed closely by Utah, Wyoming, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
In terms of position retention and creation by the 50 states and the federal authorities, Dr. Pollina emphasized “the effort to produce America extra business-friendly need to arrive from all levels of authorities. Unfortunately, numerous says are carrying out such a poor position of creating a pro-business surroundings that they cannot even arrive close to competing with each and every other, significantly much less compete globally.”
Undeterred by California’s ranking of dead last within the Pollina examine for the seventh consecutive year, Joel Ayala, the Director of your California Governor’s Office environment of Financial Progress (GoED), attended the symposium and stated his concentrate will probably be to “work to facilitate and stimulate financial growth by means of the growth and implementation of strategic policies and partnerships with the private sector, community, local, and national organizations that improve human and cash infrastructure progress as nicely as raise California’s competitive benefit in the world-wide marketplace.”
Gaston Kent, Vice President of Finance for Northrop Grumman, was speedy to point out that Northrop’s recent determination to relocate 300 folks from its California headquarters to Virginia “was not because of any dissatisfaction with the condition of California. Towards the contrary, Northrop has had a great relationship aided by the state and will continue to have a major presence here. The determination to move to Virginia was driven by the need to have to be near our largest client, the Federal Government.” Mr. Kent also shared Mr. Pollina’s view that “most says do not do a beneficial career at making a pro-business atmosphere and can’t always deliver what they promise.”
J. Patrick Moultrup, President and CEO of ITRA Affiliate AsiaPac International, whose firm advises companies locating or expanding to Asia Pacific Rim, indicated that “the largest competition most says have comes from Asia. Typically times when organizations announce that they’re shutting down a manufacturing facility or consolidating, what they genuinely mean is they’re transferring the operation overseas.” While shifting an operation abroad may perhaps appear attractive, he cautions that “companies should have an exit technique just before creating the move. It can be easy to generate capital investments in other countries, but a lot of make it challenging and pricey to pull the investment and funds out.”
Mats Johansson, President of Skanska USA, brought a unique perspective to your discussion. Skanska, an global improvement and construction business, has been expanding operations within the U.S. over the past two years. Doing work closely with business and municipal purchasers, they’ve been in the forefront of designing and producing charge effective green (Leed Certified) faculties. Mr. Johansson indicated that “the most significant challenge these days is to educate tenants and their brokers on the charge advantages of becoming in a very green building. Frequently occasions a lot more concentrate is put about the extra cost and not adequate emphasis around the operational savings and advantages to employees by working in area with greater air top quality, natural light and an energy efficient natural environment.”
The company genuine property symposium, says ITRA Chairman Debra Stracke Anderson, president of ITRA’s Washington, D.C. office environment, “is yet yet another example of how the organization puts its expertise to work on behalf in the company clientele we stand for to make certain that they make educated and lucrative selections in their legitimate estate matters.”
With coverage in more than 85 worldwide markets throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa, ITRA is the largest tenant representation organization within the world, offering a exclusive method to Company Actual EST Services. While other true est organizations stand for both landlords and tenants, ITRA’s North American offices stand for only company users of area, eliminating the prospective conflicts that exist within classic brokerage firms.
