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Joined 01/20/2008

Bruce Hahn

President

American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance

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(703) 536-7776

Bruce Hahn has been an association manager and lobbyist since the 1970's. He is a Certified Association Executive (CAE). Mr. Hahn was a co-founder of the Small Business Legislative Council and subsequently was elected as its chairman. He was also a co-founder of the American League of Lobbyists and the author of ALL's code of ethics. Hahn has held senior management experience with a number of national trade associations. Among them are the National Association of Manufacturers where he served as the Vice President, Public Affairs; and the Computing Technology Industry Association, where he was head of the government affairs department. Mr. Hahn has been an investor in real estate, including both residential real estate and land, since the 1980's.

My Comments

  • American Homeowners
    By Bruce HahnNovember 21, 2008 - 10:59am

    American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance Many consumers are like some small business owners: overly optimistic and financially naive in many cases. That's why lenders are supposed to apply sound underwriting principles when either one applies for a loan. Now we're stuck with the result of what happens when lenders abandon the underwriting process. Innocent homeowners who have had nothing to do with subprime loans have seen their home's values plummet, as have innocent investors of financial services company stock and securities. Yes, there's plenty of blame to spread around, but let's reserve the bulk of the blame for the lenders who should have prevented the problem in the first place and the regulators who had the tools to stop or mitigate the problem, but didn't use them.

  • American Homeowners
    By Bruce HahnNovember 18, 2008 - 5:16pm

    American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance The sentence regarding the 1% commission is totally unnecessary and should be ommitted (the second sentence is useful information and should be retained). Commissions are negotiable, so home sellers should be allowed to choose any percentage or amount they are willing to pay a buyers agent, including zero and TBD (to be determined). All you need is a box with "buyers broker commission, if any" next to it and let the seller put in whatever they want. The only requirement is that the listing broker be a NAR member, and that requirement would be satisfied if they were a NAR list only broker only. If the eventual buyer is unrepresented, a buyers agent commission is irrelevant anyway. If the buyer has a contractual obligation to pay an exclusive buyers agent, the buyer can either propose in his offer that the seller pay his agent's commission, or else adjust the amount offered to compensate for the difference.

  • American Homeowners
    By Bruce HahnNovember 17, 2008 - 3:45pm

    American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance The most exhaustive independent comparative study on this subject was done a few years ago by two University of Chicago economists. Based on the review of many thousands of sales, the authors of the book "Freakonomics" concluded that there was no difference between FSBO and non-FSBO sale prices. Interestingly, they did find a small cohert of the sample that did consistently get higher prices for their homes. These were the homes, both primary residences and investment properties, sold by their owner-agents.