Should Real Estate Sites Have Warning Labels?
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By: Peter G. Miller
We now have warning labels on everything from cigarette boxes to toothpaste tubes, but what about real estate web sites? Should they caution consumers that dangers may lurk within the forms, data, and details found online?
Mollie Wasserman, a Boston-area broker with Mollie & Company - Keller Williams Realty, not only thinks realty sites should have warning notices, she’s designed her own message for them:
REAL ESTATE INTERNET WARNING: Despite advertising claims to the contrary, the internet is not an experienced Real Estate Professional. It cannot consult, counsel, advise, have knowledge of local laws and market conditions, make judgments, "own" the result, or most importantly, understand your individual goals and needs and care about you as a Client. To obtain an accurate interpretation of any information you’re receiving online, please contact us.
"I don’t believe that the consumer is being given the ‘whole story,’" says Wasserman. "Buying or selling a home is not a commodity like a book or cosmetics which is shopped by price. Fields such as medical, legal, mortgage, and real estate require counsel based on the client’s individual situation. What the dot.coms are attempting is what I call ‘Real Estate in a Box’."
Wasserman, a technology-savvy broker who gets 70 percent of her business online, says that while other brokers have applauded her initiative, many do not see the potential implications of Internet growth. Her concern is that sites which today rely on broker data and support may turn around once they have grown and allow access only to those brokers willing to pay steep fees.
"It reminds me of the frog," says Wasserman.
"If you throw the frog into boiling water, it’s nervous system will tell it to jump out. But if you put it in a pan of tepid water and turn the heat up, the frog will boil away."
"And if agents don’t get smart," says Wasserman, "they will boil away."
A somewhat different advisory has been posted by Steele V. Propp, with The Buyer's Agent Southwest in Minneapolis. The Internet, says Propp, "is not an Experienced Real Estate Professional. It cannot consult, counsel, or advise you. We can."
In essence, there are three points being made:
First, while data and information online have value, such content is not a substitute for local experience, negotiating skills, or representation.
Second, all realty transactions are unique and the needs of all buyers and sellers are different. While it’s easy to computerize book orders and stock market transactions, realty sales don’t fit in a mold — one house is not exactly like another, nor are any two buyers, two sellers or two transactions.
Third, brokers have an obligation to educate the public, to explain the difference between general information and the benefit of specific advice and counsel. In other words, there is a need to distinguish between a "functionary" and a "fiduciary".
It’s not just the context offered by some online sites that has raised eyebrows in the real estate community, it’s also material presented online as factual and reliable.
For instance, one online map shows two schools which local brokers say were closed years ago — both facilities have long-since been replaced with townhouses. Online systems that allegedly help owners determine home values are questioned because they sometimes lack recent data that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. And recorded sale prices, even if accurate, do not account for inside-the-deal variables such as seller credits, fixture lists (what stays with the property), and repair commitments — "details" hidden deep inside published sale prices that can make the difference between a good contract and a loser.
Will visitor-beware alerts become common-place online? We already see dot.com ads with big headlines touting consumer benefits — and lots of little tiny type with a string of reservations. In time the public will catch on and realize that much can be learned online, and also that relying on generic information without local context or timely data can be enormously expensive.
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