The board of directors of the National Association of Realtors passed a controversial dues hike and made alterations to a rule affecting the display of listings on the web site of franchisors Saturday morning at the group’s mid-year meeting in Washington D.C.
The motion passed without a single speaker rising to voice opposition to the vote, a move so surprising some attendees tweeting from the meeting at first speculated that some directors were unaware that the first issue to be voted on was this dues hike. (A motion to reconsider the issue was defeated).
The vote will raise dues by $40, a 50 percent increase in member’s annual dues to the national organization, in order to fund a Realtor Party Political Survival Initiative, which will use the money specifically for the purpose of political lobbying and candidate contributions. The proposal to raise the dues was made by a NAR working group earlier this year, which recommended that the association collect more funds in light of a recent Supreme Court decision which lifted limits on the amount of money corporations can spend on political speeches.
The hike had proved controversial among Realtors, with more than 80 percent of agents responding to online straw polls conducted by Realtor-centric sites Agent Genius and RealTown.com opposed to the increase. Sentiment on the NAR’s own site, which created a comments section for members to respond to the proposal, was also heavily against, with emotions running high.
Another controversial proposal was also voted on at the meeting: Whether or not to repeal a ruling made last November which allows large franchisors (such as Coldwell Banker and RE/MAX) to post listings on their web pages using Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds from all their franchisees.
IDX feeds allow brokers who are members of a particular Multiple Listing Service to display each other’s listings on their web pages. Allowing national brands to access the feeds from all their independent franchises would enable the largest national chains to display a large proportion of listings from all over the country, helping to improve their website’s ranking on search engines.
An initial vote to repeal the rule entirely fell short of the required two-thirds majority, with 379 in favor of repeal and 269 against. A second proposal requiring brokers to “opt-in” to allowing franchisors to access their listing was passed.
Several large coalitions of independent brokers had demanded that the rule be repealed at the mid-year meetings, saying that because franchisors were not themselves MLS members, the rule broke MLS guidelines, and had suggested they might take legal action if repeal were not successful. Inman News reported on Thursday that Robert Moline, CEO of Home Services of America, the nation’s second largest brokerage chain, went so far as to say that if the rule were not repealed he might seek to withdraw his firm from NAR and start his own Multiple Listing Service.
Making the franchisor IDX rule opt-in will impose practical difficulties for the large franchisors, and it was unclear how they might respond to the ruling. Some had suggested that an outright repeal of the rule might provoke legal action on their part.
Both issues are likely to be reconsidered at the group’s annual meeting.
