Realtors shouldn't be worried about BlueRoof

I was speaking to the broker of a large local real estate company earlier today and he was telling me that his agents were looking at BlueRoof and talking about how we might impact the industry in Utah. And he told me that one of his agents made a comment about getting out of the business because we would take all the clients. And while that's flattering, especially since I know the agent who made the comment and she is a good agent, it's not something I believe anyone is really concerned with, or something that anyone should be concerned with. Sounds like a natural curiousity of the unknown.

The traditional brokerage is not going away and I don't think that's a bad thing. If people have relationships with Realtors they have known and trust and they don't mind paying whatever the commission is than that's a win-win. It's not only about commission, it's about value. And how do you place a price on working with someone you know and trust and like? Redfin is a company that I really like and they're doing some great innovative things but other local companies in Seattle like John L Scott and Coldwell Banker are still doing well also. And buyers who work with Redfin save a bunch of money and buyers who don't maybe would rather work with an agent they know and like already instead of saving money.

BlueRoof is about giving the consumer more options. Some will like our options and some won't and that's why it's good to have the choice in the first place. For too long the industry has been the same and the consumer didn't have much choice- they could either pay high commissions or they could go it on their own.

And part of our model is to help identify those For Sale By Owner sellers who are willing to pay a buyers agent, which hopefully will help agents by giving them more homes to show and help the sellers if they don't want to pay a listing fee and help the buyers because they'll have more homes to see. And hopefully local appraisers will be able to use some of our FSBO sold comps for their appraisals so their appraisals don't have to kill so many sales.

Everyone working at BlueRoof is a licensed Realtor and I take pride in that. Realtors have a larger role within the community than just showing homes and just like every profession there are good and bad. I think blogging will help weed out some of the bad and sites like Homethinking.com will help promote the good. And that's definately a good thing!