SpencerBarron.com

In an earilier post I had mentioned how I had emailed Stephen Gandel of Money magazine with some corrected information on the Denver market. In particular I had been displeased with some of the advice they handed out to buyers. The information for the article had partially been drawn from a local Realtor who suggested that all his clients were getting 15% lower than the asking price. As a concerned member of the public and having access to the correct information, I presented my poorly written but unpoint analysis of each item with which I disagreed. Well, what do you know, Steve read it.

If I knew he was actually going to read it, I probably wouldn’t have sent it off at 3 A.M so unedited. Oh well. He mentioned when he confronted the other agent about the corrections, the agent mentioned he was misunderstood and actually he had had a client (singular) that got that much below asking price. It just wasn’t recorded in the MLS. hmmm….

Realtors are all so secretive and protective with their information, it makes it difficult for the media to get the truth. The public can smell it when they’re being fed a line. The media knows it too, that’s why they’re all over the industry propelling this belief that Realtors take money from homeowners that they don’t deserve. It’s just really difficult to get correct information about what’s going on. A little more transparency when it comes to how Realtors are paid couldn’t hurt, could it? I have found that dispelling misconceptions about this is a never-ending task. Perhaps by being more open, the public understanding of the business will expand from ‘you’re just a salesperson’ to ‘you’re running a business’. The truth is all the information about how agents are paid is easy to get to; just ask a successful agent. It’s the starving ones that will be afraid to tell you what they’re making on the sale for fear of scaring you off.

Personally, I feel that since Realtors put the information into the database and have created their own network, they have the right to dictate who has access to the MLS. (of course I’m a Realtor and a little biased since I want people to use me) I think that controlling a large data base of home prices can be balanced out with having a central MLS public site much like we have in Denver (REColorado.com) where the public can have access to information regarding everything that is for sale. Sales data on the other hand, is public record and anyone who wants to, can collect it down at the county recording office like the title companies do.

In addition, here in Colorado you’ll find a wide range of options for real estate services to suit just about any budget. You just come to expect that, in most cases, you will get less service as you pay less money. But at least you have choices. If the public has choices, that’s a good start. Now Realtors just need to work on the honesty and trust part.

For an upcoming article in Money that will likely be discussing the topic of the day, saving money buying and selling your home, I provided some answers to a few questions regarding the range of buyer’s agent co-ops and bonuses being offered to bring a buyer here in Denver. With all the misquoting going on these days I hope it comes thru clearly. If not, you can be sure that I’ll be talking about it.