Greg Rand. Maybe you know the name.
Apparently, he’s a pretty sharp cookie. According to his bio at www.gregrand.com, he is a a 20-year real estate expert and Managing Partner at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty. Further, he refers to himself as ”a foremost authority on housing patterns and emerging trends within the real estate market.”
Mr. Rand focuses on how gain wealth in various market cycles. And Mr. Rand has done well for himself. He’s got a blog called ”House Rules,” and his bio says that he appears on the Fox Business Network and Fox News. I guess he’s been in The New York Times, and is a regular contributor to Entrepreneur.com.
Pretty cool, huh?! Except for one thing. His May 26, 2010 article at Entrepreneur.com talked about the current real estate market and how to position yourself in order to capitalize and thrive. He has statistics and good information. I was really enjoying reading his piece until I came upon this little gem…
“I recommend that you visit www.zillow.com, use its ‘Local Info’
tab to drill into your area, and choose ‘Home Values.’”
Uh…excuse me? Zillow.com? Really? What about your local licensed Realtor who has access to real time data from the local MLS market? What about the fact that Zillow.com is NOT a licensed real estate agency? What about supporting one another as cooperative associates? If you’re going to mention Zillow.com, at least mention the fact that your local Realtor can provide not only the same information, but the most accurate information on a local level.
In all fairness, this is the first article I’ve ever read by Greg Rand. I found his piece as I was browsing through the web pages at the bottom of the Google page last night. He might mention Realtors in other articles and on TV. But he didn’t in this article. And this article directs the buying public to by-pass the Realtor and go directly to Zillow.
I’m sorry, but I do not understand why Greg Rand, who is a Realtor, would fail to include his fellow Realtors in his mention of where someone might want to turn in order to find market information. With Realtors dropping out left and right, a slow market AND your ability to be in front of a wide audience, you could do so much good for our industry as a whole and for Realtors in particular. And as our industry grows and Realtors get busy again, isn’t that good for the economy as well? Realtors working equals people employed, right?
If Realtors are going to not only survive, but also thrive, we’ve got to take every opportunity to point people to the services we provide. Because the ability to know a local market best is still in the hands of those who live and work in that market, not in nationwide real estate websites.
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