The evolving show-for-free and show-for-fee business models in real estate prioritize profit over consumer education, leading to potential exploitation and undermining the essential advisory role of real estate agents and brokers.
Robert Refkin inaccurately criticizes the Clear Cooperation Rule as violating the National Association of REALTORS Code of Ethics and state laws. Despite his objections, the rule is pro-consumer, fostering competition and better market exposure. The arguments against it are flawed and often disregard the broader benefits to both buyers and sellers.
Critics argue real estate agents are overpaid due to generous commissions. However, agents earn through success-based fees, providing extensive unpaid services if transactions fail. Unlike other professionals, agents only earn upon successful deals. Switching to fee-based models could increase costs and risks for consumers without providing the safeguards licensed agents offer, ultimately being costlier.
The NAR settlement has sparked debate over the real estate industry’s future without affecting cooperative compensation or making commissions negotiable, as they have always been. Concerns about increased cash needed for buyers are raised, but home values remain driven by market forces, not agent fees. Nonetheless, realtors remain dedicated to serving clients ethically and professionally in achieving homeownership.
Over the years, I have been chastised for suggesting that agents who seek education from Facebook groups are lazy. – and since I’m a real believer in that statement, allow me to reiterate it. Facebook, a public arena is not the place to seek professional guidance and education – but it is an easy forum, where your supposed peers can feel free to provide you with any advice that pops into their head – well-intentioned or not. I have seen well-intentioned people offer professional advice that would make any knowledgeable professional shudder with terror.
With inventory short markets around the country, interest rates at historic lows, and incredibly high demand, agents are feeling frustrated and put upon to degrees they may never have experienced. Add to that the policy changes facing the real estate practitioner, there are a huge number of people seeking answers to questions that should most properly be addressed to their brokers. But people being who they are, many of them end up looking for validation and information anywhere they can find it. Sadly, Facebook is too easy to run to.
Even when you make a statement or ask a question in a closed or private group, that has a fancy title and was created by someone active in the real estate industry or industry adjacent publications or an industry vendor, or even a well-publicized real estate professional as a place to enlighten or educate, bring a grain of salt to the group, and apply it liberally when you get advice.
I’m not saying that anyone there is necessarily malignant, or are providing information to hurt anyone, I’m suggesting that asking for education from the other kids in the playground instead of asking the teacher for help is not the best way to go to make your career better – especially when the playground is virtual and the market, the regulations and the practices in your market may be far different from the place they work. So what’s an agent to do? Let’s take a look at a couple of possible options.
If the issue is one that impacts your actions as a real estate agent, the first step still has to be to go to your manager or broker. They are responsible for your actions, they are generally (depending on the business model) involved in your success, and should be committed to helping you do the right thing and make a good living. If they are not, I have said before and will continue to say, you may need to go somewhere that they will.
If for some reason they are unavailable, or they are part of the problem you need to solve, then go to a senior management person or a senior agent with a good reputation at your company. They are your teammates and hopefully will be able to provide you with some information that is helpful accurate and consistent with the company’s policies.
Should your broker-owner, or manager, or senior team members not be available, try the legal hotline at your association with your question. Or go to www.realtor.org and use the copious information there, or go to the company intranet site, or the intranet site from your franchise to use the education resources there as a temporary measure until you can get the right team member to help you.
I know that everyone feels safe and distanced from such conversations, and people on Facebook speak with such conviction that it seems highly unlikely that they could be wrong, but you don’t know anything about their level of expertise, or the level of accurate information they possess other than what they tell you, and horribly, that may not all be accurate.
People attending classes to obtain their real estate license often form their impressions of the real estate industry from the things they learn in class. Like newly hatched chicks, they’re imprinted with a set of beliefs that they carry with…
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