Earlier this week, Zillow “a popular real estate listing portal, home value estimating, forum wielding, data containing, subject to much assault from real estate agents web site” announced they were implementing a real estate agent review component to their oft-visited web site. You know, a place where you can give a real estate agent a “five star” (or one star) review. Ostensibly a place where folks pondering buying or selling a home could go and find an agent, and by looking at reviews from … [Read more...]
Real Life Real Estate Stories: The Angry Caller
Note: the following is an actual conversation. Some of the colorful language has been slightly modified. Kids read here sometimes”¦ Ring Ring Ring Me: (said as cheerfully as possible given whatever is happening at the moment) “Good afternoon, this is Jay with Thompson's Realty. How can I help you?” Caller: (said with extreme anger. As in “I'm going to kill you” levels of anger) "Why the f**k is my home on your website and showing a price of $199K?" Me: "Our site shows … [Read more...]
Annoying Brokerage Practice #492 ”“ Holding Agents Hostage.
There are many things that annoy me about typical real estate brokerage practices. Things like. . . Holding agents commission checks until they submit some needless form Not allowing agents the freedom to run their business in a manner that best benefits the agent ”“ and their clients Keeping minimum hiring qualifications of having a license and a pulse Charging agents exorbitant fees for Errors & Omissions insurance And there are more. But the one brokerage practice that … [Read more...]
Honey check out this crown molding! And the baseboards!
Warning, rant ahead”¦ We get emails like this on a very regular basis: Hello, I am interested in the house at “123 Main St”. Do you have any additional photos of the kitchen and master bedrooms that you can send? (Ed note: Street address changed to protect the guilty). The vast majority of the time these come from someone already working with an agent, and they have Googled a home's address. Finding our site at or near the top of the Google results, they assume we are the listing agents. … [Read more...]
How Many Realtors are Out There? Per Person?
Earlier today I was chatting with a random stranger. Oddly enough the topic of real estate came up. Random stranger said he'd often pondered getting his real estate license. I tried to wave the guy off, but he wouldn't listen. He asked me a question that I couldn't answer. How many Realtors are there per capita, and how does Arizona compare to other states? I felt relatively confident in saying that Arizona was near the top (or bottom depending on your perspective) of the list of states with … [Read more...]
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...