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Realtors®® Sued By US Government: Property Owners To Suffer the Most

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The U.S. government is attempting to force real estate agents to share their listings with their competitors.

Realtors®® at their annual conference in San Francisco both learned of and decided to fight a lawsuit filed by the United States Department of Justice in September 2005. The National Association of Realtors® claims to be the largest trade association in the United States.

The federal government argues that an option to withhold some listings from their competition stifles the free market process. This "stifling" prevents online-only real estate companies from offering better services at lower costs.

As an October 29, 2005 article in the Las Vegas Review Journal points out, "the dispute comes as the real estate boom that's helped drive the U.S. economy is threatened by rising interest rates." Note the date of the article: October 29. Sound familiar? October 29 was the date of the largest stock market crash in history back in 1929. Let's not create another one of those. True, apparently it's part of the American way.

The housing market in general has been going strong for several years. Some cities and their property owners have acquired significant equity while, on the other end of the spectrum, those who are out trying to find affordable housing for their families and enjoyment are facing affordability crises.

The real issue here, what the judge has to decide, is if it is best to control the free market and hope that exponential competition in a relatively new Internet marketplace will make enough improvements to offset the consequences.

The majority of the US government's complaints involve multiple listing services (MLS), which is a real estate agent-driven cooperative used to promote their listings with other local licensed and affiliated real estate agents.

The Internet has changed the way the real estate industry operates, there's no doubt about that. Perhaps the memory of antitrust litigation against Microsoft can help examine the comprehensive situation.

MLS is like Microsoft, MLS can be considered a monopoly in the real estate agent in that it's by far the most commonly used way to facilitate transactions.

Many of us learned, over time and after the "tech bubble" ever heard of the "real estate bubble?") deflated, we saw that, in most cases this controlled industry actually is benefiting consumers in the long run. People need consistency and they need familiarity, most of all in order to get what they anticipate receiving.

What the government apparently isn't understanding is that listings, although they become the "property" of the brokerage that possesses the listing agreement with the owner of the home. Now, we've introduced a new party to the lawsuit, whether or not they're even mentioned throughout the proceedings: the owner of the home.

The American Dream is about to be fabricated and stamped as a nuisance just like telemarketing. It's just logical- when an increase (especially a large dose of it) of online-only companies or any real estate-related effort obtains access to listings, exposure of the home ends up used in an improper manner and/or inaccurately reflects the market or company using some stranger's 7 month-old listing to get any type of sale going.

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