Commercial Property
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Realty Times" Best And Worst Of 2003
When Realty Times started its annual awards back in 1999, it was about recognizing the best of the Web. But a lot of what goes on in cyberspace isn"t very noble. So we found that including the worst that"s out there makes us appreciate the good all the more. So let"s have fun honoring those who deserve a halo and deliver a kick in the pants to those who don"t. Here"s Realty Times" Best and Worst of 2003. Lost In Cyberspace Award - The real estate channels at Yahoo!, eBay and MSN Each of the real estate channels on these portals were once operated by geniuses who believed they knew how to crack the slow, dumb real estate industry nut. They have gone about this quest in different ways but to equally dismal results. Now the channels are on autopilot, managed by cybergeeks from other divisions who don"t know a darn thing about real estate. Yahoo! takes advertising money from virtual office Website brokers to let them be the exclusive gateway to listings. The only problem is four out of five real estate consumers who visit don"t want to sign "marriage" licenses to see listings. eBay thinks that properties should auction as well as beanie babies. They don"t, and they never will. MSN told its MLS data partners it didn"t need them anymore and then engaged a company to provide listings that promptly got itself embroiled in a purloined listings scandal.(See Best Scandal.) Without listings, do ya really have a real estate channel? Best Public Relations Executive - Russell Capper, CEO of eRealty Normally this award goes to an outstanding public relations professional like Hugh Siler of Siler and Company, but Capper has proven himself surprisingly adept at this job. In just a few short years, he has managed to almost single-handedly turn the real estate industry upside down with his insistence that other brokers should be forced to share MLS listings with online broker-operated Websites without an opt-out provision. He wants Websites to be viewed as real brokerages, instead of the communication and advertising tools others believe they are. If he wins, he gets to sidestep statutes that say other brokers have the right to control where they advertise their listings. However, some brokers don"t want competitors controlling where their listings are advertised, which has Capper crying foul. He"s launched an exhaustive campaign in the popular press, with the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, real estate regulators and anyone else who will listen. He didn"t make the cover of Time magazine, but he did get a mention. As they say, you can" t buy that kind of publicity. Didn"t stop him from raising his company"s commission rates, however. The Thankless Task Award - NAR"s virtual office Website policy Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, the NAR released its virtual office Website (VOW) policy for MLSs in May. This ill-fated document went through more rewrites than a Hollywood prenup. The idea was to provide all brokers with the opportunity to use MLS listing data downloads in their Websites as long as they controlled and limited access to the listings to bona fide clients. By creating a VOW policy, the NAR showed progressive understanding of the needs of brokers to provide greater access to brokerage services including the sharing of MLS listings online. With the wisdom of Solomon, NAR gave VOW brokerages the right to publish MLS data on their Websites opening online brokerage services to all brokers, but also gave all brokers the right to opt out of sharing their listings on other broker"s Websites. The result? Instead of a thank you for the compromises the NAR spent 18 months and many antitrust-attorney hours to achieve, some VOW brokers such as eRealty"s Russell Capper, went crying to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice and an anti-trust investigation was opened against the NAR. Which brings us to.... The Trials Of Job Award - The National Association of Realtors This has been a challenging year for the world"s largest trade organization. The NAR has just finished defending the REALTOR(r) servicemark in trademark court and is awaiting a decision that may effect every member. The DOJ has opened an investigation into the NAR"s virtual office Website policy, causing staff and members to spend countless hours preparing documents and testimony. The NAR is still trying to keep banks out of real estate and won a stay through next year. Whew! And all for a membership that complains that its dues are too high. Best Scandal - The Real Estate Book Brings The Roof Down On 1Roof Technologies Providing a textbook example of why brokers should have the right to opt-in or out of arrangements that could place their listings in nefarious hands, Primedia subsidiary/affiliate 1Roof Technologies decided to take The Real Estate Book"s (TREB) online listings without permission. 1Roof gave the listings to another Primedia subsidiary HPC Interactive which allegedly stripped TREB"s copyright and agent advertiser contact information, replaced the copyright with its own, and then gave the listings to yet another Primedia subsidiary Realestate.com and its traffic partner LendingTree.com. When TREB"s customers began to call with complaints of solicitation by LendingTree, TREB hit the 1Roof with a lawsuit. Primedia and its subsidiaries ran for cover, proving a leaky 1Roof is no shelter at all. Best PR Doubletalk - Deborah Roth, LendingTree Deeply involved in the listings scandal noted above, LendingTree unleashed its silver-tongued PR executive Deborah Roth on Realty Times to explain its business model. What resulted was such a masterpiece of doubletalk that Realty Times created this impressive new category just for her. After telling Realty Times that LendingTree had nothing to do with the TREB/1Roof/Realestate.com listings scandal, Roth also insisted that LendingTree did not "solicit brokers to join our program," despite the outraged testimony of several TREB brokers to the contrary. Editor"s note: Suprising no one, LendingTree announced the purchase of Realestate.com in December, 2003. "For the past year, our program has been open on an invitation-only basis," says Ms. Roth. "We add brokers in any area where we are getting consumer requests for a Realtor, and we do not have enough brokers on the network to provide consumers with choice. As we have plenty of broker choice available in all metropolitan areas, this means we usually offer brokers the opportunity to join our network in smaller, under-served locations." If that response doesn"t have you knitting your brow, Roth dazzles further with her denial that LendingTree is a referral fee-based company. When Realty Times pointed out that LendingTree is a licensed real estate brokerage and collects its fees, up to 35 percent of agents" commissions, at closing, Roth spun this response: LendingTree is "not in the referral business," she said. "We collect no up-front fees for our services but work on a success basis, wherein we receive a part of the broker"s revenue after closing, and from that, we generally provide extremely generous rebates to consumers for using a LendingTree broker." Oh. Guess it"s the rebates that make the difference.... Best PR Doubletalk, Runner-up - Realestate.com"s Robert Turnbull If for any reason, Roth can"t serve out her year as the queen of doubletalk, then Robert Turnbull with Realestate.com is in the wings to wear the crown. 1Roof was purchased by Primedia on February 1, 2002, Turnbull told Realty Times, yet when The Real Estate Book threatened to file a copyright infringement suit against 1Roof, suddenly Turnbull backtracked and told Realty Times that another Primedia subsidiary, HPC Interactive, "owns 1Roof stock," and "is not a majority holder." Turnbull"s quick thinking may have kept Primedia from being named a co-defendent when TREB finally filed suit against 1Roof for swiping its listings ("scuse us, make that copyright infringement) in April, 2003. The Big Picture Award - Gary Keller Not only does Keller know how to build a brand, he"s willing to share his how-to-make-millions advice with anyone in the industry who will listen, including competitors. The secret? Get everybody away from their Us VS Them mindsets and into We thinking. Keller Williams does it by profit-sharing with agents, which gets them on the same side of the table as broker/owners. If agents and brokers are partners, not adversaries, everybody wins. The beauty of this kind of business plan is that it could have a positive effect on the industry as a whole, raising standards of practice along with profitability for all brokerages who pay attention to his advice. The Small Picture Award - The RealTalk List-serv(tm) During mid-November while the NAR was defending Realtordom on more fronts than the Allies fought Hitler in Europe, Realtor RealTalkers spent precious little time discussing politics. Instead the participants were riveted to topics such as who needs to watch their potty mouths and how to get cat urine out of carpet. Oh, and agency, agency, agency - ad nauseum. RealTalkers" focus on their own community as being the "leading edge of Realtors" leads to some pretty mean-spirited behavior sometimes, such as when some members take their grievances, real and imagined, to the RealTalk list-serv before contacting vendors themselves. Other members pile on until the vendors look worse than Saddam in a dirt bunker. Members who stand up for a particular vendor are either shouted down or ignored. Agents demand that the vendor du jour answer to the RealTalkers or else. Later, the agent comes back to the forum to tell the story of how the vendor bent over backwards to respond to his/her complaints, giving the community the chance to gloat about its "power of community." Often, for added spice, the agent will insincerely apologize to the humiliated company or representative for not contacting them in advance, but by then, it won"tPages: [1] 2