Today I'd like to speak about some real estate industry updates that we've been working on at a local, state, and national level this spring.
We'll begin by speaking about some of the local/state level initiatives that we've been working on:
- The Notary Provision was finally signed into law by the Governor, which eliminated the Notary Provision for Purchase Agreements for homesteads, and this will go into effect sometime in September.
- There were also some updates added to the Purchase Agreement by the Board of Directors, and most of these surrounded the time frame in which you have to get home inspections done.
- The Zillow Agreement was signed and we will be able to send out a feed through our board to Trulia and Zillow again.
- There is also a checklist on its way that will help explain the policies on "Coming Soon" listings, because there has been a lot of confusion surrounding those issues.
Now, these are the issues affecting us at a National level, and I heard about these at the NAR meeting in May:
- You've heard a lot about the RESPA/TILA that is coming on August 1st, so definitely keep an eye on that throughout the summer.
- Upstream was approved by the board of directors at NAR, and this is a better way to control the flow of data, although it probably won't affect us for another year or two.
- There are also several bills from Tax Policies to patent trolls that will be affecting us in the future. Be sure to ask me about these.
- There was also a Danger Report that examined the top threats against agents and brokers in our industry in the next few years, and that can be downloaded from Realtor.org.
- The Code of Excellence was also approved by the board, which takes our code of ethics to a higher level.
At the Commission level:
- We established a joint task force on teams with the Nebraska Realtor's Association to try to create better policy on teams to answer more questions that we've been getting.
- There was also a sub-committee created for property management, and we're proposing more education and better requirements for those positions.
- We also clarified some policies on "Coming Soon" listings, because there are some big gray areas there.
If you have any questions about any of these issues, I'd be happy to speak with you about them!
As always, consider me your #1 resource for real estate assistance in Omaha!
