Ugh... it's that time again-- dues billing! There have been a number of calls about the dues and we wanted to answer them as best as we can:
1. When is the due date?
This year, you'll notice at the bottom of your statement that we have provided a variety of payment options.
Payment Option A: Pay in full on or before December 15th, and you'll receive a free Lunch & Learn Class through ACAR worth 2 CE and a lunch.
Payment Option B: Pay installments over the course of 75 days with the first payment of $130 due by December 15th, 2009. Subsequent payments can be made over the next 75 days but must be paid in full no later than March 1, 2010. Contact our membership department at 376-0363 for more details.
Payment Option C: If you have not paid in full by December 31, 2009 or made arrangements for installment payments, you will be subject to a $100 late fee. Dues must be received in full by March 1, 2010 to retain your REALTOR® privileges.
2. Why are the dues so high?
As a local association, we collect dues on behalf of the state and the national association. In September of 2009, the IAR Board of Directors, including State Directors representing local boards, voted to raise the dues for the Idaho Association of REALTORS®. The increase resulted in an increase of $28.50 over last year.
The increase of dues is to ensure that REALTOR® services can continue with the same quality of service. With decreased membership in recent years, the association has experienced a decrease in revenue. The association has been working off of their reserves for the last 2 years, but has come to a point where it is necessary to increase dues in order to maintain the level and quality of service.
Services provided by the Idaho Association of REALTORS® include:
* The REALTOR® Forms such as the representation agreements and the purchase and sale agreements;
* Representation in the legislature, which has resulted in the first time home buyer tax credits, and the tax deductibility of mortgage interest
* The legal hotline which allows brokers and REALTORS® to ask basic legal questions without having to retain counsel
* Professional Standards administration for more than 18 local boards in Idaho
* Affordable education, such as the Short Sale and Foreclosure Course being offered in November for only $15
* An annual convention that allow you to network with colleagues from around the state and receive the entire CE you would need in a license renewal cycle.
Breakdown of percentages:
42% of dues to IAR
27% to NAR
31% to ACAR
If you still have questions about the dues increase, you can contact the Idaho Association at 342-3585.
If you have questions about what benefits ACAR offers, click here.
3. Do I have to pay "RPAC"?
No. This is a voluntary contribution to the REALTOR® Political Action Committee. If you do not wish to contribute, you do not have to pay.
4. What is "RPAC"?
RPAC is the REALTOR® Political Action Committee who is responsible for endorsing candidates that support the REALTOR® Cause. To learn more about what they do, click here.
Need to pay your 2010 Dues Bill? You can pay on our website >> HERE.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
14 comments:
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I understand that we do not have to pay RPAC, but I cannot find anything in my statement that alows me to pay less? How does one opt out in the online version of our statement?
ReplyDeleteAs in any industry during tough times there is a necessity to cut some services if the income is not generated. It should not be by increasing dues. We have increased public awareness of our industry to the point much of the public that once needed us no longer uses us. They have most of the necessities to "do their own thing". Until we can get a handle on our own industry so we are needed again to do more than "open the door" for these lost customers/clients we will continue to suffer. In the "old days" when we were completely depended upon, we could actually form a relationship with our buyers. Get rid of some of the constant improvements and we will get along just fine.
ReplyDeleteThe IAR doesn't need a high profile address at a cost of $25 sf + lease in BODO. It probably goes unused most of the time (the building). Pleanty of cheaper spaces around. The National Assoc. could eliminate the montly Magazine, it is 1/2 the size and has very little value.
ReplyDeletethe argument that business is down makes the Assoc. raise fees wouldn't work for my clients.
"I need to raise my commissions because my bussines & the number of people buying homes has
decreased" fat chance that would work,
If we have to cut corners, so does the Assoc.
One other question, does IMLS get a fee for promoting Listing book, Goomzee, if there is no money coming into IMLS stop promoting them.
It is a ruse that apparisers must pay for national and local dues when we do not have a representative at either level. I don't mind paying for the MLS services as I use and appreciate them. But in the past two years we have lost our livelihood in $$$ with everyone picking our pockets and demanding more. If you can't support your staff then as we have done, you do more for less and lay some off....harsh, yes very harsh....but upping the dues only frustrates us all.
ReplyDeleteGood comments...
ReplyDeleteYou can elect to invest as much or a little in RPAC as you want. Remember though, that this is the fund that we use to support candidates and issues locally and nationally. If we want representatives on the Eagle or Boise City Councils that understand the Realtor position, we have to be able to support them. Same thing for the Home Buyer Tax Credit. Its the Realtors who are right now lobbying to get the bill out of the Senate and continue our housing recovery.
"Desperate times call for drastic measures." The challenge for your association is to take the right "drastic" steps. Our priorities are to continue those products and services that our strategic plan says are our top priorities. Communicating the value that Realtors bring to our communities is one of those priorities. Instead of backing down from that effort, we've elected to reduce costs in other areas. This year, for example, we held our Member Appreciation event as a family picnic in Julia Davis park. We had a great time, and spent $6,000 less than last year when we took everyone to a baseball game.
ReplyDeleteAmong some consumers, there is a belief that they can do this alone. They learn qucikly that they really can't. The number of FSBO's has gone down every year.
We have to keep telling them, every day, that Realtors have unique market knowledge; are skilled negotiators and can eliminate the ugly surprises that often accompany a transaction.
At the same time, we have to help you be able to deliver on those promises.
The Board of Directors of IAR agree that the usefulness of the headquarters building downtown is exceeded by its cost to maintain. The building has been listed for sale.
ReplyDeleteNAR has revamped Realtor Magazine into a nuts and bolts, monthly "how to" for members. It is so widely read that its advertising now supports the publication's costs.
Regarding IMLS, they have strategic partnerships with vendors that either return income to the IMLS or significantly reduce member costs for the services offered. Etierh way Realtors win.
Raising ACAR dues for the reasons you have cited is lame and pathetic. How in the world can you justify having the same size staff as we had 2-3 years ago? The director and board must be spinelss or believe we members are stupid or made of money. While I'm venting and I am not alone; please, can anyone tell me what the IAR is good for except forms? Of course it is tough, but, get out the hatchet and chop. The services are not all relevant,as has been stated. When you loose the client base,you must adjust. Many of use are walking on the edge of financial destruction here and this thing is not going away anytime soon. Your excessive dues are an open invitation compelling an even greater number of us to get out of the business.If that is your wish or the desire of the leadership, then well done, it is working.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know what percent of our dues is applied to the annual convention. Just how much does this event cost? It is impossible for me to justify paying for a convention that I cannot attend. Why should I subsidize something I get no benefit from. If you ask why I do not attend, it is simple: I CANNOT AFFORD IT!
ReplyDeleteI agree get out the hachet and do the dirty work. It is offensive to me to pay for jobs that could be done with half of the staff.
ReplyDeleteIt appears to me the ACAR/IAR/NAR is like congress, short on money raise taxes....as an appraiser my income has dropped as I don't get to add 4-6% commision on a deal or 1-5% loan fee, or processing charge, or...well you get the picture...if I raise fee by $25-50 to cover increasing costs/addition required forms, it is considered price gouging by all. Yet due to Cumo's backroom deal called the HVCC I now have to give 10-35% of my fee to an AMC owned by the lender making a loan, and I certainly can't pass that cost on. Since I can't do business without the MLS I'm stuck paying additional dues to organizations that don't necessarily have my interests or needs on their radar and more often than not would just as soon see the appraisal part of the process go away.
ReplyDeleteLISTEN to what the Realtors have written here! The few that have submitted comments speak for the majority of the realtors I have heard from. The dues should have been LOWERED this year in these hard times! Your focus should be on supporting and helping - not discouraging us!!
ReplyDeleteAs a 35 year career Realtor I am opposed to raising our dues as a solution. This is supposed to be our organization not YOUR organization. When times are good we all expand and spend money on items and programs that may not be needed, but because we are flush we spend more than we probably should.
ReplyDeleteWhen the economy changes and we are all now working on 50% or less of our normal income, we as self employeed Realtors look for ways to stay in business. The first thing we do is eliminate spending any money on anything we don't have to have. i.e. new cars, new computers, new phones, new gadgets,etc.
I would venture to say that almost every agent still in business has cut their expenditures by 30% to 70% and guess what- over half the Realtors have left the business because they don't have enough business to support the expenditures.
Now you come along and you have your financial problems and your answer is just raise the dues. You must have the same disease as Congress who sit in their ivory tower passing out idiotic reform at our expense while they spend money the old fashion way (on anything they want!)
If you are going to represent us then represent our interests. Today that would be staying alive and in business. Listen to what we are telling you. We don't need half the programs you promote. The continuing education and the relentless form changes are both a joke and merely add to our burden. Do you really believe we are better Realtors today than 10 years ago? I see our local association as an obstacle not a solution.
If you really want to represent us then get down here in the trenches with us and find ways to lower our dues not raise them. WE are all doing more with less. It is time you showed the same respect for the problem and get in line with the rest of us who do the heavy lifting.
You need to remember without us you don't exist and there are fewer of us every month. So at the end of the day are you going to be part of the problem or part of the solution?
There’s never a really “good” time for an organization to have to raise its costs to members. In “good times” (like we experienced between 2003 and 2007) membership is expanding and the additional income makes an increase appear to be unnecessary. In ‘hard times’, when membership is contracting, like now, it feels like the association is piling on at the very worst time.
ReplyDeleteFirst, ACAR did not raise dues for 2010. You Board voted to hold dues at the same amount they’ve been for several years. This will result in a deficit budget for ACAR for 2010. The Board considered this and voted to make up that deficit from the reserves we saved during the “good times”.
Asking the organization to justify the increased expense is the right thing to do. In the month leading up to the vote on IAR dues, IAR sent out several email updates on why this action was needed. Many members read these “Why Raise Dues Now” whitepapers and directed questions to our State Directors.
The State Directors in turn did go to IAR and say “What about this…? For each of the nearly 2 dozen questions that were raised, the Directors received an answer. Combined, those answers provided compelling evidence that a dues increase was warranted.
I was at the meeting where the dues increase was debated and I can tell you that the Directors didn’t want a dues increase any more than you did. But, when they saw the alternative, they voted for the increase.
The Directors did review the relative contribution of each of the state association’s activities and did reduce costs associated with almost of them.
Were it not for your state association of REALTORS® advocating on your behalf, you would be subject to some of the more onerous legislative and regulatory requirements that other REALTORS® face around the country…Transfer taxes on real property, taxes on commissions, mandatory education, and a legal climate that encourages clients to try to avoid paying for your services.
Were it not for your state association we would not have received $60,000 in NAR grant money to help the continued real estate recovery in the Valley or have a first time home buyer tax credit advance.
Expense reductions have occurred across the board for ACAR and IAR. Tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been cut. In the end, however, IAR Directors voted to increase annual dues by $70 dollars for 2010.