The Biggest Mistake In Business History
Giving third party websites access to our listing data was a terrible mistake. They used our listings to take our buyers and now they are using those buyers to go after our sellers (i.e. Zillow's Instant Offers).
Giving third party websites accesss to our listings spawned an industry of middlemen. These firms don't care about our clients or our profession. They have no licensure or ethical oversight. It's all about the money.
No industry discloses its intellectual property to outsiders. We did what no industry ever has by letting outsiders manipulate, and profit from our intellectual property (listing data). This cost us money, credibility, and possibly our future.
It's understandable that NAR/MLS execs were hoodwinked. Our leaders likely concluded that having our listings on more websites would attract more buyers.
But more websites does not create more buyers. The logic that more websites creates more buyers is flawed. There are a finite number of buyers in the market at any time.
Some say the answer is to remove our listings from third party websites. Since most buyers search for homes on third party websites (because of our listings), it could harm our sellers if we removed our listings.
The answer is to take back our buyers BEFORE we take back our listings. Once we have a website flooded with buyers we can safely pull our listings from Zillow and other middleman websites... without harming our sellers.
It's a shame NAR sold Realtor.com. NAR's #1 goal should have been to use our dues to make Realtor.com the #1 home search portal. But they didn't, they sold it, and it's silly to cry about it. We need to take things into our own hands.
Our profession needs its own website. It's makes no sense that a profession that sells homes doesn't have its own website to market those homes. Our first priority must be to develop a website that buyers prefer over Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, etc.
This website should be owned real estate agents, not NAR. If we jointly and collectively own the website, it can't be sold out from under us. That's part of the plan.
We are buliding just such a website. We developed a new technology that gives buyers an advantage if they search for homes directly with agents, not Zillow. After Realtors across the country see how well it works, we plan to cede control to our profession.
The proof is in your hands. See for yourself how easily our new technology attracts buyers away from Zillow to you. Simply contribute as little as $25 HERE to help defray our development cost.
This is my 50th year in real estate. My mom, dad, unlce and aunt were Realtors. My wife, nephew and youngest sons are Realtors.
Real estate is my heritage and my family's future. I don't intend to stand by and let uncaring tech execs ruin the business I love. I welcome your help.
Video overview of The Plan To Save Real Estate.
This Will Put Realtors Back In Control from Gregory Hague on Vimeo.
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