Realtors Want Their Chunk of BP (NYSE:BP) Fund

In what will probably be the most challenging and controversial part of the BP (NYSE:BP) escrow fund, realtors are now entering the fray to get their piece of the $20 billion compensation fund pie.

One major problem is how does Feinberg and his team separate what is a horrific real estate market in general, from the real effects of the oil spill?

How do you separate claims with nothing to do with the spill and have everything to do with a down real estate market, from those that are.

Commercial real estate is going to be a disaster in the second half of 2010, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the oil spill, but rather the banking and mortgage fiasco.

This would require the fund to measure past sales before the real estate crisis, during the crisis, and now. But then they have the task of determining which individual properties were affected by the crisis. How could anyone prove it or make the determination?

Feinberg's response to the pressure from powerful organizations like the National Association of Realtors isn't comforting at all.

Feinberg has publicly questioned a number of claims from agents and brokers from a legal standpoint, but said they have made a “credible argument” that “something should be done for them.”

This is why you don't create czars to run these types of funds. He's going to treat it like a government operation while using BP's money.

Why should something be done for these realtors and agents, who in some cases are undoubtedly trying to use the fund for personal gain and not compensation for loss?

In other words, it's a great opportunity to cash in on the disaster by generating income they weren't producing at all in the market.

Why should Feinberg even make the statement they "something should be done for them?" Something should be done only if there are individual cases that an be proven to be caused from the BP oil spill. Anything else isn't legitimate.

It sounds to me like these Gulf real estate agents and brokers are attempting to use the fund as a source of jobless benefits because of the slow market.

To make it worse, Feinberg and the realtors are negotiating on criteria to be used in the claims. How in the world does an outside organization weasel its way into this fund and get a place at the table to decide the criteria for themselves?

This is why I've opposed the creation of this fund from the beginning, and we're seeing the reasons why in this money grab by the real estate industry.