"6% - Realtors’ sacrosanct commission rate of 6 percent may be in jeopardy due to emerging online competition from Internet real estate sellers and buyers. Lesley Stahl reports. Richard Bonin is the producer."

Good timing HA! I don't care what percentage homes are listed for, in my neighborhood they just are not selling like they used to and online competition is not going to make any difference.
I think giving sellers some hope and solutions vs. the "sacrosanct" 6% commission barrier would be more helpful reporting in today’s economy.

May 8, 2007—The long-awaited 60 Minutes segment on real estate will air on CBS this Sunday at 7 PM Eastern and Pacific Times. After dealing with the 60 Minutes investigative reporters for more than a year, here is what we expect.

The segment by Leslie Stahl will focus on the impact of the internet on the brokerage business and focus on the emergence of “Internet” business models and contrast them with “traditional” full-service model. The show will include a lengthy interview with Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, the Seattle-based company that claims to be “the industry's first online brokerage for residential real estate.” The piece will include interviews with sales agents for full-service brokerages in the Seattle area. It may also include some footage from the NAR annual meeting in New Orleans, where a 60 Minutes crew was on site for three days.

The segment may mention NAR’s anti-trust lawsuit over our Internet listing display policy but it will not delve into the topic in any depth. NAR staff spent many hours educating the CBS producers about the issue and they decided not to get into the issue. Nor will the segment likely discuss at length minimum service rules or other issues raised by critics like the Consumer Federation of America like the make-up of real estate commissions.

Once they delved into the charges and counter charges surrounding competition in real estate, the producers found that the whole topic was much more complex and not nearly as clear cut as it appeared. The entire segment was almost killed this spring. However, CBS apparently decided that it had so much invested in the story that it went ahead with a highly abridged version.

Bottom line is that we don’t expect that the segment will make Realtors happy but it could have been much, much worse. Be glad that it’s Mother’s Day and the show will probably draw fewer than its average 14 million viewers.

How to Respond to 60 Minutes

Here are some talking points should you get calls from members or local media:

· (for members) NAR and many brokerages worked for the past 12 months with 60 Minutes producers to educate them about the industry and to correct misconceptions created by the Justice Department and our critics. The fact is that the segment represents a very small part of the issues 60 Minutes explored and the segment that aired could have been much worse.

· [name of your board/association] supports all business models and favors none. Our membership includes at least Realtors who work on a full service basis as well as those who consider themselves to be limited service, fee-for-service, minimum service, and discounters.

· Real estate is a highly competitive business. About one in every 86 adults is a Realtor. During this market slowdown, it has become even more competitive.

· The real estate industry has harnessed technology to for the benefit of consumers, and will continue to do so. Real estate is both high tech and high touch.

· There is no such thing as a “standard commission.” Commissions are negotiable and prices vary. The fact is that commission rates have decreased 16% from 1991 to 2004 (source: Real Trends).

Do You Believe in Coincidences? DOJ Issues Two Year Old “Report”

The week before the 60 Minutes segment is scheduled—and NAR’s Midyear Meeting—the Department of Justice issued a “report” based entirely on a “workshop” loaded with industry critics held in October, 2005.

Much has happened in the world in the past 18 months. For at little perspective: in October, 2005, President Bush nominated Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Fed; the Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros to sweep the World Series; and home sales were near record highs in all regions.

DoJ’s report was almost ignored by the media, generating a modest AP story and an article in Inman. Go here for a copy of the DoJ news release: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/May/07_at_335.html and go here for a copy of the “report”: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/reports/223094.pdf.

Below is NAR’s response.

WASHINGTON (May 8, 2007) – Pat V. Combs, 2007 president of the National Association of RealtorsÒ released the following statement on a government report:

“The real estate industry is dynamic, entrepreneurial and fiercely competitive. Nearly 1.3 million Realtors in more than 200,000 active office locations and branches provide consumers everywhere an extraordinary selection of qualified professionals offering a variety of business models to meet their real estate needs.

“For the past 25 years, the association has conducted membership education and training programs to ensure compliance with anti-trust law. The report released today is based on a government workshop on competition in the real estate industry that was held nearly two years ago.

“The Internet is making real estate even more competitive and more transparent to consumers. Many sources of information are readily available online, but most home buyers and sellers who use a real estate agent depend on that agent to provide information about the buying and selling process and to interpret information about their market. Consequently, most home buyers start the process by searching online for home listings as well as information about mortgages and related real estate services, but nearly 80 percent still look to a real estate agent to find and finalize the transaction. Reputation, experience and professionalism are still noted as the most important qualities to home buyers and sellers when hiring an agent.”

For Further Information on this issue of Operation Tip-Off

Contact Steve Cook, VP of Public Affairs and Strategic Planning, at scook@realtors.org 202 383-1014.

Operation TIP-OFF is a service to Realtor® leaders from NAR Public Affairs. It is a cooperative exchange of intelligence and information on news media coverage of issues critical to Realtors. Operation TIP-OFF will provide Realtor leaders advance information on potentially news-making events. Feel free to share this information and document with your RealtorÒ members.

IMO, 60 Minutes reports are mostly biased towards the left, and that Andy so and so at the end is a royal pain who is tired and needs to be retired. He is preventing someone else from making a living by having his mug on the TV week after weak.

My other peeve is NAR. I only belong because I AM FORCED TO. I really, really hate to pay dues to NAR and it looks like all of our dues went to pay for that fancy building they now own while they keep their heads in the sand regarding our faltering real estate market and sending out LIVING IN LA LA LAND stats. I consider my state's association enough to keep us informed and on tract.

I'm done....and I promise not to watch 60 Minutes this Sunday.

Actually, it looks like its going to be a Leslie Stahl report. Not that that makes it better, but it does sound like NAR worked with her & 60 mins to try to balance out the report

what are your thoughts. i am getting ready for dinner, i will post my htoughts in a bit.

oh and by the way, i bet i coudl list (not sell) every home i walk by if i rebate all of my commission.

Wow is all I have to say. This is bad not only for agents, but for buyers and sellers. The seller won't actually save that much money if you think about it. They still have to pay the 3K and still have to pay 3% for the buyer's agent. Their home will sit on the market for so long it won't be worth it, plus they don't get the staging or advice we provide. I'm also betting that their agents aren't available 24 hours a day like we are. Plus if its a 200K property they don't save ANYTHING. They will only save 3,000. But, what it boils down to is nothing after they pay for marketing, time, lack of negotiating, and extra time on market.

I also hated the fact that I know they edited a lot of what the Remax agent said. She should have addressed the above facts.

I saw it and was struck by the seemingly one sided nature of the story... Discount good, traditional bad.

I was also disappointed that the lady being questioned representing the traditional side was not more prepared for the interview. I wish she had expounded a bit more on the differences between buying a book online and a house (perhaps it was edited out).

All in all it wasn't that surprising. The classic battle between the poor little web designer trying to help humanity fight the evil traditional brokerage.

Awww man did i miss it?

What time did it start here in pst? Southern Cali

What is this 60 Minutes you speak of?

I saw it. I thought it was very negative and destructive for agents. It certainly was very biased but I think most consumers aren't going to think about that. What they *will* remember is the couple who saved $24K in commission costs by allegedly doing everything an agent would have done.

ABC ran a similar piece last year on Good Morning America. Also, very biased. And, again, the agent they interviewed for the other side of this story was not a very good spokesperson either.

But, who knows what was left on the cutting room floor?

This whole topic is kind of like beating a dead horse. MOST homeowners are not WILLING to do the hard work necessary to make selling their home easy. Thats why we have jobs. "Traditional" agents aren't going to go away. Yes, some FSBOs sell on their own, and discounters DO sell houses, but for those of us willing to bust our butts to sell ourselves and our services will do just fine.

Here's something to remember... MOST homeowners will list with the first agent they talk to (most won't even interview a second agent).....put yourself in front of homeowners, and you'll have business.

Here's the 60 minute link.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/11/60minutes/main2790865.shtml

I've been preachign this for ten years to my agents. People can do a lot of things in life themselves but they don't. The online companies attract fsbos. These fsbos now have access to a lot of the tools we use. Good for them. I'm glad they're using a realtor for at least some of the service.

The fsbo marketing is a dying breed. The online companies are growing. See the trend?

Just saw it. I have encounter buyers at open house using redfin, in my market.

i dont feel threatened by the discounters, and i am mad at the fact that the number of dollars that the buyers saved was brought up without bringing up the fact that statistically they could have made more money with an agent than with a discounter or on their own.

let me tell you how to get all listings you come across

list for whatever price the seller wants, no matter how unrealistic.

cut your commission to a level that no one can compete with you, even if it means it is not worth your time.

let the seller do all of the negotiations for all offers coming in since they know more about htat than an agent who does deals constantly.



we still have accountants, even though we can do our taxes on our own. i would not stop using my accountant. i guess we are in the same boat.

some use turbotax(discounter), some use a cpa(full service)

though that is a weak analogy since the turbotax could be considered a fsbo, it is hte closest i could come up with at 11 p.m.

i am curious what hte discounters on the forum have to say about the show. please respond.