Response from USA Today reporter, Noelle Knox

I received an email back from the USA Today National Real Estate Reporter, Noelle Knox. She had a couple of points that I need to address: She claims that some MLS systems were/are/can be exclusionary and that is why the FTC and DOJ have started legal actions. My response to that is: Even though there may be some rogue MLS operations excluding members based on their business models, the great majority of MLS systems are open to any members regardless of the way they do their business. I would hope that the Department of Justice would not broad-stroke the entire concept of MLS because of a few bad seeds.

She went on to say that she believes or has heard that much time has been saved on chauffering clients around from house to house, and clients now narrow down their choices because of the Internet. This is true, but my point is that these are not major costs in real estate transactions. She did agree with me that buyers and sellers have, in general, not been willing to take full responsibility for themselves when mistakes or changes of mind occur in the transaction. This is what really impacts the costs of a real estate transaction.

Noelle then agreed that she would never advise anyone to buy a home 100% over the internet as the subjects of her article did.