We might still be having some newcomers joining us as a result of the Realtor Magazine article, which was posted on the NAR website last week. The actual magazine just arrived at my house yesterday by mail.
Welcome agents!
Let’s discuss the publishing of each agent’s sales statistics, and the insane paranoia surrounding it.
Redfin had their agent-scouting tool for about a week, but couldn’t shut it down fast enough once the whiners got a hold of it.
Now www.neighborcity.com is trying to make a living by generating leads that they can sell to local agents for a 30% share of the eventual commission. They have the typical home-search website, but they also include each agent’s sales over the last 12 months. Theirs is a statistical analysis, not opinions like you see on Yelp, so it looks straight-forward and objective.
But, of course, they are now being sued for copyright infringement by a local MLS company, with N.A.R.’s financial support. NeighborCity is fighting back:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/neighborcity-fires-back-against-mls-lawsuits-152361715.html
Realtors as a group, led by the N.A.R., will always come out looking like big-monied bullies who are just scared to give up the old monopoly. By now the monopoly is an illusion anyway, let’s admit it and move into this century!
The N.A.R. should publish each agent’s sales statistics, and a feedback forum.
Such a package would help verify accuracy, give a reason for more people to use realtor.com, and hopefully generate some respect from consumers for providing transparency to the process.
Most importantly, it would help achieve two things:
1. Allow consumers to better judge who they are hiring.
2. Cause agents to focus on delivering top-quality, ethical service.
Instead of the glamour shots, fancy cars, and plastic surgery, the publishing of sales statistics and feedback from previous clients would force agents to deal with the truth.
It would be great if somebody gets traction on providing statistics about agents. I hope Neighborcity wins the lawsuit.
Speaking of glamour shots some of the ones on that site are priceless. It’s like going in a time machine. 1980’s photography with early 1990’s scanners.
More on the behind-the-scenes:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120521/12223019004/real-estate-listing-services-use-questionable-copyright-claims-attempt-to-block-criticism-agents.shtml#comments
The latest is that they’ve gone after NeighborCity, an offering from a company called American Home Realty Network (AHRN), who dared to make use of real estate data to actually rate real estate agents on their performance. As you might imagine, the real estate agents don’t like that very much.
AHRN noticed that it suddenly received a flood of complaints and cease & desist letters conveniently timed exactly to the dates of the National Association of Realtors’s (NAR’s) annual meeting in November of 2011 — and each of the letter seemed to include similar language. After responding to all of the complaints, two separate MLS providers sued AHRN. Amusingly, prior to the lawsuit, an executive for one of the MLS’s (NorthStar, from Minnesota) appeared to accidentally cc AHRN on an email to its lawyer, complaining about “the bad fellow” (AHRN CEO Jonathan Cardella) not simply bending over and taking down NeighborCity in response to the complaints, and suggesting that filing copyright infringement lawsuits against AHRN/NeighborCity would be useful in bringing a “world of hurt” on the company. The email also discusses having various MLSs share the costs of litigation.
Good stuff, Jim!
I played around with it a bit, as I did when you linked to the Redfin site. As expected, you look pretty darn good and a local “short sale/foreclosure expert” looks like crap. Again.
Jim, I’d like to see Listing price/ Sales price and DOM. There are some brokerages here that wouldn’t look real good if that were published, they “Buy” listings by promising higher prices.
Thank you for this information. I truly appreciate the FREE information you provide. I can understand why most agents would not like this and be embarrassed that they can’t say tout that they are experts.
This draconian mentality is what scares ethical people from becoming agents. I think the NAR should be ashamed of themselves.
JtR, shaking the foundation here!
Transparency would only benefit the NAR.
Jim, Candy, James, et. al..
Thank you for this article, your comments and words of support. We are working hard at NeighborCity to bring transparency to the industry so that clients can make informed decisions when hiring their next real estate agent.
We believe that clients are served best by having a licensed broker/agent, exclusive representation on both the buy and sell side, and their agent should be knowledgeable in the subject property and market. Additionally, past performance is the best indicator of future performance and simply doing high volume is not an indication of qualification. Instead, we recommend agents that bring their clients quality results over quantity of listings and transactions.
If more blogs and real estate professionals would lend us their support as you have here, I know that together we can change the industry in a way that benefits the homeowner and prospective home owners as well as the agents who put their client’s best interests first and always remain loyal to their fiduciary duties.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cardella
Founder/CEO, NeighborCity