Reboot! The Future!
Embarking on a new adventure...
I’ve had a wonderful life. No wanted do-overs. No regrets. I embrace change.
I was born into an Irish Catholic family with 3 siblings and parents who took their rolls seriously, with a father who taught me to be a risk-taker, and a mother who gave me strength. A winning combination.
My high school days were spent at St. Teresa’s Academy in Kansas City, Mo. While not a good student in the traditional sense, my math paper was one of 3 submitted papers that kept St. Teresa’s Academy in the top 10% of schools in the US for math acquity. I wanted to see the world after graduating from high school and at 21 I was accepted by TWA for hostess training where after 6 weeks I was off to Chicago as my first base. Three of us living in a studio apartment at Chestnut & Rush. Our kitchen was a closet with a hot plate and one of us had to sleep on the couch if all 3 of us were at home at the same time.
Los Angeles called for me. I answered in 1965. First apartment in Brentwood, then Westwood, a summer in Manhattan Beach, back to Westwood and finally to The Marina in 1967. During that time I was a hostess, then an in-flight instructor, then a supervisor of hostesses, and in 1968 I left TWA as the LAX training supervisor to marry and move to Phoenix. I wanted to continue with TWA and asked if they could find something I could do from Phoenix…they did: Employment offered me a job as a recruiter. I covered all the colleges and universities West of the Mississippi and 5 cities. In 1970 I was offered a NYC staff position by TWA’s Charles Tillinghast’s personal assistant, but, I turned it down. I wanted to be a Mom.
In 1978, I had a hysterectomy due to endometriosis. I had promised my father that I would get my college degree when I knew what I wanted to do with my life and so I began my higher education journey at Flagstaff’s Northern Arizona University. My first class was an auto repair class (I was driving an MGB) where I found a crack in the engine block across 2 freeze plugs. My husband called it the most expensive class I ever took! I found a love for biology and chemistry, graduated in December of 1985 and was accepted at Arizona State University to do my graduate work in Genetics in the fall of 1986.
At the time, NAU did not do December graduations and we had to wait for June to be recognized. So, I went to real estate school at Arizona School of Real Estate and Business, passed the exam and began my real estate career in Flagstaff at Dallas Real Estate. Needless to say, I did not start ASU Graduate school in the fall.
I only lasted about 4 months with Dallas and moved over to Arizona Mountain Properties with Phyllis Murray, one of my 4 life/business mentors. A broker who trained her agents.
This is really where this story begins…
I didn’t understand “subagency”. I kept calling my friends who wanted to buy a property in Flagstaff, “clients”. Our office manager told me they were customers. NAR and the law defined subagency as: “…a legal relationship that arises when a real estate license holder (the subagent) acts on behalf of another agent's principal (typically the seller) to help facilitate a transaction.” So I was supposed to represent the seller instead of my friends? Didn’t make sense to me. That same first year, my best friend, Becky Clark, asked me to help her find a property so she could build a house. I went to Phyllis and asked if I could represent Becky like I would a family member. Phyllis said as long as I got written permission from the agent, the broker, and the seller…go for it! And so it began…my choice to represent certain buyers instead of acting as a subagent.
In 1989 I opened my brokerage in the Phoenix area of the Arizona Biltmore at 32nd & Camelback, Esplanade Realty. I continued my representation of buyers before NAR and the state association, AAR, allowed for buyer representation. In many cases I required a $1,500 retainer to represent a client. Then came buyer representation and the Internet. The real estate world changed, but not completely for the best.
Yes, buyer brokerage was a choice, but the sharing of compensation was still a requirement from NAR, the state association, the local association and the association’s MLS. A listing broker was required to offer at least $1 to a cooperating broker in the MLS.
Fast forward to the lawsuits, specifically Sitzer/Burnett v. NAR, and the NAR August 2024 proclamation whereby REALTOR members must use a buyer broker agreement before showing properties from this date forward. What was lacking was the background of the 1990s when buyer broker representation was first offered as a broker choice by NAR. The sharing of compensation continued from the subagency days until 2024, when one of the requirements was: The offering of compensation to a buyer broker could not appear on MLS. What? It could appear anywhere else…on a sign, on a flyer, on a website… Was that really the desired outcome of the Sitzer/Burnett lawsuit? No. The outcome should have been a complete decoupling of compensation between brokers. Sellers pay their agents and buyers pay their agents. Seems simple, doesn’t it. Sadly, compensations to buyer brokers stayed flat or went up… not down.
Another issue: buyers had to sign a buyer broker agreement before seeing any properties with an agent. I have been in this business for almost 40 years and I don’t always want to represent a buyer in a transaction and I’m guessing not everyone wants to work with me. There needs to be a rapport established, a meeting of the minds, a conversation about the wants and needs of the buyer, and a decision by the agent and the buyer that this will be a good fit.
NAR. I used to be proud to be a REALTOR. I’ve been a lobbyist for my state association and NAR, I’ve served on grievence and professional standards, I’ve taught ethics through my real estate school, how2educate, and I’ve been a buyer broker before we had a name for it. And then I read an article of how NAR had spent monies in 2024: “How NAR Spent It’s Money in 2024”. I was already disillusioned when the dues billing for 2026 arrived and it included a $35 charge designated as “National Operating Budget Assessment”. Remember, I’m good at math. $35 x 1.6 Million members = $56,000,000. So NAR wants me to help them pay for their bad decisions?
I decided, as the designated broker of Lifestyles of Arizona, it was time to step away from The REALTOR family.
Lunch with my 3 agents and we decided to go with Phoenix non-REALTORS which still gives us access to ARMLS. There will be different forms. We will not advertise ourselves as REALTORS, and ARMLS still requires the use of a buyer broker agreement.
We are still the same educated, ethical, and hard-working agents as we were with NAR. The difference now is that we can better serve our clients without oversight from an organization which has not always allowed us to represent our clients as our clients want to be represented. We will still give our clients the best representation that we have done as REALTORS, only we will no longer use the label. We work for our clients and will continue to take our fiduciary duties seriously. The change is only in the membership, the different transaction forms, and the negotiation of compensation according to the wants and needs of our clients. We have always had negotiable compensation for both buyers and sellers.
Buyer agents can still ask our sellers to pay their agent, but our sellers are under no obligation to do so. Might a buyer withdraw their offer if the seller won’t pay the buyer agent compensation? Yes. It’s a risk. But, change does not come without risks.
It’s time.