I saw an article this morning that got me a little agitated. Realtor.com is again trying to help consumers pick the "agent experts" in each neighborhood. They are going to change the way the profiles look (finally!) and help pick these "experts" by their work in the neighborhoods.
They are going to try and validate the work in the neighborhoods by the solds (of course!) but also by a "check-in" method. If you are familiar with Foursquare you already know how this works. As someone who used to use Foursquare here and there, I kind of dropped off because in the areas I work in, I rarely get a good enough signal to be able to check in so to avoid the frustration I just stopped using it.
If Realtor.com is going to use this as part of their "expert" program, as someone who has a full Realtor.com profile (and even if I didn't) I am not happy about this because if you can't check in, in your neighborhoods while you are working, where does that leave you?
When I called Realtor.com to ask about this, they weren't even aware of any of this. The person was very nice (no problem there) and said there are changes coming but unfortunately they don't know what they are yet. So I went over it with them and was told that this was a VERY valid point and they were going to be getting back to me.
For people out there looking for an agent. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Google is very informative, and don't be afraid to call and talk to the agent you are considering. Sometimes looking at statistics on a website could give you information about someone that is not as correct as you would like it to be.
The article I am referring to can be seen here. It is called Consumers will soon have better ways to vet Real Estate Agents.
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