December 19, 2000

To the Editor:

Your series on WebSuite incorrectly and unfairly portrayed the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® as having some involvement in the financial difficulties of Websuite leading up to its recent bankruptcy filing. You’ve raised unnecessary alarms about the e-PRO certification program that are causing concern among e-PRO graduates and students.

Let’s set the record straight:

NAR was disappointed that Websuite’s financial difficulties impacted its ability to continue to offer the e-PRO certification program. In order to continue to offer this program to our members, e-PRO is now being provided through a new vendor, Esphere. Websuite and Esphere are independent, unrelated companies. Esphere has upgraded the technology infrastructure and moved the servers, which caused some downtime for the network. Therefore, students have been given an additional 60 days to complete the course. To improve customer service, Esphere has secured a toll-free number with support representatives available, 888-241-8193.

NAR and Esphere are committed to making e-PRO even better. An experienced educational design team that consists of staff, outside consultants with member input will be making ongoing enhancements. An advanced course is planned for REALTORS and is in the process of development along with a course tailored to the needs of REALTOR Association Executives and staff.

E-PRO is the first online certification course developed and offered by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Despite the problems encountered with the first vendor, NAR is proud of the quality of the e-PRO product and we’re more committed to it than ever. To date we have graduated and certified 1,467 REALTORS, the vast majority of whom will attest to e-PRO’s value.

Sincerely,

Bob Goldberg
Senior Vice President