Posted on 11/30/2020 7:23:10 AM PST by SJackson
Say the wrong thing on Facebook and lose your license and your business.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
The National Association of Realtors claims to have 1.4 million members. There will be fewer members before long as the association begins purging conservative real estate agents.
At the center of the storm was an addition to Article 10 which covers various forms of discrimination. But unlike all the previous sections which addressed how real estate professionals interacted with customers, Article 10-5 is catchall cancel culture that controls what real estate agents say on social media on their own private accounts and in their free time.
This goes far beyond being made to bake a cake. Even if you’re at home and you post something opposed to gay marriage or illegal migration, you can lose your business.
As the NAR claims, a realtor's "speech and conduct reflect on the REALTOR® organization whether said publicly on a business social media profile, or privately on a personal one."
When you’re a real estate agent, you no longer have the right to personal opinions.
Article 10-5 immediately transformed 1.4 million people into subordinates at the mercy of NAR brass who have the authority to determine what political or religious views they can hold.
"It means that we never take our hands off, no matter where we are, no matter what we do, we are always licensed and we are always a member of the National Association of Realtors,” New York State Association of Realtors President Jennifer Stevenson warned.
Never taking your “hands off” is endemic to socialist tyrannies and has no place in America.
Jennifer is a Democrat donor. The NAR’s PAC directs a majority of its cash to Democrats. That included $3,000 to subsidize the bigotry of Rep. Ilhan Omar and $5,000 to Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
But that’s the kind of hatred that the National Association of Realtors is comfortable subsidizing.
“No matter where we are,” means never being able to say anything that offends someone like Jennifer without fear of being sanctioned, fired, or losing your business. Jennifer, an NAR board member, and others will be looking over your shoulder every time you post anything on Facebook. Any leftist offended by anything an NAR member posts has an easy recourse.
"Doesn’t this mean that if I post my opinion online and someone doesn’t agree with it, that I can lose my membership and be forced out of the business?" the NAR FAQ asks.
The answer is yes. Anyone can bring an “ethics” complaint which will lead to a “hearing” with “witnesses” and “counsel”. Posting that illegal migration is wrong or that Islamic terrorism is a threat can now lead to a real estate agent facing a hearing. And if they lose that hearing, then not only will they be expelled from the NAR, but the state real estate licensing authority will be told that the agent violated the "public trust" which can lead to the loss of their license.
Say the wrong thing on Facebook and lose your license, your business, and your livelihood.
The NAR is wrongly characterizing personal views that are privately expressed as “discriminating”, treating it as a violation of “ethics” in a commercial enterprise, and then reporting it to state licensing authorities as a violation of the “public trust”.
This is cancel culture on a national level by one of the country’s most abusive organizations which had already been sued by the Department of Justice for multiple antitrust violations.
What constitutes saying the wrong thing?
Article 10-5 bans “harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
In an era when supporting President Trump is considered “hate speech”, how are these terms going to be defined? Exhibit 2 of Appendix XIII to Part Four of Article 10-5 of the NAR has an easy answer. Everything that some leftist doesn’t like now violates the NAR’s rules.
Hate speech is any speech that is "intended to insult, offend" because of "some trait". Any remarks that can be seen as "disparaging" or "shaming", or can be characterized as a form of "innuendo", about a protected group is covered under "epithets". That would cover the use of the term “illegal alien”, any discussion about Islamic terrorism, or transgender compulsion.
Harassment, for example, includes "inappropriate conduct, comment, display, action, or gesture based on another person’s sex, color, race, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and any other protected characteristic." And that in turn includes, "negative stereotyping" and "the display or circulation of written or graphic material that denigrates or shows hostility toward an individual or group."
That would, as a practical matter, include the Bible. And certainly particular Bible verses.
The National Association of Realtors has, for all intents and purposes, made quoting Bible verses on a private Facebook profile into an ethical violation leading to a hearing and expulsion.
The NAR board falsely claimed that these speech codes stem from fair housing legal obligations. They do not. Worse still, the NAR’s insistence that, “disparaging a particular protected class is evidence of one’s inability to treat them equally” is a troubling argument that would bar traditional Christians and Jews from membership in the National Association of Realtors. Likewise, Americans who oppose illegal migration, would also be banned.
Article 10-5 claims to be fighting discrimination, but is actually licensing discrimination against 200 million Americans, a much larger class than the ones the NAR claims to be protecting.
The NAR argues that, “bias against protected classes revealed through the public posting of hate speech could result in REALTORS® not taking clients from certain protected classes or not treating them equally, which would lead to violations of the Fair Housing Act.” What this really means is that real estate agents are being sanctioned for discrimination that never actually took place while assuming, for example, that because a traditional Christian or Jew opposes gay marriage that they would be presumed to discriminate against gay or lesbian customers.
Barring traditional religious people from a profession because they are presumed to biased is a bias and a much more egregious form of discrimination than the one it claims to be remedying.
The National Association of Realtors is imposing a political and religious test on members. It has moved the bar from policing interactions with customers to policing personal beliefs.
This is fundamentally un-American. Article 10-5 is McCarthyism wrapped in buzzwords.
Around the same time that the NAR was rolling out its speech codes, the Justice Department sued the group for multiple antitrust violations accusing it of anti-competitive behavior.
This isn’t the first time that the NAR has been sued over antitrust violations, but it should lead to action, if not at a federal level, then at a state level. In some states, not being a member of the NAR makes being a real estate agent all but impossible. In many, it makes it difficult.
As a socialist oligarchy squeezes conservatives out of public life, elected officials should fight back before it’s too late against the powerful institutions which have taken over American life. These institutions, financial, academic, corporate, and trade associations are engaging in a sustained campaign of political and religious suppression under the guise of fighting against discrimination. This campaign is the greatest form of discrimination in America in generations.
The only way to stop the squeeze is to squeeze the squeezers. If there’s no room for conservatives in the NAR, there should be no room for the NAR in conservative states.
So then you would have to be saying that when you purchased the property, the title company messed up for old easements or loan not recorded when you purchase the property. If the title company is any good, all of that should have been found and dealt with. It will still fall to the lending institution for all of the disclosures. Yes you need to disclose everything about the property, you have to do that regardless of using a realtor or not. Commercial property is different than personal property. Personal property is pretty cut and dry.
time for the 1st amendment to apply universally.
I don’t know about your state, but it isn’t practical in FL to provide the services of real estate without being a member of NAR. This has been coming on for at least 20 years. What started off as a professional association has been turned into something more resembling a labor union with crooked union bosses.
Ping to the Sultan Knish articles!
“National Association of Realtors Imposes Cancel Culture on 1.4 Million People”
By Daniel Greenfield, The Sultan Knish
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Ping or FReepmail me to get on or off the Daniel Greenfield Ping! list.
Be sure and visit Frontpage Mag for excellent commentary.
We have sold two houses without a realtor. We found an attorney who specialized in real estate, two visits with her and got paperwork, brought it back for signage, one visit to title company, voila. A few hundred bucks. No realtor, and no 6% taken off the top. These were 20 and 24 or so years ago. Don’t know what realtors want currently.
Biden will pack the Supreme Court with 4 New Commie ‘Justices’... then make a law limiting the number of SC judges to 13.
The advantage psychopaths have is they don’t have a conscience. He’ll be smiling and talking about us all needing to come together while he’s signing papers sending us to death camps.
I just sold our family house in California and am horribly disillusioned by my experience with realtors. The listing agent never showed up after the house went on the market; a few times she took days to return my messages. Not one of the people who visited the house were her clients. She took $25K in commissions and she didn’t even show up for the signing of documents in escrow, claiming covid restrictions.
It’s a racket.
I say it's high time to bring back "kill a Commie for Mommie" and make that saying fashionable again.
Yes, I'm old enough to remember that.
This provides a glimpse into the “Tonya Harding meets Mao” American culture of tomorrow..
“I didn’t speak up for conservative realtors because I wasn’t a realtor...”
What personal property? Do you believe that commercial property is real property and a house is personal property? Oh my.
- Title company didn’t mess up. My point was how do you deal with items on a title report? The title company doesn’t deal with them. But someone has to do it. What do you do when your buyer asks you about a prescriptive easement? How about a recorded lease option that still shows of record?
- Lending institutions deal with financial disclosures, not property disclosures.
Your experience sounds fairly typical to me. I am always disgusted when we find listings on Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, etc... with bad pictures and no helpful descriptions that have been prepared by some lazy “Realtor”. My wife found a house that she was very interested in and we called the listing agent and asked a few basic questions. The listing agent had never been to the house, had no plans to go to the house, would not meet us at the house and basically knew nothing about the house. It had been on the market for months. They were basically just hoping that a buyer's agent would show the house to someone who would make an offer and then they were going to collect their commission. It is different now than it was 40 years ago when most realty professionals felt that they should at least provide some service that entitled them to collect their fee.
Obviously there are some Realtors who work hard and do a good job. But in every rising market you end up with everyone and their brother hoping to make big bucks for nothing. During the lean times they mostly go back to whatever they normally do to coast by. But it is fairly disgusting.
I’m talking strictly a home. I worked in home mortgage lending for 18 years and we never had any of the issues you discussed come up. There were a few occasions where there were liens placed from parties that were not paid, but those were usually the sellers issue anyway, so they had to be paid prior to getting a clear title. If there is a recorded lease option that still shows, then yes, the seller would have to follow up on that, but you would assume, of course crap happens, that when the seller purchased the property, that they received a clear title. Nothing is perfect, but I don’t see the need to pay a realtor 6% to do work I can do myself.
If you understand all the legal ramifications, more power to you. Again, despite my real estate expertise for over 40 years and having taught real estate law in college, I cannot keep up with all the current laws regarding residential property.
Here’s a tip for the future. Set the value you want if you have the expertise in comparable closed sales. Contact local offices and tell them they can earn a negotiated fee above your net number. You can give any number of them an “open listing” which still allows you to sell yourself. You may be surprised that, because most buyers go to a real estate agent to help find the right house, you will have many more potential buyers and increase the chances of even getting a higher price. And you are going to have someone on the hook with errors and omissions insurance if something goes wrong.
You are not required to pay a 6% commission. In California, as in any state, the amount to be paid is negotiable. I have very often worked for people on a consulting fee basis based on the estimated amount of time they are paying for my expertise.
If you have the expertise and understand all the legal ramifications and risks, do it yourself. But you have nothing to lose and likely something to gain by giving many brokers an open listing and agree to pay a fee above the net price you are seeking. You will have many more people working for you while still having the ability to sell yourself.
In some markets and areas I agree, you might need a realtor. Where I am at, you don’t need one to sell your place. Word of mouth sells the house in hours. A nice home in my area will last a matter of hours on the “market” right now. My son just mentioned he was going to be ready to sell on facebook and had three people contact him almost immediately. Sold it to the first person who responded the next day basically after they came to look at it. If you know you have a clean title and there are no issues, I just don’t see the need. With all of the FSBO websites/publications in areas. Also around here, realtors don’t normally negotiate their rate at all. Having had to deal with them for 18 years doing mortgages, I found them to be a royal pain in the rear, didn’t do anything and collected a nice commission check for the work I did.
The problem is that the NAR is not government. On the flip side, I wouldn't want the courts to determine the policies that the NRA imposes on its members.
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