Well, now that the smoke has cleared and the dust has settled from the "shot heard round the real estate world", as Redfin announced that they are now publishing the sales statistics of every agent in the marketplaces they serve in a format called a Scouting Report.
You can go on Redfins' website and view the Scouting Report without even the need to register on their site. So they're not even cloaking this one in "they're our clients" camouflage as they did when they allowed their agents to "review" other agents and agencies listings.
It's a controversial move, to say the least. Our local MLS does not allow us, as agents or agencies, to take the information that they've compiled and publish it elsewhere. That's part of our rules. And yet, somehow Redfin has been allowed to do exactly that with their "Scouting Reports"
As you can see from the graphic above, Redfin knew it would "ruffle some feathers"... in fact I'm sure that was part of the reason they did it. Any PR is good PR. They know that the public will perceive this move as a step toward "transparency", and that balking and complaining about it will make more Realtors and agencies appear as though we're trying to hide the information.
In reality, Redfin, in this very clever move, is making all who complain look bad, and the rest look bad by inaccurate statistic. I'm a fan of transparency. I want the public to know how real estate transactions work, how we make our money, where it comes from and where it goes. But I want that information to be accurate, and I want it to be controlled by an independent third party, not by my direct competitors in the market, who can "whoops" accidentally manipulate that information. Already we're finding that non-redfin agents average "days on market" have been in error by several hundreds of percents.
Their data reporting doesn't seem to account for teams, doesn't seem to account for changing agencies, and takes Redfin agents (who use a rebate business model, and to make up for the "discounting" crank out more transactions per handful of agents who serve the area) and makes their numbers look far better than the average agents in the area.
Sorry... for me that seems like unfair manipulation of the data, and is designed to delude the public... not to create transparency. Note the last line in Redfin CEO, Glenn Kelman's corporate blog that states the plan for this release of data is to: "help you make a better choice about which agent to hire, and hopefully that choice is more often to hire a Redfin agent."
Well, at least THAT's accurate! Since we now understand their motivation... should we still be accepting them as the benevolent-transparency-bringers?? i don't think so.
Comments (109)Subscribe to CommentsComment