Dave Barry, the inveterate suer of all things MLS, has lost. Again.
After having failed to get his Open MLS initiative on the 2007 Maine ballot, he said this in February of this year:
Early returns from an initial 2 month effort to collect signatures for the Maine Open MLS Initiative show it heading toward being the most popular initiative in Maine history, with over 80% voter support. To date 14,000 of 55,087 required signatures have been collected.
Upon collecting 55,087 signatures, the Open MLS Initiative will appear on the Maine ballot for the November 2008 election.
Right.
Inman reports he’s walking away from the effort. Apparently Maine voters are a bit skeptical of putting someone’s career ambitions up to a popular vote.
There will be a tendency of MAR to take credit due to their $200 special assessment. No. It failed because it was a seriously dumb idea badly written, and people are much more discerning than we sometimes give them credit.
Incidentally, Barry is for the time being retiring from the suing and initiative grind to concentrate on a providing agents and consumers a new lead generation system.
Can. Not. Wait.
Jim Gatos says:
I’ve never seen so many “jerks” all of the sudden rise up at once and go after real estate agents. I’m glad Mr. Barry gave up. Maybe he lead more losers LOL…
December 5, 2007 — 8:42 pm
Russell Shaw says:
Jeff, you just know he will have Realtor customers for his lead generation business. He can count on you and me, for sure. 🙂
December 5, 2007 — 9:17 pm
Jonathan Dalton says:
The quotes were the best part … a lack of competition in the lead generation business (what?), exorbitant fees (ok, he has that part right) and there should be a different stream of leads available at better prices (gee, heard of blogs, websites, etc.)?
Maybe there’s a lack of competition because these folks are dropping like flies. As I said on the Phx Technology Exchange the only folks still paying for lead generation either are chronically lazy or incurably stupid.
December 5, 2007 — 10:11 pm
Ann Cummings says:
Oh good grief – he’s giving up on his suing profession and is now going to pursue another stupid notion about how to try to screw and make money off the backs of agents…… Like the world needs one more original lead-generation concept.
Please Mr. Barry, crawl back under your rock and stay there. Find another hobby and just leave our industry alone!
December 6, 2007 — 4:49 am
Jay Reifert says:
I don’t blame any of you for being torqued off at David Barry. I really don’t. However, you’re wrong about why he failed to get enough votes to get the referendum question established.
He failed to get the referendum on the ballot for one reason, and only one reason: Lack of money to fund the end phase of the signature drive, within the allowed time.
These signature drives are run by professional outfits that charge a fee for every signature they obtain. This isn’t anything that is unique to Mr. Barry’s attempt…it’s just the way it pretty much has to be done, because of the volume of signatures required.
In case you didn’t notice, they gathered about sixty thousand signatures…an amount that was short by about ten thousand, given that a certain percentage of those signatures would not be valid, if challenged.
So, it really was only a matter of a lack of money for the time left to gather the necessary signatures.
What would have been interesting, would have been the types of ads that would have been run–the presumed reason for the Maine Realtors surcharge–if the initiative would have been placed on the ballot.
December 6, 2007 — 10:52 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Sorry, Jay; no.
First you’re taking your talking points – ran out of money, 60,000 signatures gathered – from: Dave Barry, the same one who said this was the most popular initiative in Maine history.
More importantly: Oregon, I think, has more citizen intitiatives than any other state. Only a small percentage ever make it to the signature gathering stage, a small percentage of those make it to the ballot.
For an initiative to be successful, it has to have at the very least a popular underlying interest, if not an underlying groundswell. We in the RE business sometimes forget that RE simply isn’t a hot topic around the world’s dinner tables, and “Would you like to sign a petition for an Open MLS?” doesn’t quite have the resonance of “Yo, Dude, want to sign a petition to legalize marijuana?” Barry didn’t run out of money, he ran out of a saleable idea.
That said, most here would love to diminish the presence of the NAR and various local realtor associations and MLSs in our lives; that’s one of the reasons for Unchained.
But taking our money out of NAR’s pocket and putting it into Dave Barry’s isn’t the way to go about it…
December 6, 2007 — 1:36 pm
Jay Reifert says:
Sorry, Jeff; no.
I actually know David Barry. I’m a former client of his. We’ve had a few discussions about this initiative…and many discussions about a great deal of other things. With regards to the Maine ballot initiative, they ran out of money.
You’re also wrong about his motivation.
If Open MLS were to succeed, someone would have to run it, right? If you were to understand the premise of the Open MLS in the first place–which is to get rid of trade-restraining aspects engendered by the MLS–then you would know that it would require a person who understands the restraints to oversee the project, and make sure that the Open MLS did not get corrupted.
David Barry does not have a winning track record in these matters…that is true. His heart, though, is in the right place.
He is concerned with the rights of non traditional practitioners and consumers…not the corrupt aspects of the system.
December 6, 2007 — 1:51 pm
Jay Reifert says:
By the way, Jeff…have you read Barry’s online book, Nine Pillars of the Citadel? If not, I’d suggest that you give it a brief read.
You can find it at:
http://www.barryfirm.com/dnld/Nine-Pillars-Citadel.pdf
Once you’ve read it, you may have a different impression of his motivations.
Jay Reifert, Broker/Owner
Excel-Exclusive Buyer Agency
Madison, Wisconsin
December 6, 2007 — 1:54 pm
Jeff Kempe says:
You’re engaged in circular reasoning, Jay. Barry, through both word and action, lacks credibility; I’m not entirely sure how your knowing him changes that.
He had a year to gather enough signatures; I believe he was even allowed to carry some of the signatures over from his try for the 2007 ballot. He didn’t get them. Nothing else really matters.
And if you seriously think he’s made a career of suing MLSs (and losing), and tried three times to get Open MLS initiatives on state ballots (and lost) because his heart’s in the right place, then absolutely nothing I say will convince you of, well, anything.
Best.
December 6, 2007 — 3:09 pm
Jay Reifert says:
What is wrong with him doing the right thing and profiting from it? That’s kind of the whole point behind most antitrust suits, isn’t it?
Most antitrust suits arise out of the belief that there are economic and/or social injustices to correct. They are high risk/high reward endeavors.
The initiatives are designed to redress injustice, as well, like it or not.
I, for one, think it is funny that NAR and the State Associations think it is perfectly all right for them to create and pass protectionist legislation…like minimum service laws and Designated Agency laws…yet, when David Barry proposes to take his fight over the heads of bought and sold legislatures, directly to the people…well, somehow that is just an awful thing.
The method, I think, is genius. The execution is the only thing I see as being flawed. It took money to get the job done…and they ran out.
Of course, the thought that a mere $25,000 was going to be the end of the matter was an inadequate conclusion on David’s part, in my opinion.
You can bet that, as soon the initiative gained a place on the ballot, the ads against it would be shot and in the can, waiting to be broken out at the strategically appropriate time, in order to convince the public that it should be voted down.
The only likely way to counter the ads against, would be to have ads promoting it…and that would take quite a bit of money in its own right.
The problem, in my view, wasn’t the idea…it was the undercapitalization for seeing it through from inception, to completion.
I sure have no problem with him, or anyone else, profiting from the correction of trade-restraining activities, though.
December 6, 2007 — 3:32 pm
Jeff Kempe says:
>What is wrong with him doing the right thing and profiting from it?
Good heavens, Jay. Other than the fact that you’re contradicting yourself, you’re begging a premise: He’s not doing the right thing; the intitiative’s a mess and the idea’s nuts. That’s why he didn’t get enough signatures the three times he’s tried. If he tries it here in Oregon, he’ll fail again. Please tell him that for me.
Making a profit is terrific, but not if that profit goes from my pocket into someone else’s by virtue of legislative gimmick, and I get absolutely nothing in return.
That’s not profit, that’s theft.
December 6, 2007 — 7:26 pm
Jim Cosgrove says:
As a Maine resident and real estate practioner I can tell you that this is the easiest state in the Union to get an initiative on the ballot, the very reason Mr. Barry chose it. I have NEVER seen any group fail to get ANY initiative up and running.
There simply is no huge groundswell from the public, no feeling that there is a problem with the present system. We have more real estate brokers in this state than you can shake a stick at and the vast majority of them will cut their commissions if you look at them. (That doesn’t mean they’ll get your house sold but by gosh you’ll be getting a discount!)
Believe it or not there actually could be a few other problems in the world of a more pressing nature.
December 6, 2007 — 8:49 pm