Julie Garton-Good named one of the 25 most influential people in real estate Source: National Association of REALTORS® ©2000- National Association of REALTORS® Editor: Stacey Moncrieff (December 2000) Making fees viable Julie Garton-Good isn't the first educator to endorse a fee-based practice. But she's the most likely to focus consumers' interest in it. Garton-Good's syndicated column reaches more than 3 million newspaper readers, and she just finished her eighth book, Real Estate à la Carte: Assessing What You Need, Paying What It's Worth. It'll be published in spring 2001 by Dearborn and marketed to consumers and practitioners. A few years ago, Garton-Good embarked on a series of fact-finding sessions with consumers. "At first, I was defensive when people complained about high commissions," says Garton-Good, who worked in real estate from 1974 to 1987. "We've given away so much free for so many years." But then Garton-Good stopped judging and started listening: "Consumers don't like the idea of paying the percentage commission, but they do feel that practitioners should be paid for what they deliver," she says. "That opens up a whole lot of opportunities for practitioners to get paid for things other than listing and selling houses." This year Garton-Good turned her intelligence into action. She launched an education curriculum centered on a consultancy model. Within the first two months, through word of mouth alone, she signed up 400 practitioners. The attention comes as no surprise. Garton-Good has been a popular speaker for more than a decade and is the only two-time recipient of the Real Estate Educator of the Year Award from the Real Estate Educators Association. Click here to read the entire article at One Realtor Place...