NOTICE:
500ToList.com was closed in January of 2010 by its owners and manager due to being accused of violating Kansas statutes regulating real estate brokers and agents by the Kansas Real Estate Commission .
It has been nearly a 3 year battle with the officials at the KREC and it appears our site may never return to a live status.
Our business model was one of the first - if not THE first in Kansas to be setup in such a way to offer consumer choice in the marketing of their own property, searching for other homes for sale by owners, and in finding qualified licensed professionals to assist if they so chose to list with a broker.
It is unfortunate that the KREC chose our founder and our website to bear the brunt of this targeted attack on flat fee realty firms and associated companies - however on a side note - we have found at least 4 other national and regional companies doing very similar things now in Kansas - and dozens more individual agents and small brokerages. Quite simply - there is a demand for alternative home marketing services, additional classified-like websites and places to learn more about options for listing by owner vs. listing with a licensed broker who can offer access to the MLS, negotiation assistance, contract reviews, necessary disclosures and more. We attempted to design a business model that did just that - but was separate from that of being a real estate brokerage. The KREC felt that our site was a threat to the public and took very harsh actions against our founder and this site. We think they felt more threatened by the changes in fee structures brokerages accept for listing services and various other services.
After a nearly 3-year investigation of unknown reason and seemingly without justification to which they ended up with a determination that our site founders did not agree with - we chose to take this site offline. We chose to make a peace offering with the KREC by taking an innovative, viable and competitive business model and its associated websites down . We chose to take down the site pending the outcome of any dispute resolution or proceedings with the KREC. We thought it would be more of a constructive time to add additional disclaimers the KREC felt necessary, to discuss openly with them to ensure compliance going forward - however we have yet to have any such discussion despite efforts to do so. When our founder visited the KREC in person at an open meeting to the public - he was tossed out like a criminal - as though he was making threats or something - then he was ordered to not call or go to the KREC offices in the future as a show of authority by the KREC director who used her position to further cause hardship on the lawful business of Advantage Partners LLC Realty - our site founder’s real estate company.
We tried to make it clear that this website is a separate business from that of any manager owner of the parent company or administrator of this website. In the eyes of the KREC apparently any lawful business or website owned by or managed by a real estate agent or broker is within their jurisdiction - even without a consumer complaint - which by most standards would fall under the jurisdiction of the state Attorney General. They claim jurisdiction over this site and accused us of operating an unlicensed brokerage by offering to allow you to list your home online here or on your local MLS with the assistance of a licensed broker who you would be referred to.
By taking our website page content out of order, and out of context to some degree - they were able to put together a rather long petition and order - which we of course dispute.
This site will remain OFFLINE pending the outcome of the legal battle with the Kansas Real Estate Commission now being addressed by the Office of Administrative Hearings.
We have temporarily placed this site online in a limited status to allow legal defense counsel and interested parties access to our website, our legal disclaimers, our blogs and articles, the website logs, hack attempts and server data.
If the KREC would offer suggestions instead of threats and attacks on our founder’s other businesses, trade affiliations and business partners - we would gladly accept their input and perhaps openly discuss a resolution to each of their concerns. Our business model for this website was fairly simple - innovative and legal - but it was taken way out of context by the “I-Team” at the KREC and by certain brokers and agents who lacked the ability to understand price competition and alternative online marketing efforts home owners desire to have available to them.
To this date - this website has not received any notification of any consumer complaint.
After nearly 2 years of threats and demand for documents from our founder and his separate legal real estate brokerage - which is still licensed and operating today quite nicely - the KREC informed our owners and this website that it determined that this site was somehow setup purposely to be a unlicensed brokerage and must be a scam of some sort to rob the public out of their money by pretending to be a brokerage itself or not legally disclose that this site is acting as a brokerage when it is not licensed as such (despite our many disclaimers and explanations of what we do - classified ads and brokerage listing referral services to get on local MLS‘s and obtain the assistance of a licensed professional).
We have answered their concerns - many times - to no avail yet. I hope we can get a fair trial at the Office of Administrative Hearings - it was brought to our attention that the Director of the KREC is married to the Director of the OAH. I am not exactly sure how there can ever be a fair trial at the OAH for disputed charges from the KREC - but we are praying that there is someone in Kansas left with honor and will see right through this mess and order the KREC to work with our founder to either agree to make this site a park of his brokerage or to allow this site to remain a separate entity and business as it was designed but to come up with suggestions on the language of the site articles, offers, terms of service and legal disclaimers to remove any doubt about what this site is about.
We sincerely hope that our state backs down and stops spending the tens of thousands of dollars it has already gone through seemingly with ulterior motives of trying to shut our founder’s real estate brokerage down by attempting to pin very serious allegations on our founder and his brokerage for his ties to this website which are severely biased and at times unconscionable.
In the interest of economic sanity and public good - we propose that the KREC simply make suggestions to our founder for this websites continued compliance going forward. We would welcome the opportunity to aide the state in better understanding the role of technology and consumer demands for competitive alternatives to “traditional” brokerage or marketing services.
We simply desired to provide an efficient and affordable mechanism for the average home owner to market his or her own home and to seek guidance from our community of partner agents and brokerages - and - if so desired - the ability to be referred to a local listing broker to provide any additional brokerage-related services to the customer.
We have lost out first-to-market edge and a large sum of money defending our site and our founder. Other brokerages and non-brokerages have taken over as dominant service providers. As such - we have lost our value and income to effectively continue the development that would have been required to keep up the pace with the competition in websites dedicated to helping home owners find discount and pre-negotiated lower cost brokerages and listing agents to help them in the marketing of their homes. It is likely that this site will never return to an active ONLINE status as a result of this seemingly simple thing to correct. Much brainpower and money has been spent in the attempt to criminalize and penalize our site and its founders - nothing has been done on their side to offer any resolution other than an offer to force our founder into admitting untruths about this site and his brokerage.
We hope we can get this resolved in the next few months. If you have any questions please feel free to email us or call.
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