The first thing I would recommend everyone keep in mind is that the way our system works now, the role of a realty agent is to act as an advocate for the real estate industry as a whole, brokerage as an occupation, the merits of the deal at hand, and finally the interests of the buyers and sellers; basically in that order. It is not reasonable to expect an objective and unbiased analysis of a deal from someone whose compensation is commensurate with the closing of that deal and the amount at which it closes. It’s not their role to be dispassionate or to act as an outside observer to what they’re doing, and it’s not reasonable to expect them do act outside of their role.
With respect to this article, you gotta give the author credit for being enthusiastic if not accurate. She’s repeating the party line and trying to get the message out, and that’s what NAR wants their foot soldiers to do. This is like a political campaign and the soundbites are what sell.
While we’re on the subject, I don’t think that it’s fair to give kudos to one agent with minimal experience just because they write what we want to hear, and then hassle another agent with minimal experience just because they write something we don’t want to hear.
To go even farther off point, I think the primary reason some of our exchanges get overheated is because we’re having a hard time addressing the message rather than the author. We can disagree on the issues and still be friends, but it’s almost impossible to call each other names and maintain a reasonable level of decorum. Stick to the point and skip the personality – that’ll keep it from getting too personal.
The more intolerance there is for diverse points of view the more narrow the focus of discussion and the less information actually gets exchanged. That’s how forums fade away.
