The lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are aiming at Realtors and their 6% fee

One real estate observer calls NAR’s blueprint an “organic monopoly”

A new class-action lawsuit takes aim at real estate agents and the tools they use to do business, and housing industry watchers say it could revolutionize the way Americans buy and sell the biggest asset they’ll ever own. The suit was filed in Chicago on behalf of anyone who sold a home through one of 20 of the largest listing services in the country over the past five years. It charges that the mighty Washington-based lobby National Association of Realtors, as well as the four largest national real estate brokerages, and the Multiple Listing Services they use, have conspired to require anyone selling a home to pay the commission of the broker representing their buyer “at an inflated amount,” in violation of federal antitrust law.

Homeowners who are ready to sell their properties usually hire a real-estate agent to represent them by staging the home, photographing it, adding it to the MLS, marketing it, and showing it to prospective buyers. Sellers agree to pay that person a commission on the selling price of the home. That commission has traditionally been known as the “6%,” but it’s a little more complicated than that. Sellers can really only negotiate with the agent they’ve hired, while agents representing buyers are generally assured of a standard 3% commission. That means that a seller’s agent who’s willing to negotiate, or one that works for a discount brokerage like Redfin RDFN, +3.25% , will be paid less than a buyer’s agent. Buyers can choose to be represented by an agent, or to go without one – but in any case, all commission money for both sides of the deal is always paid by the seller, thanks to a 1996 NAR rule known as the “Buyer Broker Commission Rule.” In order to list a property on one of the many regional databases known as Multiple Listing Services, agents must abide by the Buyer Broker Rule. Listing on the MLS is essential for making a sale, and most MLSs are controlled by local NAR associations.

“The conspiracy has saddled home sellers with a cost that would be borne by the buyer in a competitive market,” the lawsuit says. “Moreover, because most buyer brokers will not show homes to their clients where the seller is offering a lower buyer broker commission, or will show homes with higher commission offers first, sellers are incentivized when making the required blanket, non-negotiable offer to procure the buyer brokers’ cooperation by offering a high commission.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-name-lawsuit-could-upend-realtors-and-their-6-fee-2019-03-19

An open letter to CNN’s Don Lemon, stop the lie you have been spreading about president Trump

Dear Don Lemon, still, to this day, you and CNN continue to blatantly lie about what President Donald Trump said about the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. President Trump used the phrase “very fine people” to describe non-violent protesters on either side of the debate over a Confederate statue – AND for those paying proper attention – know that Trump specifically excluded the neo-Nazis, whom he “condemned totally.” But despite that, for the past several weeks, you and CNN have reported that president Trump was referring to neo-Nazis as “very fine people” in Charlottesville.

On top of that, you are now using the Charlottesville lie to blame president Trump for the terror attacks against two mosques in New Zealand on Friday. On Friday evening, you Mr. Lemon played a very deceptively edited video clip of President Trump’s press conference from Trump Tower on August 15, 2017. You introduced the clip by saying, “Nobody has forgotten — nobody has forgotten — what he said after that deadly white supremacist riot in Charlottesville.” Then you cut to a clip of the president saying, “You also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group — excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did.” What you Mr. Lemon left out is that Trump had made it perfectly clear that he was not talking about the neo-Nazis. The president said: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

You also failed to explain that – and as CNN itself reported at the time of the press conference – Trump was referring to people “that were there to protest the taking down, to them, of a very, very important statue and a renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.” Trump also referred to the murder of Heather Heyer by a white supremacist as an act of terror — but you Mr. Lemon left that out as well.

You also failed to inform your audience that president Trump made a special statement about Charlottesville from the White House the day before, declaring: “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

Yet you wonder why you get called fake news, you wonder why your ratings are tanking. To put it bluntly Mr. Lemon, you are a disgrace to journalism and you wouldn’t know honest reporting if you fell over it. The honest thing to do would be to retract your lies and issue an apology to president Trump, his supporters and your viewers who you deceive every night. But we all know that won’t happen because you cannot look past your hatred for the president, so realistically the only way going forward from here is for CNN to do the right thing and remove you from their network. Which we all know won’t happen because just like you, CNN also lacks the ability to report honestly and responsibly.

CNN’s slogan claims to be “This is CNN; The most trusted name in news; Facts first.” But yet you don’t report the facts and no-one smart enough trusts you, and they never will. YOU are the cause of your own and CNN’s downfall Mr. Lemon. Not the president, not his supporters, YOU.

https://milnenews.com/2019/03/19/an-open-letter-to-cnns-don-lemon-stop-the-lie-you-have-been-spreading-about-president-trump/

>>5786126

>Lawyers are always jealous of anyone else's fees. ALWAYS.

I wish the answer was as simple as you say, unfortunately it is not. This is another one of those area's that has so many intertwined connections. For realtors/real estate agents/ these NGO's charge an arm and a leg just for one to have access, for example, If you would only like access to the multiple listing service, it cannot be done, the requirement is that you must join the NAR pay a hefty fee so that this NGO can lobby gov't speak on your behalf whether you agree or not, never asked about your opinion on a subject, but rather told this is what it will be. Once you have paid them you now get the wonderful privilege of joining the MLS, (multiple listing service) of course at a fee, which are incurred each year by both. In the meantime the Agents are also told what percentage they can list a home for and most times people will not get that break in the percentage. So do I agree with doing this Absolutely, its bad for the Agents/Brokers and for the Sellers/Buyers.

Facebook claims just 200 viewers livestreamed the New Zealand mosque shooting

Facebook said on Monday that the video of a mass shooting in New Zealand was viewed fewer than 200 times during the live broadcast. The social media company said the video — in which gunman Brenton Tarrant allegedly opened fire in two mosques in the city of Christchurch — was taken down shortly after it was posted Friday afternoon.

He allegedly gunned down 50 people in the two shootings. “We remain shocked and saddened by this tragedy and are committed to working with leaders in New Zealand, other governments, and across the technology industry to help counter hate speech and the threat of terrorism,” Facebook said. In a statement, Facebook added that no users reported the video when it was being streamed live, but it was first flagged about 12 minutes after it had ended. Facebook users then viewed Tarrant’s original posting of the video about 4,000 times before it was taken down.

But a copy of the video was made and an 8chan user posted a link — causing it to spread beyond Facebook, the statement said. Also, Facebook users tried to upload the video about 1.5 million times, the company said. About 1.2 million of those attempts were blocked before it could be uploaded. Facebook said it used audio technology to track the variations of the video and take them down. “We continue to work around the clock to prevent this content from appearing on our site,” it said in the statement.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/facebook-claims-just-200-viewers-livestreamed-the-new-zealand-mosque-shooting/

>>5786381

Kek, the math never lies, Kek as long as the correct numbers are used in the first place!

Facebook releases DeepFocus VR tool

Not a tech fag here, but is there any chance this kind of tech that FB has could be incorporated to create a scene like in NZ

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/software/facebook-releases-deepfocus-vr-tool/1/

>>5786456

Okay, thought process here was this:

Looking at those pic's..He is wearing something on his head..Go Pro's from the experience of watching others use them don't have the smoothness that we are seeing here. You can usually see the user has to adjust the camera for different angles and the pic's seem distorted with certain motions. I just think there was other tech involved with this process, set was staged and the scenes appeared to be live to the untrained eye..and I can't get past bullet casings missing either.

>>5786480

But don't you think he is wearing something on his head? Perspective of the gun alone, gives me that impression..in other words..it looks like a top down angle head is looking down at the gun.

>>5786517

okay, got it now. Thanks

>>5786494

That is how I see this as well, like one of FB's VR experiments.