Hal J Likakik

Realtors, Prepare to Lose Your 6 Percent

The sacrosanct 6% commission has not been sacrosanct for a long time. As an earlier poster correctly noted, commissions have always been negotiable. What he didn't say is that, for a long time, brokers and agents simply refused to budge. That's changed, and this ruling will only accelerate the trend.

As to the broker who posted about the "agent mill" approach to the business that has served "big brokerages" so well and concludes that raising the bar is the answer for the industry -- Amen, brother!

Forget locationX3, the real mantra is Recruit, Recruit, Recruit! Brokers will need to re-discover that the business is about serving Homebuyers and Sellers, not flogging a handful of deals out of some poor schmuck who was stupid enough to believe that Real Estate = Easy Money, because the information monopoly that made that system work for so long is finally, legally dead.

This will not be the end of the industry for the simple reason that, for most people, there is real value in the help a good real estate agent provides throughout the process. What will change is their attitude of "You need me" -- No, we don't, but we might choose to use you because its just easier.

I could do my own taxes, but I don't because it stresses me out and I would wind up paying more than I do when my accountant does them. Of course, if my accountant wanted 6% of my income in exchange for his services, I'd laugh in his face. I feel that what I pay is commensurate with the service he provides.

That's where the Real Estate industry is headed: Fewer, better qualified agents serving clients from a menu of services using technology to more efficiently handle a larger number of transactions. Perhaps those who remain standing will earn the same, or even better, money than good agents do now. We will see. We will also see what will become of all the less-than-stellar candidates that, until now, brokers were happy to run through the Agent Mill. I bet the Time Share guys, Telemarketers, and "Make Millions from Home on the Internets" folks are are about to see an influx of suckers, sad as that is.

My guess is that some of the current crop of Real Estate ladies and gents will make the transition. The good ones are smart and (God knows) motivated enough. But over time, the new face of real estate will be younger, better educated, tech savvy, and lacking that certain MLM motivational speaker quality that clings to the industry like cigarette smoke in cloth upholstery. Over time, they might even make the profession more respectable than "British Tabloid writer"...

Google Strong, but Microsoft Pays Attention to Verticals

If you would like to see how a Google-powered Real Estate Vertical Search Engine looks, check out RealSearchCT.com. My company built it using Google Enterprise Search Technology, and our clients are Real Estate brokers, so we have all the listing data in the markets we serve.

Ours are the only Real Estate sites where you can, literally, "Google" Real Estate with freetext searches like "Newport RI Victorian with water view" and be assured that you are searching *all* the listings. Google itself could not build this site, even if they wanted to.

Google Base or Trulia, while technologically and aesthetically superior to traditional Real Estate sites like Realtor.com, rely on voluntary feeds from brokers, so they are missing listings. We have the chocolate of Google technology, AND the peanut butter of MLS data, and these two great tastes that taste great together drive our user experience. For more info: mainrhode.com.