"The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division today filed a lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors (NAR), challenging a policy that obstructs real estate brokers who use innovative Internet-based tools to offer better services and lower costs to consumers. The Department said that NAR's policy prevents consumers from receiving the full benefits of competition and threatens to lock in outmoded business models and discourage discounting."
Isn't it interesting to note that in this instance, it does not specify whether the 'consumers' of the broker are considered agents or the actual homebuyers themselves? Most brokers don't deal with the little people (the little people being the homebuyers themselves) . . . they run shops which employ agents who compete with each other (e.g. artificially inflating property valuations).
''A person selling his/her own property - acting as a For Sale By Owner (or FSBO) - cannot put a listing for the home directly into the MLS. ''
So. . . a decent housing search tool aimed at people who want to sell FSBO to people who are not agents themselves and who don't have buyers' agents would probably go over quite well.
The main challenge here would still be that evil Realtor stranglehold . . . keeping the agents away from the FSBOs.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2005/211008.h...
From the first page of the DOJ complaint:
"The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division today filed a lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors (NAR), challenging a policy that obstructs real estate brokers who use innovative Internet-based tools to offer better services and lower costs to consumers. The Department said that NAR's policy prevents consumers from receiving the full benefits of competition and threatens to lock in outmoded business models and discourage discounting."
Isn't it interesting to note that in this instance, it does not specify whether the 'consumers' of the broker are considered agents or the actual homebuyers themselves? Most brokers don't deal with the little people (the little people being the homebuyers themselves) . . . they run shops which employ agents who compete with each other (e.g. artificially inflating property valuations).
In this wikipedia article on the MLS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Listing_Service):
''A person selling his/her own property - acting as a For Sale By Owner (or FSBO) - cannot put a listing for the home directly into the MLS. ''
So. . . a decent housing search tool aimed at people who want to sell FSBO to people who are not agents themselves and who don't have buyers' agents would probably go over quite well.
The main challenge here would still be that evil Realtor stranglehold . . . keeping the agents away from the FSBOs.