Interviewer: Today we are talking with Justin Knoll, President of the Denver Board of Realtors and Justin welcome to the show.

Justin Knoll: Glad to be here, thanks for having me.

Interviewer: Thanks, well you are obviously in the news a lot, all of us realtors have been hearing discussions about the Denver Board merging with one or more association and I guess it’s common knowledge now that Jefferson County Association of Realtors, North Metro and Denver Board are going to merge and come together.

Justin Knoll: Well that’s the talks that we’re having right now and there is no secret in the past that we have had these discussions with all of the associations throughout the Denver Metro area, but the Denver Board is pleased to be in discussions with Jefferson County Association of Realtors and the North metro Denver Realtor Association. If this does go through and we do have a unification go through, it would represent 5000 members and would be the largest local association in the state of Colorado.

Interviewer: Well that would be exciting for you know everybody involved, and I guess the next question from somebody watching is well how soon will this happen?

Justin Knoll: Certainly, there is a lot to happen, there is a lot of things that can be in the mix here, but we hopefully bring something by the end of the year, would be our hope.

Interviewer: Okay and then as a member of Denver Board like myself or somebody who is in North Metro they are saying to themselves, okay if we all merge that means we can all kind of participate in everyone’s events, is that right?

Justin Knoll: Sure, we want to maintain the culture of each association and make sure that we actually mesh these things. One thing that technology has done for our community here and for Denver in general is really shrunk the size of what we do, no longer are there neighborhood specific things going on. It’s easy for us to jump in the car and be in one of these associations or another, in matter of time, of no time and really we want to have that congruence here, that meshing of culture. So yes, we would like to do that and collaborate with information and resources.

Interviewer: And you know for the REALTOR out there that’s the primary benefit for them right now.

Justin Knoll: I believe so, as so much is changing in our world, so much technology is changing, we have to have a greater voice when it comes to political things and by having a merger like this go through, it really does give us greater strength, greater numbers, a greater voice to do those things, to explore opportunities that maybe we hadn’t been able to do in the past. So for the members, yes I think it would be a very much of a value added benefit.

Interviewer: And I imagine, on your side of the coin, by doing this, you are going to improve efficiency, lower cost, provide more services, am I right?

Justin Knoll: Absolutely, I mean redundancy is always an issue when you have competition. So we’d like to do that, but we’d also like to be more forward thinking, not just stopping the bleeding but how do we progress quicker. So many things are thrown at us all the time and we want to be able to not just adapt and change, but to be progressive and to change with them, and then offer the members things that maybe their company can’t do anymore, which we are seeing where everybody is somewhat hunkering down and contracting if you will.

Interviewer: I imagine you’ve got your executive board, and they have their executive boards and you got to figure out who is going to be kind of calling all of the shots that type of thing right.

Justin Knoll: Yes absolutely, that’s part of the process is figuring out leadership from here and who is in, and where strengths really lie. One of the things in this process has been finding out where strengths do lie and how do we call upon those to make sure that we are put in the best position.

Interviewer: Final two questions, you know members are probably saying, okay where can I get more information and can I participate in the discussion?

Justin Knoll: Absolutely, we really want our membership feedback in this, and that’s one of the things we’re going to be doing coming up is really engaging the members and being proactive about what would this mean to you, what would you want from an association that’s now this big and this combined. We do want that feedback; you could always contact anybody in leadership at any of the associations. We will be reaching out with focus groups and all such things, but for information you can always go to the websites for the Denver Board of Realtors and the North Metro Association and the Jefferson County Association.

Interviewer: Justin, I wish you much luck in getting this together, it’s a big job.

Justin Knoll: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

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