More Real Estate Stuff
I was in Washington, D.C. last week at the National Association of Realtors mid-year legislative meetings when CBS broadcast their story, and the story won't go away. Not that I think it should, for several reasons.
First of all, CBS' empty chair treatment of the NAR may have left viewers with some very bad information regarding this business. According to NAR President, Pat Coombs "Believe it or not there is still a Flat Earth Society whose members still argue that the Earth is not round. And there are those who will believe what they saw on '60 Minutes,' " she said. "That is the bad news. The good news is that expectations based on false information eventually unravel, especially in a world where you can access information so easily. The show has resulted in lots of irate Realtors and continued goofy responses from CBS itself as Realtors try to get the truth to the public. When asked about allowing NAR to comment on camera on the story, we received this reply: "I am grateful for your willingness to go on camera and I want you to go on camera but I'm seriously thinking about, you know, this is so arcane, the best way of dealing with it is in narration." Not that the narration covered both sides of the question.
Two other times, NAR offered Pat Coombs for an on camera interview. Two times she was turned down. But, my favorite quote may be by CBS producer Richard Bonin, who, when pressed on the issue of the story's contention that 6% commissions are sacrosanct, actually said "our research shows that there is no good, reliable data on the actual commission agents charge their clients". That may be because there is no "sacrosanct" standard of commission, and for us to try to create one as an industry would violate anti-trust law. I've seen research that suggests a hair over 5% (5.1) to be a more accurate average. The fact is, as Realtors, we are in competition with each other for your listing. While it is true that there may be some agents who won't list for less than 6%, there are many more that set their price on what the market dictates. An agent that is inflexible in this day and age on his pricing may be an agent that is very lonely. The sellers out there have too many options available.
In addition, I would be very interested in joining this national MLS that Ms. Stahl mentioned, but I can't. You see, it doesn't exist. In reality, there are over 900 separate MLS's in the country, all of which are independently owned and operated. Ms. Coombs also said "At the end of the day, truth and fact will always win with those whose opinions matter most, including our key audiences. Real estate is a word-of-mouth business."
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" Our clients ... know that we encourage and promote competition and provide tremendous value in a transaction. They aren't going to be swayed by a shoddy news report." I hope she's right. It's frustrating to hear such blatent disregard for the truth broadcast to the world. It's doubly so, when the network doesn't even remotely want to tell both sides of a story, a story they obviously had decided the outcome on before they started, and a story that affects the way I make my living, in an industry that's been so good to me.