Boards and Associations

Do the benefits of joining a board justify the cost?
 

Cost
When joining a local board you will have fees for the Local, State, and National Boards as well. Call your local representative and find out the exact fees for your board of choice. Make sure to ask what happens if you change offices to a firm who doesn't belong to a board within the year; will your board fees be prorated and returned? 

 

Some Benefits - PRO's

Mingle with other local members
US Political Lobby (it's still there but is it as good as Zillows Lobby?)
Collective Purchase Power
Display listings on Realtor.com - No longer a pro all MLS listings can selected to display on Realtor.com

 

Some Disadvantage's - CON's
Political donations - You don't have control over political donations
Cannot use the letters MLS in an internet URL (i.e. ColoradoMLS.com USAMLS.com etc.)
Seperate disciplinary process from State Real Estate Commission

 

Major Points

You will notice that under Benefits 'Access to MLS' is not listed.
As a possible result from a lawsuit in 1998, (Ferbrache v. Metrolist, Inc., D. Colo. 1998), both Metrolist and IRES allow access to the MLS for non-board members.
It is our belief that the choice to join a Board should remain with each agent not with the MLS or their Managing Broker. Currently many firms have elected not to join a board, but in those cases the agents are not able to join a board if they so desire. Resident Realty takes this one step further and gives each agent the choice to join a board or not when they hang their license with us. At the time of this post 15% of our agents belong to a board in the State of Colorado.

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