by Jim the Realtor | Dec 22, 2023 | 2024, Commission Lawsuit, Realtor, Realtor Post-Frenzy Playbook, The Future, Why You Should List With Jim, Zillow |
The gradual phasing out of buyer-agents is underway, and it shouldn’t be long now.
Zillow’s new format features the listing agent’s phone number under the main photo!
The three-headed agent display was removed and now when a reader clicks on the right side for Request a tour or Contact agent, they are linked to the Zillow call center instead. There they get processed/qualified on the phone by Zillow employees, sent to Zillow Mortgage, and then get assigned to an agent who is paying big money to Zillow for the privledge.
Buyers will figure it out pretty quick. By clicking on the right side, you get a 3rd party agent who isn’t the listing agent and has never been to the home. With the listing agent’s phone number now prominently displayed, it is inevitable that buyers will call the listing agent next time.
If they need a prompt, they will get one when they start clicking on the photos – which every viewer does immediately. This is what they will see now:
Yep – the listing agent is in the upper-left corner of every photo!
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2533-Camulos-St-San-Diego-CA-92107/16966353_zpid/
With the threat of buyers having to pay a buyer-agent a hefty commission out of pocket, it will be irresistible for them to contact the listing agent to see what they have to offer – in hopes of avoiding a separate payment due to a buyer-agent. The listing agents will be happy to oblige because they will already have their full fee packed into the listing side.
By the time the realtor lawsuits get resolved, it will be too late – there won’t be any need for a buyer-agent.
Zillow is offering a full marketing package to listing agents too.
Package Includes:
-
- Listing Placement Boost on Zillow
- HD Photography
- Aerial Photography
- Social Media Reel
- 3D Tour
- “NEW” AI Generated Interactive Floor Plan
- Listing Website
- Enhanced Listing Agent Branding
- Capture New Leads From Your Zillow Profile
The Listing Placement Boost on Zillow?
Listing agents who purchase a marketing package will have their new listings displayed first in the home’s area for seven days – a very nice feature for agents looking to capture buyers for their listings.
While the rest of the industry was grumbling about lawsuits over the last few months, Zillow created a new format that will solve everything. But nobody knows what fee the listing agent charges because it is never disclosed to anyone but the seller – the person who just wants to hurry up and get their money.
by Jim the Realtor | Jan 26, 2023 | Commission Lawsuit, Jim's Take on the Market, Realtor, Realtor Post-Frenzy Playbook, Realtors Talking Shop
Won’t somebody just produce an all-encompassing (pardon the pun) website to facilitate homes sales? There is a new disruptor every month with their unique solution, and it’s ALWAYS born out of their frustration with buying a home recently so they are happy to bash agents and the current process.
But consumers have become more adept at searching online, and because there are so few quality homes for sale in 2023, their standards will probably relax further as their frustration mounts. Pretty soon, they will accept just about any risk, just to get their home search over with.
If a bigger company with some brand recognition put together the right website at the perfect moment when the consumers’ frustration is mounting and agents are flailing, it might catch fire. Something like this:
https://www.opendoor.com/exclusives/faq
I’d prefer an auction company because it would be more effective at selling homes fairly, and for top dollar. But the winner will be the company that advertises the most.
by Jim the Realtor | Jan 26, 2023 | Commission Lawsuit, Jim's Take on the Market, Pocket Listings, Realtor, Realtor Post-Frenzy Playbook, Realtors Talking Shop, The Future |
Seen on social media
I spoke to a few agents on the broker preview yesterday about business this year, and the common theme was that agents are have big trouble finding people who want to sell their home. It suggests that the inventory of quality homes will be extremely low this year.
What happens, when that happens?
It means that when listing agents get a hot new property to sell, they will be tempted to find their own buyer first, and/or spoon it to a select few of their agent friends, and then maybe expose it to their office mates before putting it on the MLS/open market.
The extinction of buyer-agents is well underway.
As the market tightens further, more listing agents will be tempted to sandbag their listing and not put it on the open market. Look what happened to the agent this week who received 20+ offers (they told me the final count was 30 offers). After the listing was put on the open market, the flood of offers caused regrets about the workload, so they just grabbed one and shut it down.
Last night I popped off in the comment section about how the business gets shadier every year.
Here’s proof – not every listing with zero days on market was sandbagged, but let’s face it. If you mark your listing pending within a few hours of it going live on the MLS, you didn’t get full exposure.
NSDCC Annual Closed Sales With Zero Days On Market
| Year |
Annual Detached-Home Sales, Total |
# With Zero Days on Market |
Percentage |
| 2016 |
3,107 |
84 |
2.6% |
| 2017 |
3,084 |
99 |
3.2% |
| 2018 |
2,799 |
84 |
3.0% |
| 2019 |
2,834 |
100 |
3.5% |
| 2020 |
3,190 |
116 |
3.6% |
| 2021 |
3,184 |
173 |
5.4% |
| 2022 |
1,939 |
124 |
6.4% |
When agents see other agents touting their off-market business, they think it must be ok, so they do it too. It feeds on itself, especially when the allure of double-ending the commission is so strong in a tight-inventory environment.
This disease among agents is everywhere. You will notice it at every open house you attend – the agents conducting the open house can’t wait to tell you about their off-market opportunities to get you to sign up. You’ll see it mentioned on social media daily – agents don’t think there is anything wrong with promoting off-market deals. Heck, everyone is doing it!
I regularly ask the agents who have a quality home for sale how they will handle multiple offers, and the answer is always the same: “I don’t know”, before they stumble and mumble something about the seller will decide (oh, thanks for that!) so the agents don’t get blamed for the end result. It’s embarrassing that they don’t have any strategy, and want to leave the door open for shenanigans later. No wonder they want to do an off-market deal, with no scrutiny.
Because no one is doing anything to intervene, the off-market deals will continue to be an accepted practice, and exacerbate the trend towards single agency (and the extinction of buyer-agents). Within the next year or two, every buyer will just go to the listing agent and take their beating.
by Jim the Realtor | Jan 25, 2023 | Commission Lawsuit, Jim's Take on the Market, Realtor, Realtor Post-Frenzy Playbook, Realtors Talking Shop |
I don’t think anyone in the realtor industry recognizes the harm being done to the consumers by squeezing out the buyer-agents. The good ones offer a valuable service by assisting homebuyers with the complexities of purchasing a home; a challenge that is tougher than ever in 2023.
For example, let’s say you come across a good buy – what do you do with this?
This weekend, the listing agent got 20+ offers and shut it down. Then he just accepted one. Game over.
None of the other buyers got a chance to win. But at least they had a chance to offer.
If buyers were directed to the listing agent, do you think the realtor teams would have 20+ buyer-agents ready to serve everyone who wants to make an offer? Or would they just write offers with the first couple of buyers and shut it down?
I can’t tell you how many times we see in the confidential remarks, “PLEASE NO MORE SHOWINGS”. We already have an environment where listing agents believe there is no incentive to keep taking offers – especially if/when they already wrote an offer with their own buyer and will double-end the commission.
It’s only going to get worse. Forces within the industry are conspiring to eliminate buyer-agents altogether, and are conspiring to create a system that makes it even harder for buyers to get a fair chance. The local MLS companies are launching a new search portal that directs all inquiries back to the listing agent.
Do you think an outside buyer-agent will have any chance of selling that listing now? If multiple buyers contact the listing agent, then what happens?
Here is the article:
https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/01/24/leading-mlss-come-together-to-launch-consumer-home-search-portal
An excerpt:
With the goal to “promote a more competitive marketplace,” three of the largest multiple listing services announced plans to launch a new consumer home search portal this spring.
Called Nestfully, the website will be owned and operated by California Regional MLS (CRMLS) and Bright MLS, under a joint venture, and REColorado has signed on as a participant. The founding MLSs designed the site and its features, and real estate tech company Constellation1 is providing technology services.
Key points:
- Nestfully is expected to debut by April 1 with listings from a pool of 240,000 agents and brokerages that are MLS subscribers.
- Agents will get leads at no cost, and consumers will have direct access to the property’s listing agent.
- “With Nestfully, we believe we are in the best position to deliver what agents want and need in this changing market,” said Brian Donnellan, CEO and president of Bright MLS.
With the goal to “promote a more competitive marketplace,” three of the largest multiple listing services announced plans to launch a new consumer home search portal this spring.
Called Nestfully, the website will be owned and operated by California Regional MLS (CRMLS) and Bright MLS, under a joint venture, and REColorado has signed on as a participant. The founding MLSs designed the site and its features, and real estate tech company Constellation1 is providing technology services.
“Nestfully is run by MLSs whose primary goal is to promote an open, clear, and competitive marketplace,” Art Carter, CEO at CRMLS, told Real Estate News. “We are a neutral source working in the best interests of consumers, brokers and their agents.”
For agents, Nestfully offers a financial advantage over advertising-powered portals. The site will not have ads, and leads will be delivered directly to agents and their brokerages at no cost, “taking a significantly escalating cost out of the existing system,” Carter said.
Agents and brokerages companies will also have access to a lead management platform on Nestfully with lead tracking, analytics and metrics that gauge success.
“We believe we are in the best position to deliver what agents want and need in this changing market,” said Brian Donnellan, CEO and president of Bright MLS, adding that the new search engine will “serve as an extension of the agents’ marketing initiatives to promote listings, attract qualified lead prospects and forward these opportunities directly to the agent at no cost.”
The goal is not to monetize the consumer search, he said, but to help answer consumer questions about properties for sale and connect potential buyers with property listing agents or with a local agent or broker in their communities.
Asked in an interview if MLSs will be compensated for the initiative, a company spokesperson said that “financial arrangements are not being disclosed.”
https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/01/24/leading-mlss-come-together-to-launch-consumer-home-search-portal
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Will they advertise enough to compete with the established search portals? They will need to promote some new whiz-bang feature…..which will be that buyers should go direct to the listing agent, and use their fancy new portal to do so.
I don’t think they have a clue – or they are flat out ignoring – how they will be putting buyers at a bigger disadvantage, and destroying our business as we’ve known it for the last 100 years.
An auction company would fix everything though!
