CODE: Warning to Realtors

It seems the Realtors Association is going to war against the county’s rural property owners. Talk about a battle you can’t win.

Under the International Building Code (a California private corporation) if a person buys 10 acres in the woods, clears a home site for a log cabin or timber frame home and saws the harvested trees into beams, they can’t use those beams, no matter how overbuilt, as structural elements in their own house. Why? Because those beams aren’t stamped by a government inspector.

Recently the county commissioners voted to allow property owners in the unincorporated areas to “opt out” of the county monopoly on building inspections. This could save many thousands of dollars that can be put toward construction rather than fees. Nearly every property owner at the public hearing was in favor of this yet the Realtors Association was against this tiny expansion in property rights.

In the age of the internet when brick and mortar institutions are shuttering daily, do you really think that going against the property rights of 30 percent of your potential clients is a good business decision? Do you really think that rural property owners will list with an agent that wants to heap more government regulation on their backs?

The first rule of business is: The customer is always right.

BRENT REGAN

Coeur d’Alene