Tales from the Techside

Since he will almost certainly not publish my follow up comment to his intro post, I will publish it here.

First of all, proclaiming your blog as great doesn’t make it so. Secondly, we hardly need a self-congratulatory vitriolic venue to vent our frustrations at anyone… that is what yelp and other professional resources are for.

Finally, understand that while you obviously have strong feelings on the subject, they are misplaced. REALTORS®, like any large subset of the population, span the entire spectrum of professionalism and service. There are great ones, good ones, and yes, bad ones. They have their good days and their bad days, like everyone else. They function in a fascinating, complex, often unforgiving ‘virtual’ economy where there is very little government regulation, massive opportunity from downside from consumers like yourself with an aim to complain or sue, etc. Your alternative is to allow the government to consume this virtual economy (where currently two self motivated but fiduciary representatives do their best for themselves and thereby for you) and make property purchasing a little like the process of applying for a kidney transplant. If you want this level of government involvement in your attempt to locate and transact for a home, by all means, ‘rage on.’

For my part, while I am not an apologist for the REALTOR® industry, I treat its practitioners like any other person I meet, as an individual worthy of individual evaluation. I see them every day striving to improve their business and their business partners; other REALTORS® By and large they take their stingent code of ethics seriously, and the fiduciary relationship that it implies.

Just in the last hour I interfaced with a member who was complaining that a ‘buyers fee’ markup lead to a misleading price in the MLS. In her own words:

“In this auction, the listing price isn’t that at all because it’s really required that the buyer bring in an additional 6% of that asking price in order to be considered! How can other listings compete with this? How is this utmost care, integrity and honesty in dealing for this broker to do this? How is it following our duty of honest and fair dealing with good faith? This house, if it is to be auctioned, should have its price fully disclosed. That’s what I have to do as a listing agent. “

REALTORS® actually work very hard to ensure integrity, as they rely heavily, almost completely, on it in their business. The transaction is only as good as the weakest half. Dealing with an unscrupulous agent is NOT something that any REALTOR® I have encountered is interested in doing.

I will try to take the high road and when I read poorly written self-congratulatory nonsense like this I will strive not to point out that it is poorly written, self-congratulatory nonsense. If you would like to read a professional blogging resource that takes a balanced approach to the industry and its practitioners, then please click over to http://psyne.net.

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