On the surface, the American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance (AHGA) appears to be doing good things for homeowners, but there's evidence that homeowners aren't the only beneficiaries of the AHGA's tireless lobbying. Online real estate service providers also owe Hahn thanks for helping guide business to them instead of to traditional brokers and agents.

The AHGA is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting homeowners and making their voices heard by state and federal officials, but director Bruce Hahn declines to give more edifying information on the organization than that.

"Our strict privacy policy (on our home page) prohibits us from divulging our members' identities," says Hahn, but he says that the organization receives no funding from either CompTIA, Bank of America, or other large banks)

So we did a little digging on him.

Bruce Hahn is a busy guy. Not only is he president of the AHGA, he's also president of the American Homeowners Foundation. And, he serves on the government relations committee of the Consumer Federation of America. He chairs the CFA's Antitrust Committee.

But supporting homeowners rights to choice isn't all he knows. While serving as the VP of Public Affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers, he wrote a training text for corporate and association government and public affairs staff called, "Winning at Public Affairs."

Hahn was also the director of public policy at the Computing Technology Industry Association, which represents 8,000 computer and software manufacturers, distributors, retailers, etc. "CompTIA has developed specialized initiatives and programs dedicated to major areas within the IT industry. They include, convergence technology, e-commerce, IT training, software services, certification, public policy and workforce development," says the CompTIA website.

Now what do the technology and homeowners groups have in common? A public policy focus on antitrust, which Hahn knows something about.

One of the public policy issues of CompTIA is "Government Role in Promoting Competition. "CompTIA supports "consistent enforcement of clearly defined antitrust laws that protect consumers interests.

Government practices that contribute to economic/market efficiencies and benefit consumers should not be discouraged," says the Website.

AHGA supports Antitrust enforcement, too. "Antitrust laws should be aggressively enforced to protect the interests of consumers. The primary question should be whether consumers are benefited or injured by a industry practice or company practice or service. Antitrust laws should not be used as a tool to protect competitors if consumer market choices have resulted in a declining market share for companies that are less efficient in providing for the needs of homeowners and other competitors."

That's a thin tie but it may enough to explain a few things -- like why AHGA has so vigorously defended online entrants into the real estate field while failing to support the good full-service brokers do to provide services to consumers.

Consider the testimony before the FTC and DOJ's Public Workshop on Competition Policy and the Real Estate Industry in 2005. "In real estate brokerage, new Internet-based business models have provided home sellers and buyers many new choices. In the most dramatic case, a consumer might use a broker to only list their home in their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for as little as $300 ... . Traditional full service real estate companies have created industry rules and have promoted federal, state, and local laws and regulations that have created barriers or undermined new real estate services business models."

• The AHGA goes on to say, "There is a need for Congress to step in to address serious barriers to competition and other problems in the real estate services sector, including real estate brokerage services, mortgage lending, and title and other insurance. There is a need to improve the protection of consumer privacy, particularly as it relates to technology, and to assure that homeowners and other consumers can fully benefit from technology's increasingly important role in facilitating our nation's return to a home-centric society."

So if AHGA were to reach all of its goals for homeowners and see barriers to "choice" brought down, which corporate entities would also benefit?

"Hard to say, since we're on the same side of many groups on one issue and against them on others," says Hahn. "Most major business sectors in real estate and otherwise will probably find both positions they like and positions they hate on our policy priority list. Each would have to do the math to determine whether they would come out a net positive or a net negative if all our policy goals were achieved.

For example, where banks are concerned, AHGA "opposes their efforts to emasculate the GSE's, but support allowing them to compete with real estate brokers (and vice versa)," says Hahn.

And online real estate technology firms? "They like our support for a free market and our opposition to protectionism (as does the Justice Dept. and the FTC)."

Would you call yourself a lobbyist?

"I call myself a consumer advocate," says Hahn.

Hahn says AHGA doesn't support online brokers over traditional brokers. "We support full service brokers. Experienced full service brokers provide a valuable service that many home buyers and sellers need and appreciate," he says, "However we also believe that there's room for many business models, and no reason to restrict other business models that offer consumers alternatives to full service brokers. We oppose real estate organizations that promote laws and/or regulations that would force some buyers and sellers to pay for services they neither want nor need, and/or erect barriers to new business models in the marketplace. Unfortunately many of the policy objectives of those real estate organizations undermine the alternative business models of competitors to full service brokers. It is the policies of those organizations that we, the Consumer Federation, DoJ, and the FTC oppose, not their individual full service broker members."

Published: February 21, 2007

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