I try to be positive.
But sometimes it’s hard.
Like when:
1. I try and refi and the mortgage broker bases his GFE on the “Make Me Move” price I placed on my home two years ago while playing around with the then-new feature on Zillow. Then, two weeks later, after he gets the appraisal, calls, incredulous, to inform me that the LTV is so far off what he assumed that he can no longer secure the rate he quoted.
2. I try again with another mortgage broker. This broker hooks me up with an appraiser who, after 45 minutes on-site, somehow misses the fact that my home is a 3-bedroom home, not a 2-bedroom home.
3. I am offered an apology by the second mortgage broker, who agrees to credit me $350 for the bad appraisal and send another appraiser out pronto. This appraiser informs me that she has been in the business 26 years and spends about 30 minutes snapping pictures and taking measurements. This morning she calls me to ask, “Your house has 3 bathrooms, right? I can’t remember.”
Look, maybe I was a dumb-ass for posting that “Make Me Move” price. I should have questioned broker #1 earlier. And I definitely should have called my Realtor, who rocks, for a referral.
But my stupidity was met with something of a different order.
So, to be positive, how about this: We create a site where consumers and competent real estate professionals can identify the incompetents in the business publicly?
Ever take a look at Rotten Neighbor? It would kinda be like that, but less fun.
I say this only half-jokingly. I know the idea is fraught with legal and ethical issues, but it would be interesting to try something. As I pointed out a while back, I do not think regulation is the path to a better real estate industry, and the incentives are all working against people calling out peers on a deal-to-deal basis.
But I do think the crowd – and their power to shine light on incompetence or venality – holds the solution.
What do you think?
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I’ve often had the same thought…. there is http://www.outrageousagent.com and services like Angie’s List and Real Estate Ratingz, but I think you are right in that there is risk on many levels. And then there’s the truly smarmy ones that will attempt to smear a perfectly good person’s name and reputation just out of sheer underhanded jealousy or whatever.
Too bad we can’t just “flag” people for inappropriateness when we encounter them : ).
Brian… another great post. I know that we can AGREE that you should have contacted your “rockin” real estate agent first. But, that does not dismiss the fact that we have a real problem on our hands. And imagine that… it leads back to the “ease” of getting into the mortgage and real estate industries! I am noticing a trend here…
Great Post….
What might work is if the local board of realtors really followed through with ethics complaints and if the public would take these complaints to the state level. Add to that a certain” 3 strikes your out policy” and the general public wouldnt have to deal with unprofessional, incompetent and sometimes unscrupulous agents and brokers
I cannot think of an industry where everyone is a superstar. This is hard because you cannot hold anyone accountable! With new appraisal rules, the mortgage guy could not choose an appraiser with a track record so you were a victim of the system. Watch as we all suffer from this new government intervention.
More layers = less accountability = poor service.
Hey Brian,
Awesome article – and obviously you’ve touched on an idea that some of us have been wondering as well. The main challenge I see is the liability.
We live in such a letigious society today that almost anything negative you say about someone – especially if it negatively impacts their pocketbook (even if they deserve it) – can be viewed as slander/libel.
As we know, you don’t have to be on the “right” side of a lawsuit for it to sap resources and money.
I fully agree though that it’s the street level originators and agents who need to help weed out the bad and incompetent apples. Great article man.
Hey Brian,
I can relate. Clients of mine called not long ago. The number the appraiser came up with seemed steeped in science fiction, not fact. So I did the appraiser’s work for him and generated the number associated with the time frame and proximity of the property. How unfortunate to have to correct somebody with nearly 20 years in the biz and thousands of appraisals. But even with all of that self-proclaimed expertise he still managed to have his head betwixt his cheeks.
My sense is that guys on the funding side are either running scared or Or they’re fatigued. And so the fellows that can’t tell what’s theirs from a hole in the ground go undetected, set up to play spoiler for the next innocent. So maybe we need to more fully embrace and employ the philosophy of “it takes a village.” If I am my brother’s keeper let me praise him when he does estimable things. And let me point out when he falls quite shy of the goal.
The problem, though, is that the hyper-anonymity of the internet typically gloms on to the negative and exchanges are supplanted by unprintable rants.
Here’s to taking responsibility – both personal and social. And to doing it in a responsible and civil way.
Tom McCarey
The answer lies in the paragraph where you realized you should have asked for a referral. Referrals aren’t foolproof though and anyone can have a bad day.
Complaint sites aren’t the answer. I would guess it is a 10 to 1 ratio where angry people will bother to complain than happy people will take time to praise.
The Realtor is a good person to seek the referral because in theory has has done several deals with the loan officer. Or someone who has bought and refinanced homes several times.
On a side note, I notice customer service declining. Layoffs creat higher demand on existing employees and there own worries about their job and the economy affect them.
The answer isn’t adding more regulation. What we have now isn’t being held up to accountability. Your zillow “make me move” price had nothing to do with your home value, shame on mortgage person #1. The answer was receiving a referral from a credible source. Forget about those silly websites offering referrals, they serve no credibility. Can all professionals in business provide equal service? No. Not everyone provides the same level of service. What does “service” really mean? There really isn’t a way to measure service, except for referrals from someone who’s credible.
A couple of you mentioned Association ethics committees. I have no illusions regarding the ability of associations to innovate, but curious if anyone out there has seen a board take an aggressive stand on investigating ethics issues and, when necessary, enforcing remedies?
How about not doing business with them and letting them die on the vine.
Aloha,
Keahi
The only smart quote I have ever been able to coin myself: “There is no such thing as optimism or pessimism, there are only varying degrees of denial”
While your experience is yet another example of the absurd, I’m a ‘tread lightly’ person when it comes to things like RottenNeighbor.com. I know an agent who dismissed a buyer for their ‘issues’ and promptly got a scathing, false review on a made up incident that never occurred. After repeated contacts where RottenNeighbor.com refused to delete the incident, I’m a bit skeptical on sites like that where no proof actually has to be offered.
[...] Staying positive amid the positively horrible by Brian Boero at 1000Watt Consulting [...]
In an industry where higher price quotes to potential sellers and then immediate recommendations to reduce the price after getting the listing exists, how can consumers learn to trust Realtors or mortgage brokers. It all worked so smoothly when prices were consistently going up. Ah the days. Are there any marketplaces where consumers can actually choose the agent or mortgage company THEY want to work with, based on full profiles and perhaps even offers or communication between the agent/broker and the consumer?
As Brian said, “Rotten Neighbors” may be too harsh for real estate, but if there is no ability for a consumer to differentiate between agents/brokers, then how can a consumer think that there are differences of quality?
Jeff Johnston, CEO
http://www.besthomepro.com
Twitter @JeffPref