Anyone a Betting Man?

Now, this is good news from NAR: The integrity of data is a foundation to the orderly Real Estate market. The Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS) provides a vendor neutral, secure approach to exchanging listing information between the broker and the MLS. In order to ensure that the goal of maintaining an orderly marketplace is … Read more

Further Proof that NAR is Out of Touch

Thanks to InmanBlog, I learn that there is an ethical dilemma brewing in RE.net.  It appears that NAR has promulgated a new standard This standard falls under Article 12 in the Realtor code, which provides that Realtors “shall be honest and truthful in their real estate communications and shall present a true picture in their … Read more

Feel the Power of the Dark Side

With everyone focusing on the gloomy residential real estate market, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what’s happening over on the Dark Side of the Force, aka, commercial real estate. CoStar released their Q4 financial results recently, and boy, are they impressive: BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CoStar Group, … Read more

Is Understanding Social Media A Top Priority for NAR?

I know I take contrarian views to much of the received wisdom on the RE.net, but… well, I can’t help it.  Since I’m not flogging any product, or trying to get leads from this blog, or any such thing, but just write on topics that interest me, I suppose I find it more fun to … Read more

How Many Homes For Sale in the U.S.?

Doing some market research, I ran across a curious problem.  Apparently, no one knows how many homes are available for sale in the U.S. at any given time. Realtor.com — the closest thing we have to a national real estate website — claims “Over 3 million new, existing, and rental properties listed by Realtors” right … Read more

Dear NAR: Whatever You’re Doing Ain’t Working

Over at TechCrunch, a hugely influential web technology site, there’s a profile of Redfin up. The profile itself is pretty bland and content-free. But the comments to that post has some… ah… action in there. For example, here’s a “Kerry R“: I’m not paying an F-ing real estate agent any fees, they don’t do anything! … Read more

Dear NAR: Whatever You're Doing Ain't Working

Over at TechCrunch, a hugely influential web technology site, there’s a profile of Redfin up. The profile itself is pretty bland and content-free. But the comments to that post has some… ah… action in there. For example, here’s a “Kerry R“: I’m not paying an F-ing real estate agent any fees, they don’t do anything! … Read more