On a national level one can anticipate the Broker Reciprocity fairness issue will impact thousands of of real estate agents. It would appear that the majority of the problems would be caused by how the individual broker owners and the local MLS's mandate the e-mail contacts the real estate agents may have. Those Broker Centric agencies will want to channel their agents Internet contacts into referrals while the Agent Centric agencies will want their agents to continue to be the focus of the Internet contacts. This will be compounded by local MLS's that may place themselves in a postion to tilt the playing field by passing local rules that favor one concept over the other. What is so curious about this whole Broker Reciprocity issue is the fact that it's slightly at odds to what was the norm in pre-Internet real estate. In general pre-Internet the job of the agent was to market their services and the good name of the agency they worked for. The individual agents would promote themselves using post cards, flyers, business cards, print advertisements, cold calling or whatever it took to let the public know they were available to serve their real estate needs. If the marketing were effective a potential client who wanted to see what properties were available for sale would call the agent. That agent would show the client the listings that were available using their copy of the local MLS's "Listing Book". As a member of the local MLS the agent would purchase these books, which were udated as needed by the MLS. It was the agent tool for presenting to a client those listings currently available for sale. In a perfect world the client would select a listing, visit it with the agnet and make an offer that would lead to a sale that would profit both the agent and the broker. Ok, for fun lets that this same "Listing Book" process and see how it would work pre-Internet using some of the Broker Reciprocity guidelines that are being applied. We take the same agent who is out there promoting their services to the public using the same marketing tools seeking clients to work with. However, because of Broker Reciprocity rules only allow the broker to purchase the "Listing Book" from the MLS. The broker can however create a custom printed copy for their agency and may select certain options on print type, size and how much detail related to the property will be printed. If the broker wants they can then select which agents can have a copy of this book and how much to chage them for it. It's important to note that the brokers do not have to let all their agents have this permission. Of course the agent who gets permission to make a copy may not be thrilled with the format the broker choose in printing the book. The format may be hard to read with smaller print size and listing pictures may have been left out to reduce the cost of printing. If an agent recognizes this as a problem they are restricted from making any changes to the book as it must be used exactly as the broker had it printed. In fact the only thing the agent can do with their copy is but their name and phone number on a cover they can place on the book. In spite of all this those agents who have the brokers permission to make a copy of the "Listing Book" and promote this achievement using all their individual marketing..."Call me I have the Listing Book and can show you all the homes available in the area". Now lets say the agent gets lucky and someone see's their advertisement and wants to look through the agents copy of the "Listing Book" to find a home. The agents meets with the client who selects a property. At this point the agent would have to instruct the client to call the broker to ask the broker who can show them that property. For you see under "Broker Reciprocity" even after the agent has performed all this work it is the broker who decides which of the firms agents gets the opportunity to show the property, write the contract and collect the commission less any referral fees the broker applied to the lead.

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