Real estate stories Archives - Page 2 of 4 - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Real Estate Agent Review Sites. On Zillow, Gaming and Whining

December 4, 2010 By Jay Thompson

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 past clients be privy to whether or not an agent was worth a damn at what they do. Or should be doing.

Within minutes of the announcement, the whining commenced

Good grief, you’d think by the reaction of some in the real estate community that this agent review system was the first of its kind, the genesis of a new way for real estate consumers to find more information on an agent. Some would even lead you to believe this is all some sort of vast conspiracy to steal databases and put real estate agents out of business.

Please. Take off the tin-foil hat. Wake up and welcome to commerce in the 21st century.

LOTS of people that use the internet look at reviews. Reviews of places, products, services, movies, books, service providers ”“ and real estate agents clearly fall into that last category. LOTS of people base their buying decisions, and their choice of service provider on consumer generated reviews.

I’ve done it. I suspect you probably have too.

What, you’ve never bought a book (or not) on Amazon based on the customer reviews? Never been looking for a new place to eat, drink or shop on Yelp and said, “This sounds good (or nasty), I think I’ll try (or avoid) it?” Never looked at a review online for hotels in an area you are travelling to?

Well if you haven’t, rest assured that many have.

Zillow adding agent reviews is far from innovative, new or original. There are many real estate agent reviews sites already in existence. Here are just a few that took 5 seconds to find via Google:

RealEstateRatingz
Homethinking
Incredible Agents
Agent Scoreboard
Rate My Agent
RealEstate.com
Agents Ranking (regional ”“ MN, MO only)
Rate Your Broker
Neighbor City
Quality Service Certification
Redfin (if you are a Redfin agent or partner agent. Our example as a partner agent)
Houston Association of Realtors (the best agent review implementation, in my opinion)

There are more”¦

In addition, there are many review sites that aren’t real estate specific, but have real estate agent review areas such as:

Angie’s List (Phoenix example)
Many local newspapers (Phoenix example)
Yelp (our example)
Yahoo Local (Phoenix example)
That little site called Google (our example)

There are more”

Get over it. Real estate agent review sites are out there, like it or not.

So why all the negative waves about Zillow’s foray into agent reviews? There seems to be two primary concerns floating about: 1) people will game the system; and 2) it’s a ploy by Zillow to drive additional traffic.

Regarding gaming, sure it can happen. Probably will to some extent. Zillow says they be taking precautions and vetting reviews, but any system can be gamed by someone willing to take the time and make the effort. The gaming concerns generally fall into two categories ”“ agents will create fake positive reviews for themselves and agents will create fake negative reviews on competitor’s profiles.

Personally, I have far better things to do with my time than research who bought what property from what agent, create a fake profile under that persons name, and submit a fake review flaming that agent. Not to mention that it makes far more sense to just not worry about bringing down another agent, but instead step up your own game. Tearing down the competition to elevate yourself is just stupid.

Is Zillow simply trying to attract more traffic, or are they genuinely trying to help real estate agents?

I have no idea. I suspect it’s some of both. Zillow makes money selling advertising – advertising that agents buy. So they have a vested interest in both driving traffic to their sites AND in helping agents. More traffic = more eyeballs = ability to charge higher rates = better revenue for Zillow and their investors. Helping agents = potentially more customers buying ads = better revenue for Zillow and their investors. Yeah, the end result in both those equations is more revenue for Zillow and their investors. Well duh, that’s why they are in business.

Since Launch of Zillow Day One, agents have expressed concern and fear over Zillow. They are “the enemy”. They are going to put us out of business. Their Zestimates suck. Some are now proclaiming Zillow’s new agent review is designed to “steal our databases”.

Steal our databases? Yes, you can “invite” a client to review you on Zillow. This entails an email address. And yes, the client has to create a profile on Zillow in order to leave a review. This is hardly a “database of your clients”. And really, what exactly would Zillow do with a client database even if they had one? Zillow sells ads to real estate professionals, not home buyers and sellers.

Go ahead, wish hope whine all you like about Zillow and agent review sites

Agent review sites aren’t going away. Zillow isn’t going away. Love or hate either Zillow or reviews, but the fact is consumers want information. They want to look at homes. They want to see reviews of the best luxury estate agency in Estepona. Don’t want to be reviewed on Zillow? The solution is simple, don’t create an agent profile there (or delete the one you already have). No profile, no review. Don’t want your listings on Zillow? Don’t send them there. Blame your broker for sending them there? Find a new broker. Blame your MLS? Opt out of syndication. Don’t want to buy ads on Zillow? Don’t write them a check.

You can pretty much do the same on the large non-real estate specific review sites. Don’t put your businesses on Google, Yelp, Yahoo, etc. That’s no big deal anyway. After all, who goes to a place like Google to find you? /sarcasm.

But the existing real estate specific review sites? You may already be there. Don’t believe me? Go look. Many of these sites pull public information to create their agent databases.

Welcome to 21st century consumerism. You probably need to embrace this stuff, or get out of the way.

Here’s some additional information on agent ratings (and Zillows new offering)

Video of “Embracing Consumer Generated Reviews” session at 2010 National Association of Realtors Annual Conference.
Speakers: Bob Hale, CEO Houston Association of Realtors, Larry Romito, President / CEO Quality Service Certification, Inc., Margie Dorrance, HAR Chair, yours truly, and Larry McGee, Broker Berkshire Group. Moderator Todd Carpenter, NAR Social Media Manager.

Yes, it’s 1.5 hours long. But there is great stuff in here. Picture kicks in at about a minute. If nothing else, listen to Bob Hale in the beginning. He shares a lot of data on agent reviews.

Zillow announcement on Active Rain by Sara Bonert, Zillow Director of Broker Relations

Zillow Advice thread on new agent reviews.

Real Life Real Estate Stories: The Angry Caller

November 22, 2010 By Jay Thompson

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 all listings”¦”

Caller interrupts: “This is total bulls**t.”

Me: (still attempting niceness)

“If you’ll just give me a second to explain. All the listing information on our site is pulled directly from the Multiple Listing Service, yada yada yada."

Caller: (angry, but no longer really at the “Imma gonna slit your throat” stage)

"Yeah, whatever. Where the hell do you get off changing the price of my home?"

Me: "Sir, I didn’t change it. In fact, I *can’t* change any information on your listing. It’s showing in the MLS at $199K. **YOUR** agent changed it on November 8."

Caller: (Getting murder-like upset again)

"What the f**k!! I didn’t authorize that f**king change! You f**king real estate agents will do anything for a f**king sale. What the f**k do I do to get it changed back to the the right f**king price?"

Me: (in a nonchalant tone)

"Call your f**king agent.”

Caller: (sighs in exasperation)

"He never answers his f**king phone, but thanks for your help."

Photo Credit: Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr. CC Licensed.

Annoying Brokerage Practice #492 ”“ Holding Agents Hostage.

October 26, 2010 By Jay Thompson

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 annoys me most is the fairly prevalent convention of keeping an agent’s listings if the agent decides to change brokerages.

Huh?

Let’s say an agent approaches their broker and says, “I’ve decided that due to <<insert whatever reason here>> I will be leaving the brokerage and moving to <<insert name of different brokerage here”>>.

The broker responds, “OK. You’re making a huge mistake, you don’t know what you are doing, but I can’t stop you. We will, of course, keep all your current listings and reassign them to another agent within the brokerage.”

What utter crap. Yet it happens all the time.

Yeah yeah, I understand completely that technically all listings belong to the brokerage, not the agent. But let’s be honest folks, what exactly did the brokerage do to secure the listing? Did the home seller decide to list with the brokerage, or the agent?

You and I both know that 99 times out of 100 the home seller lists because of the agent, not the broker. If you think otherwise, you are delusional, living in fantasy land, or clueless. That too strong for you? OKfine. Ask 100 home sellers who the broker is that holds their listing. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts they all name either the agent, or say, “I have no idea, nor do I care”.

Why would a broker keep a listing if an agent wants to leave?

Honestly, I have no idea. It would seem to boil down to three things: 1) unadulterated greed; 2) the ridiculous notion that if you trap an agent in your brokerage that they will just stick around and be happy; or 3) to spite the agent that has chosen to leave their brokerage (credit to Michael McClure for thinking of reason #3)

What other reasons could there be?

To better serve the client? Puhlease. You’re going to reassign the listing to some random agent in your brokerage ”“ an agent the home seller has no relationship with. Exactly how does that best serve the client?

Because “that’s our policy”? How lame. Change your freaking policy. It’s YOUR policy, you can change it.

Because “If I transfer your listings I’ll have to do it for everyone!” Wah. Sniff. Pout. Man up and do the right thing for the agent that’s been busting their ass, and making YOU money.

I. Don’t. Get. It.

Do you really think by trapping the agent into working for you that they will be productive, happy agents? You might as well just club them over the head and beat them into submission. This does wonders for employee productivity and morale.

Why in the world do you want someone working in your brokerage that doesn’t want to be there?

It doesn’t make sense.

It is wrong.

But it happens every day.

For the record

In the almost three years we have been in operation, we’ve never had an agent leave Thompson’s Realty for another brokerage. That’s a record I’m rather proud of. But I’d be delusional if I thought it would never happen. It will.

And when it does, that agent can take their listings with them. No referral fee, no strings, no gotchas. YOU earned the listing, it is YOURS to keep.

Have something in escrow? You’ll get paid at whatever your current split is. No games here of reducing your split because you chose to leave.

Why?

Because it’s the right thing to do.

Photo Credit: sindesign on Flickr. CC Licensed.

Honey check out this crown molding! And the baseboards!

September 14, 2010 By Jay Thompson

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. We will typically respond along the lines of, “Sorry, this isn’t our listing. But if you aren’t already working with an agent, we’d be happy to try to help”¦ blah blah blah”.

So off I went to the MLS, where I found the home in question.

It’s a lovely home, listed for almost $650,000. If you aren’t from around here or are not familiar with the Phoenix real estate market, a $650K home is definitely a top-end home.

Here are a couple of photos that were in the listing:

This would be an example of the crown molding, and an air conditioning vent.

This would be a picture of the baseboards, and some berber carpet.

Now in and of itself, photos like this are not necessarily a bad thing. And at least the photos were large, at the right resolution and have good focus and exposure. Sadly, from a technical perspective this puts these photos ahead of a significant portion of the photos in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

Why the contractor didn’t trim the vent cover, use a router on the back of the molding, or lower the cover a smidge to render the crown molding flush to the wall isn’t the point.

Recall our emailer wanted additional photos of the master bedrooms and kitchen.

What she really meant to say was, “Can you send ANY photos of the kitchen or master bedrooms”.

You see, despite the fact that our MLS lets an agent upload an unlimited number of photos, the grand total of pictures of the kitchen and master bedrooms was. . .

. . . wait for it . . .

ZERO.

Yup, there were no pictures of either of the two master bedrooms or the kitchen.

None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I find this remarkable. You see, when it comes to the interior of a home, there are two places the majority of people looking to buy a home want to see ”“ the kitchen, and the master bedroom. Sure there are some that care only about the garage, and some that want the right yard. But I have yet to show a home to anyone who said, “Nah, we don’t need to see the kitchen or the master bedroom”.

And I have yet to hear anyone say, “These baseboards are amazing. It matters not what the rest of the home looks like!”

If you are going to market a home online, you have GOT to include some photos of the kitchen and the master. Failing to include such fundamental pictures leads a home searcher to say, “Hmmmm, I wonder what is wrong with the kitchen?” Or, “The bedroom must be tiny”, or even worse, “I’m not wasting my time seeing this house, I’ll get my agent to show me one of the other 45,000 homes listed for sale”.

Agents, make the effort to watch people search for homes online. They don’t care about your fluffy sales verbiage. They don’t care about your spinning 360 degree virtual tour. They look at three things ”“ the location, the price and the pictures.

Trust me, they want to see pictures of the kitchen and the bedrooms. They need to see pictures of the kitchen and master. No, you don’t need 200 photos of the home. But you need some good shots of the front elevation, the bedrooms and the main living areas. AND THE KITCHEN for Pete’s sake! No (or poor) photos of these areas and they will move right along.

Sellers ”“ check out what your home looks like on line. Google the address. Look at the photos. Think like a buyer. After all, that’s what you want to attract ”“ a buyer.

Incidentally, I tried to help our emailer by calling, texting and emailing the listing agent to see if they had photos of the kitchen or master bedrooms, or to get permission to take some myself.

Guess what?

I’m still waiting on a response”¦

How Many Realtors are Out There? Per Person?

August 26, 2010 By Jay Thompson

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 a high realtor count. Lots of my real estate friends across the country often seem surprised when we chat about how many agents are in our area. There are a LOT of real estate agents in Phoenix. You can’t swing a dead cat in this town without smacking an agent across the head. Seems everyone has a mother, brother, cousin or in-law that is a licensed residential realtor.

But I had no clue where Arizona actually stood when compared to other states. You know, empirically with data, not anecdotal evidence gleaned through some random conversation.

In a bizarre stroke of coincidence, today the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Monthly Membership Report for July 2010.

Put that data together with a little estimated population data from the Census Bureau, apply some higher math (division) and one can calculate the population per Realtor.

Why would anyone care?

Why. Would. Anyone. Care.

Well, you probably don’t. But I don’t care for being asked a question that I can’t answer. I took the NAR data from the top ten states by total Realtor count, and looked up those states total population. Turns out, Arizona ranks seventh overall in agent count. But take a gander where Arizona ranks in “Population per Agent”:

So there is one real estate agent for every 153 people living in Arizona. Sure, California has almost four times as many agents as Arizona, but they also have six times the population. Finding the best realtor nowadays is not that difficult as long as you know that they are qualified and passionate about their work so that they can provide you the best services possible. If you are looking for a top realtor, tap this link https://www.ericdschmitt.com/ to see a credible one.

There you have it, another #1 ranking for Arizona real estate (at least among the top ten agent count states).

Incidentally for another bit of minutiae, the agent count dropped from July 2009 to July 2010 in 48 of 50 states. Only Massachusetts and North Dakota showed an increase in agent count over the past 12 months.

Bet ya didn’t know that!

Wheeee!

Photo credit: albany_tim on Flickr. CC License.