Several days ago, a blog reader asked:

Anyone know of any national source out there promoting or aggregating discount/fee based real estate agents/brokers?

The question comes on the 6th anniversay of the first course "Consumer-Centric Real Estate Consultant" (C-CREC) training offered on October 1, 2000 in Orlando, FL by Julie Garton-Good, founder of the National Association of Real Estate Consultants (NAREC.com).  NAREC is one of two national organizations formed in the past six years to help promote alternative or fee-for-service real estate business models. 

Here’s my short history of attempts to aggregate alternative / fee-for-service real estate service providers:

1997-98:  Pat Rioux, of http://www.listforless.com, worked with an assistant to develop a nationwide database of alternative real estate services.  The same database was published on the International Real Estate Digest, http://www.ired.com, at approximately the same time because Pat also wrote for the site.  IRED was a pioneer in the online real estate world, nominated around the same time for a Webby Award.

July 1999:  The Real Estate Cafe (http://www.realestatecafe.com), publishers of this blog, hired Pat and her assistant to update their database.  The directory of over 500 companies was available to visitors to the Cafe, then a walk-in, internet-based housing information center in Cambridge, MA — the first nation when we open in 1995.

2000:  Julie Garton-Good founded the National Association of Real Estate Consultants, http://www.NAREC.com.  Their membership includes a wide range of alternative real estate business models.

November 2000:  The National Association of Realtors (http://www.Realtors.org) released a strategic planning committee report, written by consultants at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, MA, which predicted that the use of the term real estate "agent" would be replaced by real estate "consultant" during the second half of this decade.  Think we’re on schedule?