Leveling the Playing Field

I've been reading tweets this morning from Inman Connect in New York #ICNY. Mostly I've been interested on the RPR discussions.

Everyone is (once again) talking about leveling the playing field. Ugh. That just gets me all fired up. Leveling the playing field. Bah! RPR providing the same reports and tools to all Realtors does not make all Realtors level. Data is great and is an integral part of the real estate transaction but there is so much more to buying and selling a home!

When the market in Florida was super hot we were seeing Fee-For-Service, Flat Rate and other non-traditional business models opening up all over the place. I wasn't really considering selling my home but I looked at some of the services available to me if I did want to sell. Remember, I love statistics and analytics. I love crunching data. I would bet I can get a better idea of market trends in my area than most agents. It's what I do. If the question is only pricing my house right, I wouldn't need any help. I could price my house, pay someone to add it to the MLS then hire a real estate attorney to represent me at closing. Quick, easy and painless? No way.

There is so much more that a good real estate professional brings to the table other than reports. Things like staging, curb appeal, proper marketing channels, open houses on the seller side. Then there's little Susie's ballet classes, neighborhood vibe...feelings on the buyer side.

I like to think I know a lot about real estate, especially when it comes to real estate information but I would never dream of buying or selling my home without representation. I know there are disclosures but I don't know what they are. I don't know what's reasonable in negotiations. I can look at average days on market but I don't know, strategically, when to modify my price in order to get the best return in the shortest time. There are tons of things I can not do.

So RPR is providing some cool tools for agents. That's awesome. Leveling the playing field? I dunno. IMO the playing field is not data or reports, the playing field is how a person takes the data and reports, add their own intellectual property (something which can not be managed by a computer) and uses that information to represent a buyer or seller. I don't know what all will shake out of RPR, still too early to tell, but I think the tools they are providing will enable the great agents to shine and the bad ones will continue to just get by.