Nov 28, 2009 18
Evaluating Professionals: Imperfect Solution for an Imperfect World
Judgment Day Cometh
Agent ratings are back in the conversation, thanks to this scintillating op/ed by Kris Berg (link is for Inman premium subscribers only) who is one of the best writers in real estate today. I have written about this topic before (here and here) and it continues to fascinate and puzzle me still.
Kris’s point essentially boils down to the fact that providing real estate brokerage service is one fraught with emotion, with unpredictable clients who don’t know what it is that a realtor actually does for them, who cannot make rational evaluations of how good or bad an agent really is. Quantitative metrics don’t provide accurate ratings, in Kris’s view, because those focus on production rather than service. Customer surveys are flawed because customers are ignorant on the one hand, and nuts on the other hand, and are too often influenced by how the transaction itself went down rather than how the realtor performed.
All of her points are, I think, valid and true.
Sadly, they are all irrelevant to some extent.
Fact is, agent ratings are already here in places like Yelp and Angie’s List. Consumers will talk, will evaluate, and will rate realtors (as they do every other service provider) on their FaceBook pages, on blogs, on websites, and with each other in person. It’s going to happen whatever the merits of such ratings.
The real issue, then, isn’t whether such rating systems are good or bad or inaccurate or legitimate, but who will do the rating and how they will do it.
