I read an interesting article in Realty Times today. The article concernes a seller who got "Zillowed" and is contemplating legal action. It seems a seller pulled his home off the market after a potential buyer showed him a zillow report that showed a much lower estimate of value for his home. The sellers' note to Blanche Evans at Realty Times never mentioned that the seller or the buyer had advise from a REALTOR, therefore we are assuming that no REALTOR or agent was involved. Ms. Evans responded that this is "going to get worse before it gets better".
Thank you, Ms Evans, for defending our industry! REALTORS need to step up and insure that the community at large realizes our net worth; that we DO bring value to the transaction. NAR stats show that REALTORS accuracy in valuation is 99%. Now I realize that a seller can get an appraisal from a licensed appraisor, but we all know that the appraisor is basically looking at "history" to value. As a practicing REALTOR, I am concerned with the same comps that the appraisor is, but I am also vry much concrned with the current market of "actives" and "pendings", in an effort to advise the seller where the market is so that we can get the home sold.
I once sat in on a seminar that was given by an apprasor who had a formula using the assessed tax value that he claimed could price a property very accurately. I used his formula and never really came to "trust" the value and scrapped the program and went back to my traditional way of pricing homes (I think with better accuracy).
My point is that we add value to the transaction, but allow the likes of Zillow, zipRealty, et al to simplify this very complicated transaction and minimize (or attemot to eliminate) our role. I am proud of my profession; our NAR has taken the lead in continuing with the PR campaign in an effort to highten REALTOR awareness, but we, as individual practitioners, need to demonstrate our professionalism through more education and ethical interaction.
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