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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doughboy who wrote (15139)	11/16/2003 12:35:45 AM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Doughboy, you lost me on some of the points you made. Don't know what you mean about zipRealty putting Homestore/Realtor.com "out of business". Those sites do not serve the same purposes, so I doubt one could put another out of business. Second, who needs Realtor.com anyway when you can search for all local and even national MLS listings easier and quicker on many brokerage firm websites? Even some agents have these full MLS searches available on their personal websites. The MLS seems to be everywhere already, so I'm not real sure what all the complaints are about, and what more brokers should be doing in this regard (with the possible exception of those anti-MLS oddballs we've heard about lately in New York City). You also lost me with your assertion that I asserted "Realtors will provide you with safety and security". Not quite what I said at all. We all know there's no such thing as safety and security anywhere these days. What I did assert is that Realtors usually know something about the people to whom they show homes--not only personal data, but whether they're ready/willing/able buyers who have a solid reason for needing to see specific properties with specific features. The statement about Realtors providing "artificial barriers to entry" is simply specious. There are virtually NO barriers to entry, and anyone who has the required years of experience and study required to obtain a broker license can join the MLS, join the local/state/national Realtor organization, hang out a shingle and go into business tomorrow, in direct competition with the big boys. Not to mention the fact that they can charge as much or as little commission as they please ----and they can decide just like everybody else where and how they want to advertise their listings. The price-fixing allegation is pretty specious, too, considering the wide variation in fees and services offered. One local C-21 office has some agents paid on salary. A number of firms and individual agents within firms advertise commission rebates. Some firms are in business almost exclusively to assist FSBOs. Some firms advertise that they are willing to list homes for a fraction of what you consider to be the industry's "fixed" price. All of these birds are members of the same local/state/national Realtor association and cooperate with other member firms in the sale of property. All have the same accountability when it comes to the use of lockboxes and maintaining the integrity of data in the MLS system. All operate one or more physical (meaning real) offices which meet criteria set forth in state real estate rules and regulations. Some of the problems some brokers have with allowing internet-based companies to advertise their listings just MIGHT have something to do with the last couple sentences above. It's not as cut-and-dried as your claim that someone is trying to keep people out of the business and control prices. Baloney.