Industry Expert Weighs In On RE/MAX Plan

To: All RE/MAX Members
From: Bruce Benham, RE/MAX International Chief Operating Officer
Date: Aug. 19, 2005

S P E C I A L M E M O R A N D U M

Gregg Larson, president & CEO of Clareity Consulting & Communications, has granted permission for distribution of the item below to the RE/MAX membership. Following the Friday, August 18, 2005 announcement by RE/MAX International chairman, Dave Liniger regarding a "national collection of IDX site" on www.remax.com, Larson, a well-known real estate industry expert, issued the following "Executive Briefing" to every Multiple Listing Service in the country and to thousands of brokers.

Clareity Executive Briefing: RE/MAX National Internet Strategy

RE/MAX International announced a bold new strategy this week for remax.com. Clareity Consulting received a few questions from MLS executives and Realtors that sit on MLS Boards, so this Executive Briefing is intended to answer the questions regarding the RE/MAX strategy and provide an independent opinion and additional insight - just in case this topic comes up in a board room near you.

RE/MAX plans to use technology from Siegent, the parent company of eNeighborhoods, to provide consumers a national, "seamless collection" of IDX sites that include all the listings in a market area and conform to local IDX policies. This idea is not completely new, as it has been done by large regional franchises, such as what John L. Scott did across multiple MLSs in three states in the Northwest (www.johnlscott.com). However, this is new for a national site that already has substantial consumer traffic and the marketing muscle of RE/MAX International to drive more traffic to the site.

In our opinion, the RE/MAX strategy is both pro-consumer and pro-industry. Consumers will love seeing all of the listings on one site, and RE/MAX is advertising all the listings - including competitor's listings. Certainly the whole market listing content will help draw more traffic to remax.com, but like any IDX site, some consumers will call the listing agent directly for a C21 or Coldwell Banker listing that they first saw on remax.com. RE/MAX executives think that's just great. In fact, they told Clareity that they hope other regional brokers and national franchises will create similar large-scale IDX sites and advertise RE/MAX listings.

Is RE/MAX trying to compete with Realtor.com and become a national real estate portal? Not really. RE/MAX is telling its brokers and agents to continue to support Realtor.com, and Realtor.com will continue to power the search of remax.com until the new IDX sites come up city by city. The RE/MAX strategy is much more targeted towards regaining online leads that are currently being collected by other online companies, especially those not in the brokerage business.

Should local MLSs worry about what RE/MAX is doing? No, the national site will play by the local IDX rules, so it is a natural evolution to present a "collection" of IDX sites and it is likely that other franchises will follow. The days of not giving brokers listing data, especially just the IDX data, are over, and we've all recently seen the results when an MLS fails to serve its brokers needs. Clareity encourages MLS operators to cooperate and support the remax.com effort and other brokers that want to do something similar.

We hope you found this Executive Briefing helpful and that it provided more clarity to this week's press announcement by RE/MAX.

Best regards, Gregg Larson
President & CEO
Clareity Consulting & Communications