On Thursday, 11/09/06, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled: "Do Real-Estate Agents Have a Secret Agenda?" My office manager must have brought up our secret agenda at the last sales meeting I missed.
Now why would the WSJ, that bastion of Capitalist Journalism, have any reason to suspect Real Estate Agents of anything below the highest ethical standards? Used car dealers? YES! Used House Dealers? NO!
Don't we Realtors have ads telling home buyers and sellers we took an ethics course? We don't say that we passed an ethics course, because there was no test. Woody Allen said: "Ninety percent of life is just showing up." For us Realtors 100% of our ethics (with a small "e") is just showing up.
We have Professional Ethics, like Doctors and Lawyers. We have State Licenses, like Doctors, Lawyers and Hair Dressers. We've taken a Real Estate Course and passed a State test with at least a 70. We've even sat through an ethics course, every 4 years or so.
What ethics do journalists have anyway? Just 'cause the Department of Justice is after us and out to get us, doesn't mean we're unethical, does it? I've read those articles about the "Heard on the Street" column, The New York Times and Dan Rather.
I resent the WSJ questioning our ethics. Both of them. The 6% ethic (sometimes the 7% ethic) and the hide-your-data-from-the-Open-Web ethic.
- Would a buyer's agent not tell the buyer of a hidden bonus from a home sale?
- Would a buyer's agent not share the bonus with the buyer?
In the WSJ article, Bob Poirier, Boston Bob, an agent in in Naples, Florida, got a 7% commission for selling a condo. When asked if he told the buyers of his big commission he said: "That's just something nobody ever discusses with buyers." Maybe Bob hasn't sat through one of those ethics courses recently?
Where are you, NAR? I'm waiting. I'm listening. Should we keep our commission data as secret as we keep our listing data? Do you have a policy or a guideline to help us? Could you put something in that required ethics course you require us to take every 4 years?
We Realtors claim to sell what usually is a person's most valuable asset. With a 6% front end and back end load. Those investment counselors would just love that deal.
Investment data is open to the public and the public can buy and sell securities themselves. Investment sales are highly regulated and disclosed. Can we learn anything from the Investment business?
If we don't open up our fees and our data, the government won't do anything to us and will leave us alone, right? And Elliot Spitzer will be good for Real Estate in New York, right?
What would we do if the Big Lenders, the Search Engines, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) got our data and opened it up for all our customers to see? We couldn't drive all those home buyers to our sites, where they have to go now to get a look at a listed home.
Don't the NAR, Move Inc. and Realtor.com have better things to do with our dues and our listing data, than to fight unwinable battles with the DOJ, the FTC, Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines? If we open up our data, we can share in how it's presented and used and participate in the profits? If we keep hiding our data, and everything else, we may have to do more than sit through an ethics course every 4 years.
Happy Searching.
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