Dishin' Dirt on 10 Ways NAR Can Stop Sucking & Why You Should Support SC Realtors and Local Associations

I have had many conversations with Realtors who espouse their anger over how things are being run at NAR. In fact 62% of Realtors in a national poll have stated so.  Today I offer Ten "suggestions" for NAR that will help it suck less.  

In providing this list it is done with a belief that NAR is probably the only group standing between you and the morons in the government screwing you more.  And it is also done with a belief in the value of SCR and the local associations. 

Let me know what your thoughts are. Hopefully NAR will start to make the necessary changes to win back its members. 

Don't forget to like us and share us!
Gary

* Gary serves on the South Carolina Real Estate Commission as a Commissioner. The opinions expressed herein are his opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the SC Real Estate Commission. This podcast is not to be considered legal advice. Please consult an attorney in your area. 

Don't forget to like us and share us!
Gary

* Gary serves on the South Carolina Real Estate Commission as a Commissioner. The opinions expressed herein are his opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the SC Real Estate Commission. This podcast is not to be considered legal advice. Please consult an attorney in your area.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

This is Dish and Dirt with Gary Pickering, South Carolina's only podcast dedicated to the real estate agent craft. And now the host of Dish and Dirt, Gary Pickering.

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

And greens. Welcome back, everyone, to another award winning episode of Dish and Dirt. I'm your often opinionated but rarely wrong host, Gary Pickering. Coming to you from the beautiful downtown Columbia offices of Blair Cato, this, the last week of September 2024. So today we have a very provocative and interesting show for you. We're going to talk about how NAR could suck less. It's not to say that I'm not a big fan of the Realtors Association, but I do believe that NAR has sucked of recent and could suck a whole lot less by taking some of my advice on the 10 issues that I think they could handle that would make them suck a lot less in the eyes of their members. And how do we know that members think they suck right now? There's two stats. One, 62% of members believe that NAR sucks right now. They have said that they disapprove of how NAR is handling its business. And 63% disapprove of how they handle the lawsuit. And I would be part of that, 62% and 63%. Again, not to say that I don't respect what the state and the local levels are doing. I just think at the national level, there's a lot of sucking going on. Those stats came from HousingWire from their due So, I can tell you, if that was as of June 26th, I would think those numbers have probably grown exponentially as the settlement effects have come into play. So, we're going to talk about that, and we're going to talk about the 10 things. But before we do that, I want to talk real quickly about a couple of events, a couple of announcements. Number one, October 1st, our South Carolina Military Family Care Association event. We've done that every year for about the past 10 years, I would say, and we're raising money for that wonderful organization where 100% of all We'll be right back. our Malden event, which will be on October 24th. We've had that for many years. It's a tailgate of party and we're going to have a band and great food and beer and a lot of prizes and games and so forth. And Matt Kelly does an excellent job of putting that on every year. So go ahead and mark that on your calendar, October 1, October 24th. You can come to both of them if you'd like. We'd love to have you come to both. I also wanted to thank the Real Estate Commission. I was reelected by the commissioners last week, I believe it was, to serve another four-year term on the Real Estate Commission. I just completed my first four-year term and I will be starting my second one. I'm real proud of the work that we've been able to do the past four years of really looking at it a little bit different. And the way we've kind of started looking at it is how can we protect the public? And one of the ways we can protect the public is to better educate and train and provide information to the agents. And I think we've done a lot to get that done. So I'd like to see what the next four years provides for us. But that's going to be our goal, protect the public and enhance the job of the real estate licensee. Lastly, as you know, I told you a couple of weeks ago that We were opening a downtown office in Greenville, and that's going to be at the Commons. The building's built. They're just finishing out the upfit, and that will probably be the first of the year before we're actually in there. But in the interim, we have opened up a temporary spot at Judson Mill at the Jud Hub, which is one of those workplaces that you share. And it's got a pretty cool vibe to it. I think you'll like it a lot. And Adam will be doing closings out there. So if you're ready to start doing closings downtown, it's about a mile from where we will be once we finish our outfit of the commons, but you'll see a wonderful office out there at Judd Hub, and you can go ahead and start doing the closing. So let Adam know, let Kelly know, and we'll get all of those closings scheduled for you at the Judd Hub as you start doing the closings with us in the downtown offices of Greenville. So we're very excited about that. Now, let's go ahead and move right over into our show today and talk about the NAR, 10 things they can do to suck less. There are a lot of real estate agents out there that are very upset with NAR, and that's They have espoused that to me, whether I've seen you at an event, playing golf, eating lunch, having a beer, whatever. I've had many, many agents tell me they're just done with NAR and they want to be done and they want to be out of it. But a lot of the reasons they espouse, while valid, may not be in the best interest of everybody. And let's talk about that. I think a lot of people are very upset, rightfully so, about the sexual harassment cases, but they're also very upset about this commission case, that in the end, why was this so screwed up and so long and so dragged out when the bottom line is the essential nature of what we did was adding a sentence that says commissions are not set by law and they're fully negotiable. I mean, that's really the major outcome of this whole case is one and a half billion dollar verdict that turned into almost a half a billion dollar settlement. And that's where we are. We got a nice little statement now in one of our documents that commissions are not set by law and they're fully negotiable. But a lot of people are angry about it. And I think they have valid reasons to be angry. But I don't think they're recognizing the value of the association. I think it's perfectly fine. It's not hypocritical to be pissed off at NAR. Personally, I'm pissed at them. I think they did a horrific job on this. But at the same time, to be very thankful for the job that SCR, South Carolina Realtor Association, as well as all your local associations have done for you. I think all real estate's local. I think your association's local. And I think what the state has done for you at the state level, what the local associations do for you every day at the local level is great. And you need to recognize that's where your value is. So be pissed at NAR. That's perfectly fine. But how are you mad at SCR? How are you mad at the local associations when these organizations are spending so much time and effort to educate you? And not just about this mess, but to educate you with continual education, to have those classes available to you online, to have them available to you in person. They also have regular meetings where they bring in people to educate you on issues. They've educated you through this message. They didn't create this mess. SCR and local associations, they didn't create this mess. And I'm sure they're just as pissed off about it from a practical point as you are. Nobody's happy about this. And they've been the one left holding the bag trying to navigate through this process. And I think they've done a very good job. I know Austin seems like he's on the road every day doing another speech on this. Byron's out there speaking on this. They're doing webinars. Nick is running his podcast. And so they're doing a good job trying to get the information out. Is it messy? sure, because no one knows what's going to happen here, and we're all trying to navigate through this. But they're doing what they can to help you. Some other things you might not know is that even before this lawsuit, your local associations typically are having broker roundtables where they're having high-level discussions with your brokers about issues that are pending or coming up or in the works coming up, and they're trying to educate your broker on how to best advise you. They're also out there lobbying for you. Could you imagine how awful it would be if these morons at the government level did not have somebody lobbying them, telling them not to do something, it's not that just NAR and SCR are out there lobbying to get our bills passed. They're lobbying trying to stop these morons in the government from doing more to you. I mean, if you really want to see some of the dumbest people in the world when it comes to real estate, go look at your local officials, whether they're state, federal, or local. It doesn't matter. They're all morons. They have no idea what they're doing when it comes to real estate, but they're passing laws that do affect everybody. And it is absolutely astounding how stupid they are. They truly have no idea what you do as a real estate agent. But if it wasn't for NAR and SCR out there trying to educate them, good gracious, could you imagine the crap they would come up with? It would be 10 times worse than it is. But they're out there trying to fight this. And that is probably the biggest thing they did. If you go back to COVID just four years ago, if it was up to the government, you would have been out of a job. They would have shut your ass down and you would not have been working. But Henry McMaster declared us essential. Why? Well, I believe it's because of the work of people like SCR. I think they went out there and demanded that people had to have housing. We couldn't shut the housing industry down. Another thing they do is the forms. Uniformed forms, having forms such as the offer rejection form, the contracts, all of these forms are created by the real association and shared with you so that we don't have 30 different contracts going around, 30 different exclusive right to sales going around. It would be an utter nightmare in real estate if we had to have 30 different contracts and every time we had a contract, somebody's got to review it to make sure it's okay. That uniformity is huge. And they also come to every single real estate commission meeting. Austin Smallwood's at every single one of them and he's all has a second, a few minutes at the end, public comments, to make a comment, to ask questions, and ask for guidance. And those are matters that he's bringing that are matters y'all have brought to them. So there's a lot of value there. Recognize the value. Like I said, be pissed off at NARV. I'm pissed at NARV, as I said. But recognize the value here for SER and for all the local associations. Now let's talk about what NAR needs to do. Now I want to preface this by saying I don't have all the information in front of me. These are things that I have noticed from my perceptions of what it looks like. And somebody out there who might be in the know might say, well, that's not how the money works here, or there's not this money that y'all think there is. But I'm looking just based on an associate member of the Realtor Association looking from the outside in and seeing what it looks like to me. So these are the things that I think they could do to less suck and to make more of their agents feel better about what they do. And I will tell you, if you ever want to see how angry agents are, go to M& news and look at the comments after news stories, or go to Reddit and look at all the comments there, and you will see how angry nationwide realtors are. And realtors are rightfully mad at this. So let's talk about it. Number one, I believe that the NAR needs to apologize to all agents, not just realtors, but all agents, because what they have done in this settlement and in this lawsuit that most of us believe they handled horrifically affects every single real estate agent, not just realtors. Somehow, they became the gatekeeper of all agents, all licensees, even though the association only encompasses about 60% of the agents. So 40% of the agents who aren't even realtors are embroiled in this and got all mixed up in this. And so I think they owe an apology to everybody. But they also own an explanation. Explain how it got so bad. How did they allow a lawsuit in It was largely based on collusion, that the realtors all got together and somehow colluded to set the rate of commission. I've never seen one of those meetings in 30 years. I've never heard of anybody getting together talking about what the commission rate is. It just happened in the marketplace, no different than personal injury lawyers. The very ambulance-chasing jackass himself, Michael Ketchmark, who, by the way, that's what he does for a living. He's not some great antitrust lawyer. He's an ambulance chaser. He's a personal injury lawyer. And he always takes a third. I can guarantee it. I've been practicing law for 30 years and every personal injury lawyer has always taken a third. Was there some special meeting with personal injury lawyers where they all sat down and said, hey, let's charge a third? No, it just happened. That's what the marketplace said. Same thing with your commission. So how did the association screw that up so badly? And why didn't they prove what real estate agents do at trial? Why did they let Gary Keller get up there and get hammered about how much money he makes and stupid comments that he had made about never negotiating the commissions? Why didn't they put agents, practicing agents up there, talk about how hard they work and all the things they do for families to put them in the house? And by the way, the average salary for a real estate agent is under about$50,000. Why do they have somebody like that up there talking? Why didn't they go in there and talk about how real estate agents don't sell houses? Because that's what they let us all believe is what real estate agents do, is they sell houses. Real estate agents don't sell houses. They don't own the house. It's not their house. What real estate agents do is they navigate you through a transaction. They are a service industry. They provide a service, just like Michael Ketchmark provides a service. He sues people for you. Real estate agents help you navigate a process in home buying or home selling. But that wasn't done. And they were absolutely horrific in it. So I think the association needs to first apologize and explain why they made a mess of this. Now, secondly, it's just something I find interesting. And these are in no particular order, by the way. It's not in the order of importance. I just kind of randomly thought of these off the top of my head the other day. I find it interesting that the National Association's image is so bad, but they don't do anything to fix it. And what I mean here is, why is the association still headquartered at 430 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, one of the most expensive and crime-ridden towns in the entire country? And to make matters worse, it's on the Magnificent Mile, which is one of the most expensive pieces of property in the United States. Why? Now, I know the association was formed in Chicago and they've been there for 35 years, but organization's move all the time to find cheaper places. Imagine how much money they could save if they were no longer on the magnificent mile in Chicago and was in a more reasonable market like Nashville or even Greenville, South Carolina. The amount of rent they would save. Think also of the amount of cost they would save in employment. As you know, it costs a whole lot more money to employ somebody in Chicago than it would, say, in South Carolina. So it's a very bad perception. Now, I haven't run the numbers. I don't know those numbers to be true. I mean, I think anybody with a reasonable mind considering go Chicago is a whole lot more expensive than Nashville or Greenville or Oklahoma City or Tulsa or a million other cities they could be in. And when you've got a tremendous image problem of an organization that's detached from its members and spending money, writing$418 million checks, it's a bad look to be in Chicago in the most expensive real estate area in the state or actually in the country. So move out of Chicago. Change your image. Number three, cut dues. I have heard more real estate agents say how appalled they were when they found out how many hundreds of millions of dollars that the association had and their dues continue to go up. Now, I don't know if it's financially possible to cut dues. If it's not, you might want to explain that to your members. But everybody read the articles about how many hundreds of millions of dollars were sitting there. If there's hundreds of millions of dollars sitting around, why are we not cutting the dues to the association members? If there was no money in the association, it would have been pretty darn hard for them to sue you for all that money. But that was one of the big things they showed at trial was how many hundreds of millions of dollars the association has. Again, remember, this is a trade organization. What is your mission as a trade organization? Is it to make hundreds of millions of dollars like a private company would? Or is it to service your members as a trade organization? I think it's the latter. So having all this money without cutting your dues doesn't seem like it's hitting the mission. Number four and number five, both of them go together here. I think you need to disassociate from the MLS. I don't understand why NAR is in the MLS business. Why are they involved in it at all? because that seems to be what got this whole matter going. If the associations had no involvement in the MLSs, then it wouldn't have been a problem. And I've heard it time and time been told to me that they don't make any money on the MLSs. I find that hard to believe. I've had a couple agents tell me that was completely crazy. I have to kind of agree. Why would y'all be in the MLSs if you don't make money? Obviously, you make something. But why are the MLSs associated with the associations? They should not be, in my opinion. I'd like the model here in Colombia, where you have the Consolidated Multiple Listing Service, which is not part of any association. Why is it? Why should it ever be? Those need to be disassociated with. Get rid of all of them, make them into nonprofits like CMLS is, and be done with it. And then you don't have to worry about these type of lawsuits. Which brings me to number five, is Why in the hell do you require an NAR membership to get access to the MLS? What they require you, and I just found this out myself because as we move into these new markets, I want to get on the MLS. Remember, I have a broker's license so I can get on the multiple listing service. And I start noticing how I have to be a member, not just an associate member, but an actual member of the Realtors Association in order to get access to the multiple listing service. The very thing that I need to conduct my business and I'm required to join a trade organization which I may not want to join. I think that's a lawsuit. Matter of fact, it is a lawsuit because Michigan agents just sued NAR over this very fact that they are required to be a member of an organization they don't want to be a member of in order to get access to MLS. And they're claiming that violates federal law. You know, I'm a lawyer. I've been a lawyer for 30 years. I'm not a member of the American Bar Association. I think it's a political hack organization. They don't care about lawyers. They care about politics. So I refuse to be a member of it. I should not have to be a member to conduct my profession. But in order for me to conduct my profession in these areas that require membership, you have to be a realtor. I mean, think of that, how you have a community and 100% has to be a member in order to get the MLS. It's crazy. Nationwide, I think the number is like 60% of real estate agents are realtors. So once again, that's a problem, and they need to quit that. They need to get out of that business. Disassociate it, and at a minimum, not requiring membership at the MLS. Next, number, what, I think number two, six, rehab your image with the public. Back many years ago, they used to have commercials on the TV, and I thought they were very good commercials. They were talking about how real estate is all local, and why you need an agent because Because real estate in one town is completely different than real estate in another state. And I think that's great. That was an outstanding message. Real estate in California is not the same as real estate in South Carolina. Thank God. But the message needs to be now is what a real estate agent does for you. Because you can go on these message boards and read how people think you do nothing. They don't think you do anything except put a house on the MLS and wait for somebody to bring you a contract and make a lot of money. Now, I know that's not true. That's 100% not true. Because that's not your job. Your job is to navigate the consumer through the home buying process, whether it's the home buyer or home selling process. And all along that process, there's hundreds of events that happen, things you have to know about, things you have to do. And that's what you do. You provide a service. And if the NAR could start instructing and teaching and notifying the public that, hey, real estate agents don't sell houses. They didn't build the house. It's not their house. What real estate agents do is they provide a service. And that service is to navigate you through the process, a process that is very time-consuming and very difficult and almost, in many cases, impossible to navigate on your own. So there needs to be a rehabilitation with the public as to what realtors do. Next, you need to make membership not required by the brokerage. And what I mean, this is why Russell Jeffcoat left the association many, many years ago. If I want to work at a company where there are realtors, I shouldn't have to be the Organization has to be. Start letting people join at the individual level or not join at the individual level. I don't agree with the whole idea that if I want to go work for XYZ brokerage and they're a realtor member, I have to be a member of the realtors. Or if I want to go work at ABC and I want to be a realtor, but my broker doesn't, that now I can't go work at ABC. To me, that's another lawsuit. Because if the Michigan agents are suing over the MLS access, What's going to be the next lawsuit? I am a real estate licensee. I want to go work for ABC Brokers because they have great training programs, but they're realtor members, and the only way I can join their company is to be a realtor because that's the rules that NAR set out. I think that's a dumb rule. I know people are going to disagree with me, and I'm probably going to get some phone calls on that, but I truly believe that I should be able to decide as an agent whether I want to be in a realtor association, not my broker. Number eight, I think we should be advocating to go away from broker-to-broker compensation. I've never really understood why the listing broker is so much involved with what the buyer's agent gets. Really, it shouldn't matter to you. Listing agents should have an exclusive right to sell that is all about what they get paid for listing and selling the house and navigating through that process. Buyer's agent should have an agreement with the buyer's agent for what they're going to pay the buyer's agent to navigate through that process and then have a separate agreement between the buyer and the seller as to whether the seller will pay any of the buyer's commission. As an industry, as a whole. We all recognize it. Anybody who knows anything about real estate knows that it's going away. Broker to broker comp is going away. So why are we sitting around waiting for the inevitable? Let's just go ahead and bite the bullet and get away from broker to broker comp. It'll save a lot of headache in the future, and it will save a ton of lawsuits, in my opinion, because I think that's another lawsuit just waiting to happen. Number nine, it's time to start pushing the politicians. Politicians come around NAR and ask CCR and every other organization, when they want their endorsement, they want their money, they want their check, and they come over here and they give us a nice little speech. I've said in many of these speeches, whether it's at the BIA or CCRA or wherever, how much they love realtors, they love working with us, blah, blah, blah. But I haven't seen the first politician yet stand up and say, this lawsuit's insane. It is not collusion. There never has been collusion, and it's not antitrust. How can it be antitrust to market and advertise commissions on the MLS? but not on the websites. That makes no sense whatsoever. But that's what they're doing. Why are politicians, where's Lindsey Graham? Where are they? Where's Jim Clyburn? Neither party's done a thing. I haven't heard a single word from any of them. So why is NAR not using its muscle, its flex, its power like it has in the past, and pushing these politicians to come out and support realtors? Hadn't seen it. Lastly, number 10. Maybe a controversial statement here, but I don't care. I'm on a roll today. Stop with this DEI nonsense that is taking the eye off the ball. Not necessary. Everybody's independent contractors. Not necessary here. Fair housing. Absolutely. That's a topic that we need to all get behind. Absolutely fair housing. But this DEI stuff is a political football that's getting bounced back and forth between both sides, and it angers at least 50%, if not more, of your membership. I don't know why the association is taking this position that makes half the members want to quit over it. I've read the tremendous vitriol from both over this issue, and it needs to stop. There doesn't need to be here. When you have independent contractors, every real estate agent is an independent contractor. They go work where they want, whenever they want to work, and there's no place for it. And you're seeing companies like Harley-Davidson and Ford and all these other big companies also getting rid of it, recognizing it's not their mission to change the world. Their mission is to their consumers. And that needs to be the Realtors Commission, to their consumers, protecting their consumers' interests, helping navigate their consumers. But when you get involved in all this political stuff like this. It has nothing to do with selling houses. It just angers 50% of the country. That's the bottom line. Controversial, if you want to make it that way, that's fine. It's not meant to be controversial. My whole thing is realtors associations need to be involved in things that are important to realtors consumers and not to a political party. I'm hopeful that we'll see some of these changes. I don't know. I have no sway, no seat at the table at NAR. But I want to reiterate, if your idea to fix this is for you just to leave NAR or to talk your broker into leaving NAR, I want you to think about the main thing that you're going to have happen. If NAR does, in fact, go away, and I've heard a lot of you real estate agents tell me NAR is going to go away. It's never going to survive this. Lord, help us if that happens. Because right now, truly, as I mentioned earlier, the only organization out there standing between you and the government screwing you completely up over. And in case you haven't noticed, I truly believe that the government is on a rampage to screw you over. We know this because the Department of Justice says that the settlement doesn't go far enough. Does not go far enough. They want more. This Department of Justice dislikes you with a passion and wants to end what you're doing. It's how they're covering up the high prices of houses is they're trying to blame you for it. Not their policies. Not the fact that interest rates skyrocketed. Not the fact that regulation has stopped developers and builders from building new houses. Not the fact we have a housing inventory shortage. That they don't want to cover. They want to cover up. So you're the bad guy. You're the greedy real estate agent. So once you understand that and understand the only person really standing, the only group standing in their way, I hope you understand the only group standing in their way is trade lobby groups like the NAR. And you need NAR out there fighting the morons in the government for making more moronic decisions, which is almost impossible because every decision they seem to make these days is moronic. We better hope NAR stays around and NAR stays strong. There is absolutely no doubt they need to make some changes over there. I think we all agree to that. I think NAR would agree to that. And hopefully the new leadership in NAR will do that. And then they can suck a whole lot less. All right, that's my show for the day. Hope everybody enjoyed it. If you'll please like us, subscribe to us, and come back again next week for another episode of The Shit Show. Y'all have a great one.