New Law Bars Banks from Real Estate Activities
On Friday, March 13, 2009 President Obama signed the FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act that permanently prohibits banks from entering the real estate brokerage and management businesses. This ended an 8 year battle by the National Association of Realtors to preserve the separation between the real estate industry and the financial services industry. The main thrust of NAR’s argument was that to allow the combination of the two would have been anti-consumer and anti-competitive in that too much power would have been concentrated in the financial services sector.
Do you agree, disagree? What are your thoughts. Myself, I applaud the decision. The industry is unique in its highly competitive yet necessarily cooperative nature. Agents and companies will compete fiercely for the right to list and market your home and for the right to represent buyers that are qualified to purchase your home. Yet once an agreement is negotiated, there is a high degree of cooperation to ensure that buyer and seller complete a transaction that is satisfactory to all. In that spirit of cooperation there is integrity and fiduciary responsibility to one’s client (above all), yet cooperation to conclusion. Multiple Listing Services are the epitome of cooperation. Open MLS’s? a future post on this subject.
[...] Original post by tonylazz [...]