The Real Estate Service Providers Council has released a poll of its membership - comprised of brokerages, lenders and title insurers -- showing that 71 percent said they could live with the current regulatory environment concerning affiliated businesses and diversified home services.

Only 3 percent of the RESPRO members polled said the current environment was causing significant harm to their ability to make money.

The RESPRO poll is important because the organization, while having only 160 corporate members, includes all the real estate franchises, half of the largest independent brokerages in the country, and all the major lenders and title insurers.

"Our members are increasingly not looking at themselves as from a primary industry at all," says Executive Director Sue Johnson in Washington. "Our members are tending to think of themselves as unified financial services entities, as opposed to brokers who also have a mortgage business or a title business.

"The whole idea is that they are offering whatever home services their customers need at the time. They all started with core businesses, but now they've all expanded over industry lines."

Not surprisingly, RESPRO is at the forefront of lobbying Congress on the need to allow one-stop-shopping. The RESPRO poll was designed to take the political temperature of the membership and decide where lobbying dollars need to be directed.

According to the poll, clearly the membership feels the current Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act - while unappealing - is better than some of the alternatives that have been floating around Capital Hill.

RESPRO asked its members: Which of the following statements best describes your feeling about your current regulator environment, as it affects your ability to efficient offer affiliated or diversified home services?

About 71 percent of respondents agreed, "It's not perfect, but my company can live with it.

Another 17 said, "It has significantly added to my company's cost of doing business."

Some 9 percent agreed with the statement, "It's prevented my company from entering new lines of business; and only 3 percent agreed with the statement, "It's causing significant harm to my company and must be changed."

RESPRO leaders also asked members to prioritize what they felt were the key issues confronting the real estate business today.

Topping the list was making sure "the penalties under federal laws should be proportionate to the violation."

Tied for second were, "I would like to be able to provide disclosures electronically," "Class action lawsuits are proliferating and need to be curbed," and "Home disclosures should be unified and simplified."

The RESPRO poll also delved into what broker/owners and other executives wanted to make sure did not happen.

Drawing almost all negative responses from the membership were: "I would like to enter into office leases with partners that are based on the amount of business referred;" "I would like to accept referral fees from others to endorse their products," "I would like to give referral fees to others to market my business," and "I would like to compensate my own real estate agents for referrals of business to my affiliates.

Published: December 27, 1999

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