{"id":5102,"date":"2008-10-18T11:04:36","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T18:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=5102"},"modified":"2008-10-18T11:05:14","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T18:05:14","slug":"tom-johnson-to-the-realtybots-all-that-free-stuff-you-gave-us-would-have-been-a-bargain-at-twice-the-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/5102\/tom-johnson-to-the-realtybots-all-that-free-stuff-you-gave-us-would-have-been-a-bargain-at-twice-the-price\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Johnson to the Realty.bots: All that free stuff you gave us would have been a bargain at twice<\/em> the price!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a comment at the Future of Real Estate Marketing<\/a>, our friend Tom Johnson<\/a> delivers a fatherly lecture on the facts of life:<\/p>\n

This is the free market and unintended consequences at work. There is a reason that the commission rates have been stuck for years where they are. The contingency nature of the listing relationship drives the business. The consumer is unwilling to pay for service that does not result in a sale.<\/p>\n

Pouring VC cash into the real estate space has improved technology. The RE.net came on the scene with plans to disintermediate the real estate brokers by tapping into the commission honey pot. This put pressure on commissions forcing brokers to cut costs, so the RE.net responded by giving the services away for free. Free outbound doesn’t earn a return inbound. The cash burn continues, brokers continue to cut costs by not buying RE.net products causing more cash burn and layoffs.<\/p>\n

As transactions slow, the commission honeypot shrinks. Brokers will cut cost and redouble efforts to get salable listings, by using the free tools that are provided by RE.net.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that the RE.net did indeed disintermediate, but it was not the RE brokers that were disintermediated, but the print media. So here we are, marketing listings for free on the web. Because of the fractured nature of the RE space, it takes unimaginable amounts of time to manage all that free stuff, so we are where we were. The consumer is still unwilling to pay cash for RE services on a non-contingency basis. So, we tweet and blog and facespace our listings, to get a transaction started, and then the real work begins-getting the contract to the closing table. That is the part of this industry that the RE.net sort of forgot about and the cash burn continues…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. We have seen the future of real estate marketing — and it is us.*<\/p>\n

As might be obvious, I don’t have a lot of time for other RE.net sites right now, but it is worthwhile to note that tFoREM has four whole posts this week, a huge number by comparison to recent Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a comment at the Future of Real Estate Marketing, our friend Tom Johnson delivers a fatherly lecture on the facts of life: This is the free market and unintended consequences at work. There is a reason that the commission rates have been stuck for years where they are. The contingency nature of the listing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,5,19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1363,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1363\/boston-globe-on-the-enblogged-globe-brokers-in-blogsville\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":0},"title":"Boston Globe on the enblogged globe: Brokers in Blogsville","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Boston Globe has a feature on RE.net webloggers today. Nothing that will seem to be news to regular real estate weblog readers, but a nice chance to shine for a lot of familiar names. No mention of RCG, Matrix or BHB, but that's perfectly understandable. When reporters finally resolve\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":912,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/912\/from-forty-links-to-infinity-apprehending-the-full-scope-of-the-renet\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":1},"title":"From forty links to infinity: Apprehending the full scope of the RE.net","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, here's the meme game I mentioned yesterday. I want to build something like a canonical list of every weblog in the RE.net. By this I mean weblogs created by Realtors or other real estate agents, including commercial brokers; lenders, appraisers, investors or other real estate professionals; mainstream media real\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1866,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1866\/active-rain-unleashes-impression-advertising\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":2},"title":"Active Rain Unleashes Impression Advertising","author":"Brian Brady","date":"August 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If they're ain't no margin, there ain't no mission. Active Rain has released it's revenue model to the network of 43,000 members. My only question is, \"What took you so long?\" In the interest of fairness, Jon Washburn, Caleb Mardini, & Matt Heaton are tech-guys. They always felt that if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1883,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1883\/the-peoples-choice-award-voting-is-open-vote-for-your-choice-of-the-best-renet-posts-this-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":3},"title":"The People’s Choice Award voting is open: Vote for your choice of the best RE.net posts this week","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The voting for this week's People's Choice Award is open. The short list is not short -- 24 entries -- but it's rich in quality writing. Voting will run until Monday at 12 noon PDT\/MST. The ballot form will permit you to read every article, but here are the links\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1091,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1091\/retube-recast-envisioneering-a-youtube-like-distribution-system-for-renet-podcasts\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":4},"title":"RE.tube? RE.cast? Envisioneering a YouTube-like distribution system for RE.net podcasts . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The folks at Zillow Blog and Mike's Corner have been working on a great new idea: How about a YouTube-like system for distributing RE.net podcasts? Content originators would submit their podcasts to a server run by Mike Price's MLPodcast, and then that content would be available from any RE.net weblog\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1666,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1666\/the-divorced-real-estate-commission-file-an-organic-compendium-of-arguments-pro-and-con-on-divorcing-commissions\/","url_meta":{"origin":5102,"position":5},"title":"The divorced real estate commission file: An organic compendium of arguments, pro and con, on divorcing commissions","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I had the idea of building this last night, cataloging the BloodhoundBlog posts on the subject. Lani had a better idea, so I appropriated it. Attached below is a fairly comprehensive list of posts, both for and against, on the idea of divorced commissions. I think this is the most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5103,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5102\/revisions\/5103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}