Agents vs Online Estimates

Marc Hargraves, a Lancaster, PA real estate professional who happens to also be a dear friend (his wife Claudine makes the BEST country-style ribs), recently posted an amazing piece called "Online Home Valuation vs The Realtor CMA" that I think you all will find very enlightening.

Here are some excerpts:

"I am experiencing that consumers are shocked when they are told that the value they received from zillow.com isn't even close (in some cases) to what their property is worth. In some cases the property is worth well under the "zestimate". "How can that be" is the question I hear often..."

"Have we as a group lost the confidence of the consumer? Unfortunately, I believe to a degree we have. Now that is not in every market and certainly isn't for every agent. I believe that the clients I work with greatly appreciate my honesty and integrity. BUT overall, there have been agents that haven't had the same integrity that most of us apply..."

"Where does that leave us? It leaves us in a position to work together as a group or allow the online companies of the world to divide us. In most cases, the traditional mentality is that we are Independant Contractors who are only out for ourselves. Let's change that!"

"The problem is, we as a whole, generally DON'T cooperate with each other when it comes to generating leads. BUT, what happens if we do???????????????????"

Click on the excerpts above to read the entire article...believe me, it's worth your time.

And then you can tell all of your friends that you clicked on an "excerpt link" today.haha