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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Market Driven

Steve White is no stranger to the political and professional groups that serve the local residential real estate scene. He has served as a director of the California Association of Realtors. He was president of the Santa Clarita Valley Association of Realtors and headed the committee that chose to merge with the San Fernando Valley realtors group creating the Southland Regional Association of Realtors, the group of which he is now president. And he was on the committee that worked to regionalize the area’s Multiple Listing Service, the industry bible for advertising and identifying homes for sale. SRAR has grown considerably during the residential real estate boom of recent years, from about 7,669 members in 2002 to 11,448 members in 2005. As the association has grown, so too have its members’ needs, encompassing education and technology and increasing the group’s political clout. A 20-year residential real estate veteran, White spent the major portion of that time at ReMax until about five years ago when he joined Keller Williams where he is operating principal and co-owner of Keller Williams VIP Properties in Santa Clarita. Question: What are your goals as president of the Southland Regional Association of Realtors? Answer: My one major goal is to further the depth and reach of SRAR educational programs to its members, further enhancing their professionalism and therefore their service to the public. We see this as an augment to the education and training that agents receive in their offices. One of the struggles that we’ve had in the industry in the past five years has been a tremendous influx of people coming into the industry, and therefore into our membership. Anytime you have a swell of membership it taxes the brokers and their resources for training and education. Q: What are your other goals as SRAR president? A: Number two is what we call political survival. SRAR in partnership with the California Association of Realtors (CAR) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) support our members at the regional, at the state level and national level by furthering realtor issues, and making our local and state elected officials aware of the issues we deal with in our industry. There’s a proposal now in the city of Los Angeles that if a sidewalk is cracked it will have to be replaced or repaired at the time of sale. And SRAR along with the California Association of Realtors remains opposed to point of sale issues such as this. We believe that if it is truly something that needs to be done why wait until a home sells? Why put the burden on the homeowner? I don’t know if all our members are aware of what we do on the political survival end. Q: And what is your third goal? A: The physical system of our Multiple Listing Service. It’s my firm belief that a MLS system should not only meet the needs of its members’ business but enhance them. It’s my goal by the end of 2006 that we augment the system we have or replace it with a system that does that. This week we have industry expert consultants that will be here looking at all aspects of our MLS system, the hardware, the software, staff, area coverage. It’s going to give us a comprehensive report by the end of the month to let us know where we need to take our MLS system to better serve our members. Q: What are some of the additional MLS services members need? A: We did a membership survey very, very recently and the No. 1 thing that our members told us they wanted was an MLS that covered a broader area. Currently our MLS covers the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys including Burbank and the Simi Valley, Moorpark area and then, through a data share agreement, the Conejo Valley area. Many of our broker members have offices in several areas, and they must belong to several different multiple listing services in order to cover the area where their offices are, which means different systems and different rules. Q: Your brokerage, Keller Williams, is a relative newcomer to the area. Tell us something about how the company evolved. A: The company started in 1983 in Austin, Texas. We began moving outside of Texas in the late 80s. Southern California in particular was one of the final frontiers of the company for whatever reason. The first office Keller Williams opened in this area was in Westlake Village. We opened in Santa Clarita in February, 2003. Q: What is your outlook for the local residential real estate scene going forward? A: The economists from CAR are telling us that 2006, while not as robust as 2005, should look a lot like 2004. We’ve had five years of just absolute, sometimes pandemonium, and it hasn’t been easy. We’ve had very, very low supply which creates lack of choices. Over the last few months we’ve approached a balanced market. Today we have about 5.3 months of inventory on the market. Industry experts will tell you that 6 months of inventory is what you need to have a balanced market where there are choices for buyers and choices for sellers that are selling to find other properties. Over the near term, we see a more balanced market wherein buyers have more choices, certainly some negotiating room. Sellers have to be more realistic, and, in some neighborhoods, a lot more realistic on pricing, paying attention to what recent sales have been and not always pricing over that, which is the market we had come from. Q: There’s been a lot written about commission structures for traditional brokers changing as new types of brokerages offering limited or Internet-only services have come into the market with lower fee structures. How do you see that affecting the traditional broker? A: SRAR doesn’t set any kind of commission structure. We have members that have a variety of business models. I’ve been a realtor since 1986. Depending on the needs of my clients, the market conditions, the commission can vary. There are a variety of differences out there. Over the past several years there has been an opening of the market to the point where there is just a variety of fee structures and commissions within the industry. Q: You don’t think these lower cost brokers have had any impact on the market? A: We have business models that many other brokers, depending on the market conditions, compete with. As I said, there are menus of services within brokerages. Will I concede that in a hot, hot market that there’s a downward pressure on fees? Yes. And the opposite when a market cools off. It has a lot to do with supply and demand. It’s not unique to our industry. Steve White Title: President, Southland Regional Association of Realtors Born: 1954, Glendale Education: Attended Moorpark College Personal: Single, no children Career Turning Point: While working at a family interior design business, he began buying fixer-uppers, refurbishing them and re-selling them. The experience introduced him to the brokerage field, and he found he preferred it.

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