I see dull people…

by Geno Petro

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

Okay, it’s my turn.

I generally leave the loftier industry fodder for other, more qualified (if not more committed), real estate bloggers to cull over. I commend visionaries like Greg Swann for single handedly forcing readers across the R.E. Web (okay, me) to look up such words as disintermediation, Quixotism  (just making sure), and even Odysseus, although the latter was only because Dan Green told me he thought it was Latin and I was pretty sure it was Greek. At age 51.5 (I know, I know…I don’t look it) and deteriorating, I think I’m just growing tired of thinking, these days.

There are enough talented writers in this medium, I believe, to address all the cutting edge commentary leaving me free to throw lawn darts and lob softballs at all the easy targets, usually people who didn’t buy a house from me.  But something Kris Berg wrote about recently got me up off my rocking chair to go searchin’ for my literary shotgun…as it were.  I think I’m gonna hunt me some Redfin…if there are any left.

This oddly named varmint (or is it a fish?) is not indigenous to these here parts of Chicago but I do know one thing—I don’t think I like the taste of it. I hear it smells a little gamey, and the presentation is…well, a little like a wolf in sheeps’s clothing for my liking. But most of you already know this. You’ve blogged it onto the endangered (if not protected) species list from what I’ve read. And like I said, I ain’t really seen one up close … just yet.

I have, however, perused everything I could find posted on the company, archived and otherwise; essays, interviews, comments–Ahh, the comments and the commentors of the Blogosphere. Talk Radio doesn’t even hold a candle. It was Redfin’s implied (cleverly discoursed in the second person–‘Uncle Sam Wants YOU!’) mission statement though, that forced me to finally weigh in on the subject, placing reasonable restraint of tongue and pen aside for now.

(sic)

Redfin is an online real estate brokerage that puts you      

in charge of buying or selling your home:

• We combine listings direct from every broker with data on past sales & days on market.
• Our local agents guide you on price and negotiate the best deal.
• Our online tools make the paperwork easy.

You get results, not a sales pitch because our agents are paid on customer satisfaction, not commissions. And you save on fees, usually more than $10,000….

Hmmm. I’m always skeptical when I hear a sales pitch that claims to be otherwise. And that’s exactly what it appears to be to this lazy, middle of the road, recently adopted bloodhound; the old hidden ball trick. It’s just another thinly veiled sales pitch flying off the fingers of an internet savvy knuckleballer, just under the radar gun of an already distrusting public, and right into the mitts of the press box unintelligentsia. Holy Cow!

Hey, you either are or you aren’t a hawker in this free enterprise system we call The Market Place. At the very least, you’re a free agent looking to negotiate a better contract for yourself. If a property mongering Evangelizer is going to stand in the ‘pulpit’ of this (until recently, at least) generally callow congregation and preach transparency to the masses then he’d better be prepared to strip down naked himself (Redfin agents and investors alike) and let it all hang out in the opiated breeze of the people. Open the heavens and the good books, as well. I want to know how much everyone makes, and stands to make this year. And next year, too. I want to see tax returns. Not making money yet? So what. They plan to.  And to tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less what the margin is if they do turn a profit. Just don’t proport to be a sanctimonious advocate against the trillion dollar teet from which thou sucks, implanted or otherwise.

I want to see (actually, I don’t) the prospectus of the initial start-up and the projected ROI for the venture money people. Attack an industry for the way it pays its agents then turn around and make billions from the same industry? Or is it only hundred millions?  Mere millions, perhaps? It certainly is not thousands or hundreds, to be sure and this is precisely my point.  They ain’t doin’ it for nothin’ (or the prospect of nothin’). And while most Parson types are indeed, holier than thou and definitely holier than me (Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, and poor Jim Bakker notwithstanding), they still have human needs and the required earthly tethers of food, shelter, clothing, and American Express. But is Redfin simply ‘working for food?‘ For mere shelter? For Rewards Points? Or maybe it just ticks me off when someone else feels complelled to count my money.

It doesn’t matter, though.  In this country we all have the right to be as prosperous as we can possibly be. It’s just that I really want to empty a load of onomatopeatic buckshot–BAM, HISS, BOING– into someone’s keister when he publicly avows taking a higher road to the holy ground while performing the forbidden act of guttural proselytization in the bushes behind the church.

I’ll tell you what I see. I see a few internet savvy nickle bag opium pushers (fully clothed, of course) trying to make up in volume what the rest of us…

a) admittedly greedy pig slaughterers 

b) professionally designated consumer advocates

c) free range tract housing direct mail farmers

{Choose one of the above}

… hope to yield from a few fat hogs within the same fiscal time frame. I see a 21st century, high-tech clan of bizarro Willie Lomans having their Holiday party in a Seattle coffee house, sipping decaf skim machiattos, and conspiring to make paper voodoo dolls out of the real life Ardell DellaLoggias of this world to hang on their tree (good luck there). I see dull people. Dull people counting my money.