Month: August 2006 (page 3 of 8)

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

With a solemn nod to Dustin, the First Man of real estate weblogs, I wanted to cite posts of merit that have been bouncing around in my brain. I’m not as ambitious as Dustin, though, so I want to go to one place only for now: The Real Estate Tomato. Weblogger Jim Cronin is a vendor, and this might ordinarily put him on my suspect list. But he is so forthcoming with valuable information that two things come across very clearly: He cares more about you getting results than his getting a sale, and, in consequence, he’s probably just the vendor you want if you do decide to make a purchase. I’m not his cheerleader — nor even his customer. But I have been enriched by his generosity on his weblog, so I’d like to share some of those riches with you, if you haven’t seen them.

(Sotto voce: I’m taking this to ActiveRain, too, where Jim is alike unto Saint Francis Xavier, a warrior missionary.)

With that, Tomatillos, little tomatoes:

• Google Base expands its role as a real estate listings aggregator.
• A California brokerage is trying to restrict agents’ right to maintain their own web sites.
• e-Pro may be the best waste of time and money in the NAR’s arsenal.
• Peas and tomatoes? Ick! Even so, here are some great blogging tips.
• That website your brokerage gave you as a perk? It’s worth every penny you paid for it.
• Tips for using free on-line services to get listings out to the national listings aggregators.
• Why serious Realtors need a multi-function phone like the Treo 650 or 700.

The titles are mine, so don’t blame Jim. There is much, much more to be explored, including excellent SEO resources. How far back did I go? August 1st. There is plenty more in the archives of The Real Estate Tomato…

Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Marlow Harris at 360Digest has an incisive post about the incipient conflict between copyright-holding brokers and national dot.com real estate listing aggregators:

But what does the agent do who has signed a TOS Agreement with their broker indicating that the Broker owns the listings and the broker does not want their listings advertised on Trulia? Z57, Advanced Access, Number 1 Agent and many more website developers have submitted their feed to Trulia, to allow them to display their listings, in violation of many of these individual agents TOS agreements. Winderemere, J.L. Scott, Coldwell Banker Bain, and many other local and national companies have NOT authorized their listings to appear on Trulia, but they do, under the auspices and with the consent of these website developers, but not the agent’s brokers.

Trulia dilemma for everyone involved.

It’s a plus for individual agents as all leads are sent directly to them. But it’s an unauthorized use of listings. Most of these website designers provide an opt-out box if the individual agents want to do so, but how many even know it’s there?

As more individual brokerages realize that their listings are being shown on this (and other similar portal sites) without their permission, I wonder if they will be more persistent in enforcing their copyright.

The other end of this conflict is that the seller has the reasonable right to expect that the broker will promote the listing by all available means. And in the case of feeds generated by web-site vendors, it’s hard to complain about the onerous burdens imposed by those feeds being automatic and free.

But Marlow’s larger point stands. An MLS is a club composed of self-selected, dues-paying members. Its lawful existence should be protected by the Free Association clause of the U.S. Constitution. But I agree that a real estate listing is the unique work product of the listing agent and should be protected by copyright laws.

We end up with babies and bath-water, I expect. The entire Googlified model of the internet consists of stealing copyrighted material, aggregating it to draw eyes, then selling those eyes to advertisers. This is a perfect Tragedy of Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The trouble with cops is that they make you feel safe when you’re not. Instead of attending to your own security on your own dime, you expect Officer Vengeance to swoop in and save you, like Batman with a beer-belly. Never happens, but we never stop insisting that it can, that it will, that it must!

I think the real estate laws tend to work the same way. In reality, every minimum standard becomes the de facto maximum standard — and the minimum standard in real estate is outrageously low. Yet consumers are convinced that licensing and license enforcement are sufficient protections — Captain America with a clipboard — for the biggest asset they own.

This is a mistake, and, arguably, it is also the root cause of all the problems affecting the real estate industry. The NAR campaigned state-by-state for licensing laws not to protect the consumer but to protect its own membership from “unfair” competition. The NAR is a cartel in the sense that real estate licensing laws exist to limit competition, thus to sustain artificially high prices. In naked essence, the laws consumers think are protecting them exist to fleece them instead. This is true of every sort of commercial regulation — and this is why regulation is sought by the established firms in a particular line of business in the first place.

An obvious first place for the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to start, in attempting to fix what ails the real estate industry, would be to deregulate everything. If Chester the Barber wants to tape pocket listings to the mirror behind his chair, let him. If Sellsius° wants to do more than advertise other people’s listings, let them. Caveat emptor, of course, but let the buyer beware in full cognizance that due diligence and care are all the protection an emptor or venditor can ever have in any commercial transaction. The courts might make you whole after you are injured, but your beer-bellied Batman is always scarfing donuts when you need him the most.

But: This won’t happen. Real estate licensing requires so little training that Read more

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Continuing from a comment from Ardell:

You live in a world where everyone pretty much HAS to be a Realtor to sell residential real estate, as I did for most of my career.

That may be true right now, I don’t know for sure. I know there are non-NAR members who have access to ARMLS, but I don’t know that any of them are also real estate licensees. My expectation, about which more below, is that the AAR would cave at once if a non-NAR-member licensee applied for full access to ARMLS — if they raised any objection at all.

I have nothing against Realtors at all. I do have something against buyers not having the right to a basic conversation about compensation the same as sellers.

But of course they do have this right. The conversation might not go very far with most agents, but we advertise the idea at the top of our home page.

I do have a something against buyers being “procured” for the benefit of the seller.

I do, too, but buyers have to be willing to bring complaints when they are abused. Nothing cures bad behavior like seven-figure judgments for agency violations.

I do have something against an organization who has not taken a stand on this issue to the benefit of the buyer consumer, and who still feels the seller pays the fee after all these years.

The NAR is sclerotic. This is not news. The important point is that there is no obstacle to individual practitioners and brokers doing better.

Here’s an example: We had an Article 16 complaint earlier this year. In the neighborhoods we farm, we broadcast our announcements — open house invitations, sold cards, etc. This work is done by independent contractors of a subcontractor, and both because training is difficult to effect and because I did not want to experience errors of discretion, I interpreted Article 16.2 in the broadest possible terms: They were to skip only houses with “No Soliciting” or “No Trespassing” signs. They had no knowledge of the MLS, and they should not make any presumption about the presence or absence of real estate marketing Read more