President's Perspective

Brad Bennett
President

We are all familiar with the age-old phrase Buyer Beware. However, now our real estate industry has one more item on its plate, Broker Beware.

Early in January your Columbus Board of REALTORS® leadership attended a 2 day high intensity planning session. Along with the Officers and Directors, the CBR department head staff and 2007 committee chairs were involved in this interactive retreat.

All committees reported on the 2007 goals of their committees and how they would help accomplish the CBR 2007 Strategic Plan that was adopted in 2006. The entire leadership group participated in providing creative suggestions to the committees to help with their tasks at hand.

All were fortunate to listen to keynote speaker, Russ Cofano, expert on MLS and intellectual property issues and former General Counsel for the Washington Association of REALTORS® ("WAR"). Although we are not involved in an industry "WAR", the current trends and changes to brokerage business models suggest "broker beware".

It behooves all of our membership to become and stay aware of several industry trends.

First, a vast number of our new home buyers and sellers fall in the Generation Y demographic (age 18-29) which represents 51% of all internet users. This internet savvy group is preceded by the Generation X group, 30-49 years old. They comprise 43% of the internet users, with both groups totaling a whopping 94% of the Internet users.

This huge real estate consumer group is accustomed to obtaining information immediately, when they want it and how they want it. They will seek real estate data from any sources that will provide the fastest and in the most technology efficient manner. This will substantially impact how we need to serve our customers.

Some of the newest players in providing real estate data include: Google.com, Redfin.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Propsmart.com, HouseValues.com, HomeGain.com, Craigslist.com, and, by the time you read this, several others will be in the internet marketplace. It is imperative that we all become aware of business models of new data providers coming into the real estate arena.

Brokers have the right to provide their own listing inventory to any site they wish. However, all should be aware how this data is used, and where these sites forward that listing inventory.

Many of these .com companies display the listings in order to obtain a contact with the consumer. And, broker beware, they often sell that real estate contact back to a brokerage, or even sell it to another brokerage.

Some sites initially display data and send leads back to the brokerage, however, be aware that some sites are actually competing with you by collecting commissions for buyer and seller services.

In order to capture this new internet consumer, several multiple listing services nationwide have recently begun to display their entire listing inventory on various sites. The concept is to furnish the marketplace with the entire listing base, and therefore, controlling the business generated since they have the most complete listing site.

CBR's leadership is constantly investigating our industry trends. Many of our members, and staff, are involved in the study of market trends through our board, the Ohio Association of REALTORS®, and the National Association of REALTORS®. However, it is critical that all of our members stay informed and involved. Your CBR leadership values and welcomes your input.