NAR, Welcome To The Twenty-First Century

The NAR just settled their court case with the DOJ. The NAR now has an invitation to join the rest of Real Estate on the Internet, in the Twenty-First Century. But will they (we).

Google changed the game for keeping general data secret on the "Hidden Web". But NAR and Move.com didn't change and continued to:

• Keep our data hidden.
• Drive buyers to only our Real Estate Websites.
• Give buyers and sellers what we want, not what they want.
• Keep buyers dependent on us.

Real Estate Brokers have fought banks, since there have been banks and Real Estate Brokers. Real Estate has sought a permanent ban on banks in Real Estate. Yet, do you know a RE Broker who doesn't have its own mortgage company, or a Daisy-chain relationship with one?

The NAR was fighting to keep Real Estate listings private, while most big Brokerages are mass uploading their listing data to the likes of Google Base, Yahoo Real Estate, Zillow and Trulia.

Now we pay dues to the NAR to keep our data private and fees to our brokers to get our listing data out. That's the dual agency that I'm most afraid of now.

One of my pitches/scripts to prospective sellers was, "We'll put your home on 8 different Websites." Now I can't count the number of Websites my listings are on. The more the merrier.

In our Association's "Exclusive Right To Sell" contract we have a clause where the seller must approve a lawn sign. I've proposed a clause where the seller has to approve an agent's not putting the owner's home out on the Internet to as many Websites as possible. No takers so far.

It seemed the NAR wanted to insert a clause best called, "The Exclusive Right Not-To-Sell On The Internet".

Now that the Zillow-noia has died down and the Trulia SEO and Google Results jealousy has just begun, we can get on board (or on net) with them, Google Base, Yahoo Real Estate and MSN Real Estate to fulfill our fiduciary responsibilities to our clients and market their properties where over 75% of home buyers start their search, continue their search and find their home.

Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, NAR. Your mission, should you decide to take it.

Happy Searching.

Posted by: Cliff Jacobson

Adapt Or Die!

WebHomeUSAblog: The Blog of Online Real Estate Marketing

Comments

[Brett]

Brett Shaw for Cyberhomes:

I love telling people about all the sites that their home is going to be listed on. Sites like Cyberhomes can give them so much coverage and information that will help to sell the home. I don't see how agents are fighting this. True, the estimates on some of these real estate sites are a little off, but I believe they are getting better with time. Cyberhomes adds 575,000 new ownership records every month, verified from the original source. I haven't seen a drop in business because of the advancements in technology, as long as agents use them to their advantage.