Commercial PropertyToday Show Reporter Fumbles In Realtor "Correction" Segment
Realtors attending the general session of the National Association of Realtors Convention and Expo in Orlando, Florida last week were treated to jumbotron videos of famous people touting the NAR and its members.
Among the celebrities complimenting the NAR for its advertising spots on The Today Show was none other than congenial Al Roker. This was reassuring to NAR members that at least someone in the media knows a little something about Realtors.
Less than two days later, Roker was interviewing a consumer reporter named Janice Lieberman for a segment called "Finding A Realtor," part of a real estate-mortgage financing series the show is doing about homebuying. The first question Roker asked Lieberman was what is the difference between a Realtor and a real estate agent. Lieberman flippantly answered, "Nothing. You say to-may-toe, and I say to-mah-toe."
Since then, NBC and The Today Show"s producers, stars and Lieberman have been inundated with complaints from Realtors all over the country. Century 21 agents are demanding Cendant drop Katie Couric as keynote speaker for the brand"s upcoming convention.
NBC also heard from the NAR.
Steve Cook, vice president of public affairs for the NAR, who was called out of the NAR"s annual Board of Directors meeting on Monday to deal with the flap, told Realty Times, "In my five years of dealing with the press on behalf of the NAR, this is the worst as far as ignorance goes. It"s one thing that reporters give their opinion that you don"t need a Realtor to buy a home, but to say in a factual way in response to a direct question that there is no difference between a Realtor and a real estate agent is something else altogether."
Cook says he was put through immediately to Ms. Lieberman, whom he described as "clueless."
"This "correspondent" who is in a position to advise a large audience not only didn"t know the difference between a Realtor and a real estate agent, she didn"t even know that agents have to be licensed," says Cook. "I took her through the whole thing - that agents have to pass state licensing tests, and there are brokers" and agent licenses and that Realtors have a code of ethics to follow, an arbitration system to work out disputes, and so on."
To Lieberman"s credit, she did listen to Cook, he says, and took notes and asked questions thorughout their talk.
"She knew she was wrong," says Cook who says he didn"t ask for an apology. "I asked for a correction to get the right information out. You can never really fix one of these things. It lives on the Internet forever. It flies around the world in nanoseconds and it never dies, and we have to keep going."
On the Tuesday segment, Lieberman was asked again by Roker for the difference between a Realtor and real estate agent.
Here"s the end of the mortgage segment:
ROKER: Yesterday, I asked you about the difference between a real estate agent and a realtor. What"s the answer?
LIEBERMAN: It was a little confusing. Basically, all realtors are real estate agents, but not all real estate agents are realtors, and realtors belong to the Board of Realtors and there is recourse if you have a problem you can go to the association. They have a certain code of ethics. Real estate agents are also licensed by the state and if you have a problem you have to file something with the government.
ROKER: I got you. Okay. We"ve got a few calls. Don"t call anymore real estate agents and realtors, okay? (Laughter.)
With Lieberman"s emphasis on problems over the solutions the NAR supplies, she did little to put Realtors in a better light.
"Why am I not surprised?" says Cook of the "correction." "It"s mostly right... Even a show like that can get it wrong."