Have you ever asked the question, If Homestore is paying $1 to $3 per listing to our MLS's, where has all this money gone and why do our fees keep going up? Well, folks, the answer is in the article on today's Front Page of this publication. The article is called Analyst Says Homestore Is A "Buy" --Questions Pro Forma Numbers. Check out the part where Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget explains that HomeStore pays the MLS's with warrants. Now in my book that's the equivialnt of "funny money". Warrants are nothing but opportunities to purchase stock at a fixed price no matter what the current price is. In other words, if the MLS took warrants at a fixed price of $30.00 and today's price was $50.00, they could purchase and sell today and make $20.00 per share. However, if today's price were $25.00, then the warrants have absolutely no value whatsoever. Is there any way we can find out what the MLS warrant price was set at? If these warrants were issued at the height of the market, we're probably never going to see a penny of profit for all the listings Homestore has had the benefit of using. Since the stock market has been so shaky, where is the benefit to the Realtor in such an arrangement? Do we want our MLS's to have an ownership interest in HomeStore? It just keeps getting better and better......! Bonnie Clark

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