Mar
06
2006
Freakonimics Takes on Real Estate
By Charles TurnerThe authors of Freakonomics had a story published in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday. Basicly a shot at all Realtors. Lumping us all into one incompitant and overpaid lot. I have to take issue with it as many hard working Realtors will. Read the article first and then check out the comments. It wasn’t me but they’ve already been called Moronomics so there are obviously at least two views of the industry.
The discussion is just getting started on their blog.
Levitt and Dubner are just trying to sell more books and they’ve found something meaty and sensational to grab on to further their “Freaky” book sales. Real estate agents are a popular target right now and they’re just trying capitalize on that.
Well, I couldn’t help commenting on this one either. I found the article very compelling. Going through a transaction right now, I was beginning to come to these same conclusions myself (too many realtors + new tools allow consumers the freedom to bypass realtors = change ahead in the industry).
I do understand your frustration with being lumped in with the overpaid and incompetent lot. I think you’re already ahead of the game with this blog, and I agree with the common sentiment that there will always be a need for some level of full service realtors. You shouldn’t have a problem being one of these.
thanks for the article, it solidifies my belief that MOST realtors really are over-paid dinosaurs.
If agents in your industry would be less defensive and more pro-active to change they will have a better chance of surviving. However, most are extremly defensive and not at all open to the reality of the future.
Not sure if I am in the MOST that your refer to. I am open to change and am
sure I will survive just fine. I fully support making our industry harder to
enter. When I started real estate, I was often asked why I started. I had some
canned reason but what was really going through my head is "there are a lot of
stupid agents out there and I can do this better." I think we do. 100%
customer satisfaction? No but we do our best. According to our
Quality Satisfaction
Certification which is an independent third party customer satisfaction
company, we have a 4.83 out of five ranking.
So we can do better and staying the same is a good way to become a dinosaur
so, we continue at it.
Real Estate is changing and both the agent and the client had better be
prepared. I fully expect that there will be few Realtors in three years
than now but for me, I am three years through a planned 20 year career.
I’m a big fan or Real Esate Agents. I have used the same agent for two transactions in the past year and she earned every penny of her commission. The home I sold had some quirks so she had to work much harder to market and sell this home. The condo I bought wasn’t an easy transaction and she watched out for my best interests and helped keep the deal together. I would never want to do any real estate transaction without an agent representing my best interests.
I used most becuase the simple fact that you have a blog as part of your business shows that your two are not like everyone else….I was careful not to say all!
I may disagree with a lot of what you write, but it is interesting and informative. Keep it up.
If anyone has a topic that they think would be a good blog topic, let me know. I may know the answer (or last think I do) or may need to do a little research.