Smear Your Neighbors
By Charles Turner
We could talk about the financial markets but this post is regarding the “housing related” story running nonstop on today’s news. It seems like such a bad idea that I am not going to perpetuate its success or rankings by linking to it here (it is sponsored by GoogleAds so earning income to). I wasn’t even going to look but didn’t think it would be fair not to. The guy linking a youtube video of his neighbor launching fireworks AT him is compelling though.
It boils down to: don’t like your neighbors? Post your gripe about them online for the world to see, address and all. I’m sure attorney’s will have a field day with it as they weed the truth from the slander. They’ll get paid either way. By posting, in my opinion, you cede that you dislike your neighbor and don’t have the ability to use normal channels (reason, city enforcement, the law) to deal with your issue. You can’t really be thinking about moving as your telling your potential buyer that you hate your neighbors and they will too. You probably hurt your value more than theirs.
This seems like a bad idea all around.
Bad for real estate agents, good for buyers. Bad neighbors are one thing that a potential buyer will not learn about until it is often too late.
Not sure I follow, Tiffany.
Three houses in a row: ABC. B is the bad neighbor. C posts a rant online. If A or C go to sell, B is still the bad neighbor and C has hurt themselves and B. If B moves, yippee.
Why would a site only rank bad neighbors(hint: train wrecks sell)? Why shouldn’t good neighbors get credit? If looking at single family housing, the average house probably has between 4 and 8 physical neighbors (side by side, three along both the back and front). If one gets in a fight with B and posts the other seven still might think B is the best neighbor ever. It’s not like Ebay where quality quantity can overcome the one bad result.
Does this really sound like a good, reliable source of information to you?
Bad for real estate agents? How do you figure?
The more I read real estate blogs the more I hear people thinking agents are only there to swindle.
As we learned with the Super Bowl fiasco with Janet Jackson the vocal majority is usually the minority. Only 6 or 8 people actually complained to the FCC. I thought it was in 100,000 times that based on media coverage.
And why would it be bad for real estate agents? The Buyer’s Agent will still find a house for their client and Seller will still sell eventually.
It would be interesting to do a public good analysis on this. There are some benefits and some costs, but I doubt it is zero sum.
I have seen people post videos of their neighbors using a variety of illicit substances, and some that are not quite as controlled. Some people just want to clean the neighborhood up, and they turn to the video as a mechanism to effectuate positive change.
I wonder if after some time the video adds or subtracts value from the area.
Tiffany-
“Bad for real estate agents, good for buyers.”
In some way, and not in a degrading way, I liken real estate agents to lawyers–they get paid no matter what the situation. Just like the police essentially create a criminal layers business, that video may be the best thing for real estate agents, as maybe a few of the neighbors decide to sell.
“Does this really sound like a good, reliable source of information to you?”
It is a _source_ of information that the prospective buyer can use to do further investigation. Her research will determine whether or not the info is good or bad. Example: I bought a rental house in North Portland a few years ago and did the requisite D&D and more, but still did not find out that a house two doors down was a crack den, even though I spoke with every single neighbor on the block before purchasing. It was in their interest to get a good neighbor, i.e., me, than to have the house remain vacant. In retrospect, if I had known what I now know about the house two doors down I would not have made the purchase. Moral: The more information the better.
I’m searching all over the news, looking at local news sites, and checked youtube for “neighbor fireworks”, and I cannot find the vaguest hint of what you are referring to.
rottenneighbor(dot)com