A few days ago I posted on AgentMatch, the insidious Realtor.com plot to mislead consumers in their search for the perfect agent. As I indicated in that original post the reaction to the program has been quite negative. However, since then I stumbled upon an informal realtor survey, initiated by the moderators of the Raise The Bar In Real Estate Facebook Group, that quantifies just how negative realtor sentiment is towards AgentMatch. And it’s pretty darn negative:
- 57.4% thought it was a terrible idea and another 20.1% thought it was not a great idea.
- 56.2% were either concerned quite a lot or greatly about the fact that around 20% of sales occur outside the MLS and would not be included in the metrics.
- 69.7% thought it was completely inappropriate for Realtor.com to provide a ranking system
- When asked if Realtor.com should be responsive to the consumer’s appetite for statistics 73.8% agreed that Realtor.com should be more industry focused and not differentiate between realtors.
Now, judging from my headline you probably thought that I was going to dump on realtors for pushing back on the idea of publishing their performance statistics. Like: What are they trying to hide? After all I’m often dumping on realtors for stuff just like this. But not this time. I’m actually right in the middle of the pack on this one for the reasons I laid out in my orginal post. And if you go down to question 10 in the survey, which allowed agents to provide free form questions and comments, and click on show replies then you can see for yourself what some of the issues are – and they are not all self-serving. Here is a sampling, some of which echo the concerns I voiced on Tuesday:
Knowledge vs. Numbers –
I recently purchased a car, a rather expensive car. I researched for months before I decided which make and model I would buy. I visited dealerships and spoke with numerous sales people. When I found the one who knew the most about the product, I drilled her into the ground with questions. Never once did I feel the necessity to ask how many sales she had last year or last month. Her knowledge and expertise served me, not her production.
How will this program address teams? I have a team, but my reported stats are my own sales and my team members report their own. I will be at a disadvantage against other team leaders who take the credit for each member’s production because I run my team like a single agent. I predict teams across the board will be changing their team’s model in order to manipulate statistics just to compete.
how will homes sold outside the MLS be reported. Why are you focusing on sales data, when service is our product and sales data only presents a small picture of the job that any agent performs?
What’s really interesting in these comments is that even agents that stand to benefit from these particular statistics are opposed to them. Everyone sees the potential for gaming this overly simplistic system.
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