The DANGER Report

You and Stefan Swanepoel have me convinced. I'll read this on my business planning retreat coming up in a few days.

WOW! I have not read the report but will be doing that here in the next week. I will conform or lose in the end. Maybe a revolution will be needed, who knows? I have to read it first. I am to close to total retirement to let it bother me too much. 

I just got through reading this report. 166 pages of tables of contents, data, charts and discussions by the writers.

I am reminded of the old college story of the professor who did not want to take the time to read through all the papers he had assigned to his students. So  he took the whole lot of them to the top of the stairs and threw them down. Those which made it all the way to the bottom of the staircase got an "A", while the rest were graded on how far down they actually landed.

This report would have gotten an "A".

Most of the issues raised in this report have been discussed regularly in this and other forums, but still need to be kept front and center in our thinking.

Technology is changing the way we all do things, and the sooner we "accept those things we can not change" the better we all will be.

Downloading now .... the more difficult task is finding that 1 hour of undisturbed time, but I will do it. Promise. Thanks for the 'Danger' alert. 

Hi Dick-I was aware of the DANGER report.  Stefan Swanepoel came out to nearby Cupertino, CA at the end of August and presented his results to brokers and managers.  I agree, it's important for all of us to read and think about.

Dick Greenberg I have had this saved as a .PDf on my computer desktop but have yet to open it for more than a couple of minutes.  I will simply have to carve out the time to read it!

Thanks for bringing this up.  Will go and read it now on a rainy Sunday in paradise.

Dick - I had not heard of this before, so I must be living under a rock as well. You have piqued my interest, so I will now look into it.

Number one on the DANGER report list is: Masses of Marginal Agents Destroy Reputation.  NAR gets their revenue from all the agents who join the association.  I imagine that raising the bar to entry would have a significant impact on their revenue.  

Congrats on your feature. I've downloaded and skimmed at thiis point and can't wait for time to fully review. What a fascinating compelation of data. I like the elephant in the room approach and that the report shows as much opportunity as negative impacts.  

Thanks Dick.  Went to the Danger Report, listed to the interviews, alot of food for thought there.  I have downloaded the report and looking forward to reading it.

Thanks for the post!  I'll be reading it this evening!

Think the title sums up the world not only real estate. I will try and read the report.

Interesting report. The only constant is change. Too bad we gave our MLS data away to all the faceless corporations like Zillow and such. Advertising platforms that are only focused on their bottom line.  "The future ain't what it used to be," the late great Yogi Berra!

Ouch, 166 pages ... But it is tempting, and you said so, so I am going to download

I skimmed it and will go over it some more.  Sadly there is little I can do about some of these, many of seem to be issues across the board in our economy.  (Government Regulation, the Economy, Tech Changes)  If we go under due to better business models available to the consumer is that a bad thing for anyone other than us?  Although I do not see an over all better business model (ours might need some tweaking).  What concerns me is the big money brand names using regulation and influence to dominate our market at the expense of us and the consumer.  In other words a market and business model set by the government based on "Pay to Play" and the highest bidder.  As a member of the NAR I am not sure that as a small independent broker my interest are the same as larger brokerages and national companies that are members.  I often feel that the larger operations are favored by the NAR over my business.

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to have to go take a look at it. 

Dick, thank you for putting an emphasis on this important information. The world and how we transact Real Estate is quickly changing. Brokers should make reading this report a priority. Agents, don't wait for the Broker to prod you to read. Take time. 

I've read it before but it's always a good idea to re-read as I know I missed some things.   Catching up on commenting!

There is so much meat in that report.

We need to believe we can change.  We can change what we release in our solds to third parties, non members and the public.  We have agent remarks.  I do not know why we cannot have agent information. 

What is changing is the speed of technological changes and that more consumers and agents use technology.  The race is on.  The shift is here.  

It is the strangest business model to me to see

1) unpaid professionals doing work (loading and creating a work product consisting of data and media) and assembling data which is 

2) being used by third parties who recognize the commercial value of the data created by these professional

3) only for the professionals to pay for leads to these third parties who use their data 

4) all the while allowing third parties the ability to capture the professional's clients