Redfin CEO Kelman: REIC "Marketing Itself Off A Cliff"

The manifestation of online real estate search engines, sales and buying tools with links to all that the MLS previously afforded real estate consumers - and much more is scaring the shit out of certain individuals who have chosen the profession of home realtor.

Realtors mistakenly view themselves as the most motivated party to sell your home or help you buy a home.

This assumption is incorrect.

They are NOT the most motivated to do either. They are motivated to make sales commissions which are directly proportional to the sale price of a home.

The truth is that home sellers and home buyers are more motivated. And they no longer need realtors in the same way they did before to intermediate on their behalf. If 80% of prospective homeowners are no longer looking at newspaper ads, no longer phoning up Joannie Loves Chachi Realty Group, and prefer to research home information, sales history, prices and neighborhood data online, including crime and school district statistics, then the realtors job and importance suddenly becomes less significant.

Realtors might be tempted to assert that only they "understand your needs" when it comes to buying or selling a home. But those days are over. A computer really can perform the light lifting regarding the research.

So why are realtors necessary? What tasks or duties of the home selling and home buying process make them so indispensable?

Perhaps there are certain duties and legal paperwork items to which realtors have traditionally attended.

Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin offers the following in the Ad Age article:

"The most motivated advertiser is the seller and millions of homeowners are proactive now. If people can see a home without an agent, where does that leave the industry? It's kind of marketing itself off a cliff."

Right off a cliff, indeed. Sometimes CEOs like to use the damnedest of metaphors to get their point across.

86 The Orange County Housing Market? Better to be patient.

The OC register reported this week that median Lake Forest home sale prices fell 19.5% when comparing YTD April 2007 with April 2006. This Lake Forest statistic of median home prices smashes the Orange County-wide stat of just a .2% price decline for the same period.

Total home sales in Lake Forest, California declined 24.7% in April.

Not a good time to buy. Not a good time to be owing on an asset with an increased likelihood of a future downward trend.

So should you "86" OC housing off your future "to-do" list. Perhaps, but not necessarily long term.

There can be no question anymore that a real estate recession is underway here in Lake Forest. But if more people would just stop what they're naysaying and listen closely to realtors and Mr. Yun of the N.A.R. , then perhaps the Orange County weather might eventually save the day and bring all of those sideline prospective buyers out of the wood work, with their front pockets lined with rainy-day cash, with FICO scores hovering in the stratosphere, and of course, W2's with above-median incomes - all of them patiently waiting to re-enter the candy store of creative California mortage loans to re-open.

Only I'm not too sure that those mortgage candy stores will ever re-open.


Yeah, it looks great, doesn't it? But most can't afford to partake.

So unless you're rich kid, beat it!

Mr. Lereah, you have a credibility problem.

In case America's real estate agents haven't figured it out yet, they need a new spokesperson because the one they have, Mr. David Lereah, has lost credibility.

After consecutively denying the existence of a housing bubble in 2005 and 2006, then later retracting and insisting in 2006 that a "soft landing" surely awaits the American housing market, then going back on his previous market hype to forecast a down year in 2007, but one that will still grow at historic levels over 2006 results, to then in February 2007 insinuate a recovery for the American real estate market, to today - forecasting a real estate market recovery only sometime in 3rd quarter 2007 following devasting news that existing home sales declined 8.4%, the worst sales performance for the real estate industry in 18 years.

By now it should be obvious to prospective American homebuyers, future home sellers, economists, mortgage lenders and even realtors themselves that the N.A.R. cannot be viewed as a trusted advisor any longer with respect to the real estate market. It's motivations are completely and utterly duplicitous. There is no interest in sharing with the public full and unfettered, objective housing market data.

The N.A.R. continues in April 2007 to promote the idea that today is no less a "great time to buy" than it was in 2006 or 2005 - despite completely different real estate market growth patterns, rising inventories, declining home values, declining home prices and heavily restricted real estate market financing conditions, not to mention completely different economic circumstances, not the least of which is the all-but-decapitated U.S. Dollar!

It's about time for people to quit their bitching and come to accept the National Association of Realtors for what they are. The N.A.R. is simply a pseudo-public relations organization for realtors whose sole motivation is to sell property and earn commissions on the value of that transaction. The N.A.R. is constantly trying to sell. Once that relational vector becomes well understood by the American public and the mainstream media, it might call into questions some of the assertions made by it's President, posterboy spokesman Mr. Lereah and its 1.3 million members.

Some realtors have been in the industry a long time and have worked their asses off, surviving by referrals through the roughest of markets. Before you select a realtor, I recommend you ask them what they did from 1989 to 1999. Many have obviously proved themselves, demonstrating strong business ethics, and have chosen to help people objectively. They know the ins and outs, and are even more fed up with the N.A.R. than the lay person.

But the majority of realtors, I submit, are unlicensed or poorly licensed, poorly trained, inexperienced, opportunistic, self-centered, easily corrupted, and dead-focused on earning that 6% commission check. To hell with convention, business ethics and regard for your fellow man, they want that commission check! How else are they supposed to make payments on that f*** off huge Hummer they drive around town with their realty website and cell number painted all over it?

Realtors are basically all about a business transaction. Many prefer to portray themselves as some sort of societal counseling service for America: to go that extra mile to "help you and your family find that perfect dream home - just for you. It's all about you".

Bullshit!

Realtors want the transaction done and they want their freaking money! Period. And all of the stupid questions you ask, repair demands, price offers and counter-offers during price negotiations are nothing but Tourette's-inducing irritations obstructing the path to THEIR commission check.

The mere idea that the N.A.R. is somehow of help and "looking out for the interests" of prospective homebuyers and homesellers is so ridiculous anymore, it no longer is funny. It's infuriating. Ask the thousands of subprime homedebtors about their realtor experience. They'll tell you, and in detail, exactly how helpful they were in getting that loan to secure their dream house.

If there is a positive to the 2007 U.S. housing crash and David Lereah's repetitive PR goofs (read: lies) as to the U.S. real estate market's true condition, it is that some daylight might now expose the N.A.R. charlatans for what they really are, and might convince more Americans to show vigilence when selecting a realtor - or even first determining whether a realtor is even needed!

Remember today's quote: "There is no way to spin this news" - David Lereah, National Association of Realtors, April 24, 2007.

If that is the really case, Mr. Lereah, then perhaps you're no longer as useful to he N.A.R. as you used to be?