DESIGNATED CRAP

Beware jargon.

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors -- members of which have been too busy to update their Web site since December 2000 -- voted 81-6 yesterday in favor of “designated agencies.” They want legislators to let the same firm represent the seller of a home and the person bidding for it.

Ideally, the agents representing the seller and buyer compete, and all is well because their firms get a commission no matter which client makes out. But any idiot can see the possibilities for collusion, even if it takes someone knowledgeable in real estate to see the mechanics of how the buyer, seller or both get screwed.

The lopsided vote is a little suspicious, but it’s the phrase “designated agencies” that is the real tip-off that this is a bad idea for everyone but real estate agents. That’s because, of course, “designated agencies” doesn’t mean anything.

I’m told by a real estate expert that it’s supposed to mean that at a firm handling a buyer and seller, a boss “designates” one broker to represent the buyer and another to represent the seller. Never mind that they aren’t called “designated agents,” but “designated agencies”; under this reasoning, they could as well be called “choice agencies” or “selection agencies” or any number of other things -- and it would still be impossible to tell from the term what is actually going on.

Suspicion also grows when a Google search fails to present a clear sense of what the term means. The results are all over the place, even though the practice of “designated agencies” is apparently allowed in 26 other states.

A similar effort was presented to legislators here in 1997, and it failed. It should fail again until the real estate agents design safeguards against broker collusion -- and come up with a term that treats the public and the English language with more respect.