Oregon Mortgages

Cracking Down?

Well some of you might have heard about ZipRealty or Redfn; who are online discount brokers. We could be seeing the end of that short lived fad…

They were/are offering rebates to buyers and sellers to help connect them with an agent. This was drawing major criticism from many Full Service Real Estate Firms as well as State Lawmakers. It appears that some states have banned rebates citing Kickback Laws and consider it a violation to allow such a thing. Some States have backed off that action a bit amidst pressure from some US Judicial Department who was quoted by saying “A rebate ban hinders Broker Competition.”

It sounds like this is going to be quite the debate for some time. We’ll see how this all plays out. I know us Mortgage Originators in Oregon have to walk a fine line on what we can even do when giving a gift to a client for sending us a referral. It definitely baffles me with what some of these companies are able to do.