Hawaii Life Press

Our Hawaii Life Principal Broker Matt Beall has written an excellent article about whether real estate agents provide value, especially given how technology has changed the real estate industry to the benefit of the consumer.  As Matt has previous explained, before the advent of the Internet, your local MLS (multiple listing service) compiled listings into a fat book which it sold to participating agents. You the consumer could only get access to the information via an agent. Was that providing value? In a sense it was, but there was a strong element of control, as there was in most consumer markets.

Remember the Clue Train Manifesto?  When that website (and subsequent bestselling book) appeared in 1999, the authors reminded us that markets are fundamentally conversations about value.  Markets were getting smarter and faster thanks to real people entering into conversation with one another via the Internet.  And consumers were getting smarter about using online networks to obtain real information real fast; the companies that served them were slow in waking up to the new reality as an opportunity rather than a threat.  Ten years later, real estate is still struggling to catch on.  Most real estate company websites are essentially monologues, blatant advertising, anything but a vehicle for conversations.  They push information and their sales pitch at the consumer.  No wonder consumers turn to Zillow, Trulia, and other websites that give them information AND a chance to participate in market conversation.  No wonder smart agents are out having genuine conversations with consumers on Zillow, Trulia, ActiveRain, their blogs, Facebook and Twitter!

Of course, one problem with MLS data, whether you are searching it via an individual real estate company’s website or on the official MLS site or Trulia or Realtor.com,  is that each listing agent is responsible for the descriptive and photographic content associated with their listing.  And many have not figured out that their audience is no longer another local agent!   Maybe you’ve seen listings where agents pitch other agents in the public remarks ( ‘Bonus to selling agent!”) which I would think is a pretty big red flag to a prospective buyer.  Many listing agents haven’t figured out that the better the information they provide, the better they are marketing their Seller’s property (marketing means assisting the right prospective buyer to identify him or herself).  How often have you seen a listing where the description just repeats property data (“Beautiful 3BR/2BA home with over 1400 sq ft of living area…”) or where it says the property has “wonderful ocean views” and fails to include even one photo of the view?
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