WEB REVIEW

Web Review: Miscellaneous
Roundtable Ensures Square Deal for Industry

The Real Estate Roundtable Web site follows national legislation affecting the real estate industry.

REVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER M. LEPORINI

Web Site: Real Estate Roundtable
URL: www.rer.org

What the Site Offers

The Real Estate Roundtable unites major real estate owners and real estate trade association representatives to identify and influence key national policy issues relating to real estate and the overall economy. The organization represents a cross-section of the commercial real estate sector, including developers, lenders, and management companies. According to the group’s site, Roundtable members hold portfolios containing a combined total of more than 5 billion square feet of developed property worth more than $450 billion. Although the group is oriented towards commercial real estate, it addresses issues that cause a ripple effect for residential real estate, such as smart growth, taxation, and endangered species policies.

The group’s Web site provides background on policy issues and tracks key legislation’s progress through Congress. Additionally, the site helps users to exert their own influence—summarizing Congressional voting records on real estate-related bills and providing contact information so that users can make their voices heard to lawmakers.

Valuable Site Features for Real Estate Professionals

• Roundtable Weekly. This weekly news digest provides updates on developments in Washington on real estate-related issues pertaining to taxes, building infrastructure and security, and the environment, among other issues. Each digest contains four short articles. You can browse the archives for previous issues, or subscribe to receive Roundtable Weekly via e-mail. Additional detailed articles are grouped by subject on the homepage under Roundtable Updates.
  
• Industry Research. This section provides links to institutions and organizations that conduct industry research. Some of the resources linked to on this page include MIT’s Center for Real Estate, Columbia Business School Publications and Research, USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, Real Estate Research Institute, and Torto Wheaton Research.
  
• Current Legislation. Wondering what legislation currently before Congress could impact your business? This section includes a chart of all the current legislation before Congress that affect the real estate industry. The chart provides the bill’s number, common name, sponsor, co-sponsor(s), and an overview of the bill’s content. You also can search for a bill’s co-sponsors by political party or state.
  
• 2003 Annual Report. The Real Estate Roundtable presents its top policy concerns in an easy-to-browse online format. The reports provides background information on tax policy, such as deductions for energy efficient buildings, REIT ownership rules, and state-by-state property tax statistics; and environmental and energy concerns, such as brownfield policy implementations, mold infestations, endangered species, and indoor contaminants such as lead. It also examines capital and credit policy, including such topics as the USA PATRIOT Act, terrorism, foreign investment, and building security.
  
• Contact Congress. If you want to follow whether your legislators are serving your interests, search this database by state to find detailed profiles on members of Congress containing biographical information, PAC sponsors, important legislation sponsored or co-sponsored, and contact information. You also can find contact information for federal agencies.
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  Every week, REALTOR® Magazine Online's Web review editor surfs the Internet to find sites useful to your business and off-hours lives. Have a favorite real estate Web site that you would like to see reviewed? Send your suggestions to Chris Leporini at mediatech@realtors.org. All decisions on which sites will be reviewed are completely at the discretion of REALTOR® Magazine Online's editorial staff. Please note: this column does not review individual practitioner or brokerage sites.
  
  The column's focus includes free sites, as well as sites that charge for goods and services, but which still offer a free component of practical, sustained value to real estate practitioners, such as a free newsletter or regular news information.
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  REALTOR® Magazine Online's "Web Review" summarizes the content of Web sites that may be of interest to members. NAR and REALTOR® Magazine Online are not responsible for, and nothing in the Web site profile shall constitute NAR's or REALTOR® Magazine Online's endorsement of, the web site, its content, products and services, or its provider. NAR and REALTOR® Magazine Online believe the information contained in this profile was correct and accurate as of the time it was prepared, but do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of that information and are not responsible for changes in the Web site. Members should conduct their own independent review of the Web site prior to any use of Web site, its content, products, or services to determine their suitability for the member's intended purpose.
  
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