REMAX president joins ARA board as association lands 1st major franchise partner
The headline is that the ARA landed its first big franchise brand. RE/MAX president Chris Lim took a board seat, and every RE/MAX agent in the country gets a free first year. Good week for the upstart. But the real tell is buried halfway down the story:
“As Inman recently reported, the rift between NAR and Umansky’s thePLS.com has taken a new turn. NAR has issued a subpoena to the ARA and its co-founder, Haber. The subpoena demands that ARA and Haber hand over documents, contracts, invoices and all communications between ARA, thePLS.com and theNLS.com, its Spanish counterpart.”
Four days before the ARA picked up RE/MAX, NAR hit it with a subpoena.
Read those in order. NAR spent the week trying to haul its upstart rival into court, and the rival answered by absorbing every RE/MAX agent in America. That is not how you make a competitor smaller.
Most NAR alternatives fizzle. We’ve seen a lot come and go, and the graveyard has headstones. This one is different in one specific way. You don’t drag a nobody into your litigation and demand their inbox. A subpoena is a form of respect. NAR meant to send a warning and handed the ARA a certificate of relevance, which the ARA promptly cashed. Talk about bad blood!
Whether an alternative association actually lasts is a different question, and an open one. Free first-year rosters sign up easy and drift away easier, especially when year two comes with a bill. But for one week the challenger got subpoenaed and got bigger on the same page. I was skeptical, but a rival worth suing is a rival worth watching.
