From a comment here, here is the full context of Marlow Harris’s remarks to the New York Times:
“The only complaints I hear about are those noted on the official Redfin blog or talked about by their CEO in newspapers. As I mentioned in my previous email, they have such a tiny -.00001% of the market, I’m sure no one takes them very seriously.
“However, someone may be trying to manufacture controversy, even going so far as to bait other real estate practitioners, invite “war stories” on their blog, and whine to Congress and to newspaper reporters, that they’re being treated unfairly.
“With such dismal sales, if you’re hearing stories from a certain Redfin CEO, I’d take them all with a grain of salt. He can’t blame all his problems on other real estate brokers.”
There is much, much more from Marlow on Redfin.com at 360Digest. Which is not to imply that reaction to the New York Times article is universally negative: The Real Estate Bloggers loved it.
Ardell has ideas on training agents to negotiate commissions equitably. In contrast to Redzilla, a matinee monster at best, Ardell’s ideas combined with the innovations outlined by Eileen Tefft at Rain City Guide suggest a truly new business model for real estate brokerage.
Stephen Jagger at Ubertor raises some additional points on the subject of building custom web sites for home listings. I promise to come back to this topic sometime soon. There are four categories of clients for these custom web sites, and so far we’ve only talked about two of them. In the mean time, though, I think Ubertor builds gorgeous web sites.
ZillowTalk: ChitownLiving on the Sellsius&176; poll results. Michael Daly at the Hamptons Real Estate Blog explores the consequences of hubris in business. My own name is mud on both coasts, so I’ll do what I can to make things worse. Here’s what Michael Daly says:
It will take a number of lawsuits or perhaps even a class action suit against Zillow before they put the appropriate disclaimers on their site.
I’m kinda thinking that they’re on the verge of something like this right now. Take note of this from David Gibbons of Zillow.com in a comment posted here:
Lastly, just a heads-up that we’ve decided to let homeowners edit and publish corrected home facts on Zillow. It’s an exciting development and I for one can’t wait till this feature launches. You can elect to be notified when this feature is launched by opting in to receive a reminder using the checkbox on (the bottom of) Zillow’s feedback form.
This is too subjective for me, but, at the same time, it’s completely transparent. If you tell Zillow.com that your home has a solid gold fireplace, I’m apt to notice its absence. The fact is, the ZillowFolk seem to me truly to want to be corporate good guys, and, for all of me, they are one simple disclaimer away from being completely insulated from both criticism and litigation. Your mileage may vary, however. The ever clever Sellsius&176; has come up with the idea of a “Do Not Zestimate” list, akin to the “Do Not Call Registry.” Compared to that, a simple verbum sapienti — a word the unwise will ignore anyway — seems a small price to pay…
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, blogging, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
Ubertor says:
Hi Greg,
Thanks for including us. 🙂 I’m glad you like our listing presentation.
Sincerely,
Steve
September 5, 2006 — 11:13 am