From: Jay Reifert [true-agents@true-agent.com] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 11:36 PM To: Oppose the WRA--Defeat Designated Agency Subject: Bombshell!!! Wisconsin Realtors Association Secretly Fleeces Wisconsin Home Sellers and Buyers My apologies to those of you who were receiving two copies of each message. There was a technical glitch that lead to the duplication. It has been corrected. JR -------------------------------------------------------------------- As with the other messages, this one is going out to thousands of Wisconsin Realtors, almost 500 governmental officials--including all State Legislators and their respective staffs, the Governor of Wisconsin and most candidates for Governor of Wisconsin, the Attorney General of Wisconsin, over 425 Consumer Advocacy Groups and/or individual Consumer Advocates, over 285 Registered Wisconsin Lobbyists and over 190 Media Outlets. PLEASE forward this message to everyone you can and please also print it out--and distribute--to those who you know that don't have email capabilities.] -------------------------------------------------------------------- Bombshell! Wisconsin Realtors Association Secretly Fleeces Wisconsin Home Sellers and Buyers --------------------------------------------------------------------- My name is Jay Reifert. I am a Realtor. I wish I could say that I'm proud of being a Realtor, but I can't. That lack of pride, by the way, has nothing to do with the individual Realtors I have met over my numerous years in this business, nor does it have anything to do with the members of my local Association. That lack of pride comes from the way that the Wisconsin Realtors Association has secretly treated Wisconsin home buyers and sellers, by continually working over the last decade to erode what it means to provide agency-level services. By so doing, they have stolen something of value from every Wisconsin citizen who has bought or sold a home in the last seven, plus, years. Soon, they are going to attempt to make matters worse for consumers in Wisconsin via a concept known as Designated Agency. I am a common law agent. My practice revolves around representing the best interests of home buyers and nothing I am about to say is going to change that. I will continue to offer full fiduciary services to my buyer clients. I also fully respect any Realtor or other licensee who represents the best interests of his/her clients in accordance with the common law, be those clients buyers OR sellers. Problem is, since the Wisconsin Agency "Reform" Act of 1994, those of us who have practiced true to the best interests of our clients have been breaking the law. Yes, that's right, in Wisconsin, if you provide true, agency-level services to your buyer and/or seller clients, you are breaking the law for, in Wisconsin, all agents--as a result of the Agency "Reform" Act of 1994--were statutorily, and secretly, reduced to the status of non-agency FACILITATORS. Please join me now, as I lay out for you the trail of deceit and deception foisted upon the people of the State of Wisconsin by the Wisconsin Realtors Association. Then, I would ask all Realtors of good conscience and the citizens of the State of Wisconsin to join with me in righting this wrong by fighting for legislation to return the common law of agency to Wisconsin and to help me prevent another injustice by opposing the anti-consumer scheme known as Designated Agency. And when they--the WRA--tells you that twenty-some states have passed, or are attempting to pass, Designated Agency legislation, remember two things: 1) If twenty-some states do a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing, and 2) The WRA is the same entity that introduced the Agency "Reform" Act of '94 under the guise of consumer protection. It truly is the height of cynical arrogance for the WRA to propose adding another false agency scheme such as Designated Agency on top of the non-agency scheme that they already have in place. Prior to now, you could plead ignorance of the truth, as it was so well hidden that few had any clue what had happened. After this message, that will no longer be the case and you will have to choose between what's good for the consumer and your reputation and what's good for the mega-brokers' bottom line. --------------- For nearly all of the Twentieth Century, the National Association of Realtors--or its earlier incarnations--subscribed to the principle that the common law of agency, though only offered--at that time--to sellers, was the bedrock upon which services would be provided. In the late 1980s, pioneers of exclusive buyer representation began making their first public steps onto the real estate scene, aided in large part by the integrity and foresight of the single-agency pioneers that preceded them. (Single agents--and their firms--represent buyers or sellers, but not both in the same transaction.) Concerned by the prospect of seeing reduced profits as a result of the introduction/acceptance of true buyer agency in Wisconsin, the largest, most powerful brokerage firms in the State--the firms that effectively control the Wisconsin Realtors Association--formulated a plan that would allow them to preserve their profits at the expense of every home buyer and seller in Wisconsin. They knew that they could not compete with true buyer agents under a common law of agency model--the then current standard in Wisconsin--so they had to act quickly, before the advancing consumer movement and true buyer agency took away their access to the buyer side of their business. To fully grasp the scheme of the WRA, it is crucial to understand what was happening on a national level. In 1993, the results of a National Association of Realtors Presidential Advisory Group, (PAG) was released on the subject of facilitators. In real estate, facilitators are middlemen who work to bring a transaction together. They do not represent the best interests of either party. They are strictly salespeople...which is just fine, so long as the customers they serve are aware of their limitations and the loss of representation. The findings of the 1993 NAR PAG Report on Facilitator/Non-Agency were of great concern to many in the real estate business, as they bore out one simple conclusion: Sellers, who were already entitled to common law agency services from agents, and buyers, who were just starting to receive the benefits of common law agency services from the pioneer buyer agents, BOTH understood that facilitators provided a reduced level of service and, as such, SHOULD BE PAID LESS than a common law agent. Needless to say, NAR--while recognizing that facilitation could be a viable, professional practice--recommended against the State Associations pursuing a model that would threaten to chip away at the income of its members. (You can view a copy of the entire PAG and the survey results by visiting: http://www.true-agent.com/pag93.pdf Again, if you don't have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is necessary to view this file, you can download it for free at: http://www.adobe.com . Now let us return to Wisconsin and remember...prior to 1994, all Wisconsin licensees/firms were held to the standards of the common law of agency, when providing client level services, which were at that time, still mostly provided to sellers. Then, seemingly overnight, it happened. With the stroke of then Governor Thompson's pen, all Wisconsin licensees became facilitators in fact, but NEVER once was this mentioned in name. In other words, Wisconsin buyer and seller clients have never stopped paying for common law of agency level services...but, according to the law, they are now only entitled to receive the lesser services of a facilitator. (For any who might be inclined to ask why I didn't make such a big deal of this back then, the answer is, I DID. I was the original whistleblower back in the early '90's when the WRA first introduced that which became the Agency "Reform" Act of '94. There was no internet to help raise awareness back then and my protestations largely fell on deaf ears until the eleventh hour, at which point there was simply no stopping the WRA juggernaut.) While I find it to be reprehensible that home buyer and seller clients in the State of Wisconsin have had their right to full fiduciary services stolen from them by the WRA, what I find to be even more vile, is that the WRA has purposely kept the true meaning of the law a secret, undoubtedly because they too know that the services of a facilitator are not worth the same as that of a common law agent. ------------------- Because of the scope and complexity of this subject matter, it's necessary to break this message into a second part. Shortly, you will receive that second section...which contains the proof necessary to show that home seller and buyer clients in Wisconsin have, in fact, been robbed of the highest level services available under the law. The services that flow from the common law of agency. You'll be happy to know that after the next message, any subsequent message you get from me will be much, much shorter. You may also be pleased to know that there will soon be a website with additional information available for you to share with other interested parties at: http://www.real-reform.org . Not only will all previous and subsequent information be archived there, but--very soon--you will be able to view a live action illustration of how the money flows in typical agency relationships, including how it flows under the proposed concept of Designated Agency. As a friend of mine likes to say...follow the money trail. PLEASE forward this message to everyone you can and please also print it out--and distribute--to those who you know that don't have email capabilities. In spite of the fact that the full language of the Designated Language legislation has not yet been drafted/submitted, you can find out how to contact your legislator to register your oppostion to Designated Agency by going to: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/wamltest/ Thank you again for your time and patience. -- Sincerely Yours, Jay Reifert, Broker/Owner*****************Excel-Exclusive Buyer Agency 100% Homebuyer Representation********5136 E. Hilltop Road 100% Of The Time****************************Madison, Wisconsin 53711 South Central Wisconsin's ONLY********(800)928-9379, Toll Free Full-Time Exclusive Buyer Agency Firm.***(608)273-8841, Office Visit http://www.true-agent.com ***********(608)273-8388, Fax Machine or mailto:true-agents@true-agent.com Check out our NEW website, at: http://www.Buy-Madison-Real-Estate.com