Not even all real estate agents expect their Listing Service to survive much into the 21st century.
While ComFree has been explaining for some time why we think the agents’ listing function is doomed, many in the industry hold the same view, but, for obvious reasons, seldom express the sentiment publically. But sometimes they do.
Care to eavesdrop?
REM, a publication serving the real estate industry, hosts an online discussion forum on real-estate-related topics. One of the entries, from someone identifying himself as an agent, sounded as though it could have been written by us, but it wasn’t. It was just an agent being candid in a forum populated mainly by other agents.
Here it is, verbatim and in its entirety, typos and all (if you’d like to see the REM online version, CLICK HERE and scroll down to 9/23/06)
"As a Realtor in Manitoba I have to agree with the person claiming Comfree is the way to go --.
Realtors often claim you won’t be protected when you sell or buy without a Realtor, you won’t get as high of sale price etc... All these claims are actually false. Comfree has lawyers for its customers -- protection. Comfree has guidelines and advice for buyers -- financing conditions, home inspection etc that buyers should consider -- protection. Sale Price? -- a lot of Comfree clients get their home professionally appraised (our market evaluations aren’t legally binding to a bank!) and often Comfree listers call in a couple of Realtor’s to get the price from them anyways!! -- protection...
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I have heard all the arguments from old and out of touch agents and brokers stating companies like Comfree, Property guys, Welist, etc will not last as they have seen them before. WRONG. The internet Age is only boomed in the last 5 years. It is only going to get easier and easier to sell your home on your own without an agent (not that selling or buying a home is difficult!).
The Realtor is a good choice for people who can’t be home to allow showings and those that feel uncomfortable doing it themselves but that number is dwindling. I can’t imagine any of the people in high school right now ever using a Realtor to sell a home. The Internet age of Real Estate is upon us.
Now, a lot of Realtors might say why the heck are you a Realtor etc etc with my above comments? Why? Last night I spent 4 hours showing houses (6 of them) and writing up an accepted purchased contract and now will have $8800 in my pocket!!!! That’s why!! And that’s why Realtors have such a bad name!" We couldn’t put it better ourselves.
Their Listing Service is an overly-expensive, grossly-inefficient marketplace. It’s the real estate industry’s way of controlling content to force homesellers to pay a huge premium (the commission).
It serves the agents very well and homeowners very poorly, and that’s why it will ultimately fail. And why ComFree’s marketplace will keep growing.
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