What I Discovered
A few short years ago when I was doing my original research for shaftingrealtors.com (when I first became enraged with Realtor.com) I found something very interesting. There was a site (a rather stupid looking site with an even more stupid, long and impossible to remember URL) hosted on AOL that was beyond critical of Realtor.com. That site is no longer up (and I have since removed shaftingrealtors, when NAR politely asked me to). What was interesting was that it was impossible for me to find the person who had put up that site on AOL. Their name showed up nowhere on the site – or anywhere else. They were afraid of reprisals from NAR.
As recently as fall of 2006 I had numerous people writing to me, telling me I was “very brave” to openly speak out against NAR’s handling of Realtor.com.
Things have changed…
My my, how the playing field has changed. No one writes stuff like that to me, anymore. Seems the only thing stopping anyone from saying anything these days is they are busy trying to make a living (that thing NAR is supposed to actually help us with). Thanks to Jim Duncan for unearthing these gems from Realtor.org.
For nearly a decade, REALTOR.com has helped REALTORS® thrive in the Internet age.
REALTOR.com was created to be an Internet site that would always be owned and controlled by REALTORS®
Protected members against business models intended to disintermediate them or force unfriendly tariff models upon the industry
No “For Sale by Owner” properties may ever appear on REALTOR.com
It would be wonderful if the four quotes above were actually true. Unfortunately, they are not correct statements. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. I believe NAR is populated by nice people who will wind up doing the right thing. Even if it takes a while. I also believe I have a lot of company now. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
