{"id":72,"date":"2006-07-06T11:19:57","date_gmt":"2006-07-06T18:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=72"},"modified":"2006-07-07T06:05:38","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T13:05:38","slug":"lets-go-get-sued-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/72\/lets-go-get-sued-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s go get sued again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before we hopped our Southwest flight to Sin City, I had time to read but not comment upon this bit<\/a> by Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic<\/i>. The truth is, it gets hard to care after a while. Whether the Republic<\/i>‘s real estate reporting is completely tendentious, completely uninformed or completely random, it is almost always completely wrong. Ms. Reagor, in particular, never once saw a cliff that she didn’t immediately jump off of, whether it’s the wonder and beauty of ‘affordable’ housing expropriated at gunpoint or the dream of a desert paradise master-planned in every particular by Locutus of Borg. If the Republic<\/i> is singing the praises of an on-line real estate start-up, it might be wise to park your wealth anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Even so, and harkening back to the idea of lawsuits against RealtyBots<\/a>, I seized upon the opportunity to play my favorite game as a real estate broker: Name that violation. I summarized the article to Cathy, emphasizing this:<\/p>\n

Some real estate Web sites make money on advertising.<\/p>\n

Others, such as myfuturenet, try to make money on the back end by getting buyers and seller to close deals online using their mortgage and title firms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In possession of that little bit of information, a mere 36 words, the challenge for you is to name that violation.<\/p>\n

Cathy got it instantly, of course, as every skilled practitioner would. The law this business model is most likely to violate is RESPA, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act<\/a>. Every vendor used in a real estate transaction should be chosen by the buyer. If a real estate licensee refers a vendor, he must disclose any ‘referral fees’ or other kickbacks received from that vendor. Our policy, of course, is no kickbacks of any kind, ever, since there should never be a doubt in our clients’ minds about our absolute fidelity to their interests. But a business model that binds buyers to certain third-party vendors seems to have a RESPA suit, an agency suit – or both – baked in the cake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we hopped our Southwest flight to Sin City, I had time to read but not comment upon this bit by Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic. The truth is, it gets hard to care after a while. Whether the Republic‘s real estate reporting is completely tendentious, completely uninformed or completely random, it is almost […]<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-72","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-real-estate","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":657,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/657\/reagor-mortis-on-the-spot-real-estate-news-coverage-only-a-few-weeks-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":0},"title":"Reagor-mortis? On-the-spot real estate news coverage only a few weeks late . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"October 26th: NCRC files specious complaint against Zillow.com. November 19th: Crack Arizona Republic real estate reporter Catherine Reagor yawns, burps, goes back to sleep:The popular Web site zillow.com gets a lot of hits as people frequently check the values of their homes and their neighbors' in the fast-changing housing market.\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":1312,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1312\/zillows-arizona-valuations-questioned-since-the-beginning\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":1},"title":"“Zillow’s Arizona valuations questioned since the beginning”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So says Arizona Republic real estate reporter Catherine Reagor in her pretend weblog. It's true, too. Zestimates were questioned from the beginning. Just not by Reagor... < ?php include(\"Zapraisails.php\"); ?> Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, blogging, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing","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":280,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/280\/trends-are-changing-daily-is-that-real-estate-news-or-a-weather-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":2},"title":"“Trends are changing daily” — is that real estate news or a weather report?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Trends are changing daily,\" says Catherine Reagor in her column in the Arizona Republic. Was I a younger man, I might trouble myself to wonder about a \"trend\" that lasts less than a day. But I am older, by now, and wiser, and sick to death of picking on Catherine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/55\/one-year-of-experience-eleven-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":3},"title":"One year of experience eleven times…?","author":"Odysseus","date":"February 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Our most favorite real estate oracle, Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic weighs in with some observations that may actually be as undefended as they are unthought out. In fairness to Ms. Reagor, I'll quote her text as I explore it:Bad news for the many homeowners trying to sell: It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/76\/tabloid-cathy\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":4},"title":"Tabloid Cathy?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Phoenix Real Estate weblog has an original take on our favorite real estate reporter, Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic.","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":199,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/199\/butler-prices-down-sales-up-logic-sideways\/","url_meta":{"origin":72,"position":5},"title":"Butler: Prices down, sales up, logic sideways . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Catherine Reagor in today's Republic:Home prices dipped slightly in July, but sales inched up from June. The median home price of a used Valley home fell to $264,900 last month, after climbing to a record $267,000 in June. There were 5,545 resales in July, compared with 5,460 the month before,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","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=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}