I was reading Scott Daniels' blog, "It's Saturday, we can't run around for a key!". It got me thinking about something... Always a dangerous proposition.
For those of us that are REALTORS(R), we are prevented from directly marketing to other REALTORS'(R) clients. I understand the why of this policy. But, it is hard sometimes. I mentioned in this post that I regularly wander by a new development that is not being promoted by the listing agent. Of course, I didn't point out the agent or the listing, since I don't think it is right... or ethical according to the current standards.
But, it raises the more general point. Wander around the blogs here and you will see scores of stories about clients that are under served by their agents. Some are even downright dis-served. There are even stories and comments some agents post up where they admit they aren't serving the needs of their clients. Specifically, one can find mentions of agents taking listings they know they can't sell in order to get the calls on the listing. They take an overpriced listing, know it is over-priced, don't tell the seller, and then back off of the marketing in order to "not throw money away." It is not done with even a hint of the best interests of the buyer.
In other situations, buyers are under served or dis-served because the agents just don't know any better. While it is ethically better than giving clients the short end on purpose for personal betterment, it yields the same result. Buyers aren't well served by the "professional" they've hired to do a job.
In either case, we are prevented from saying anything to the offending agent if we are REALTORS(R).
Of course, the problem is that is we drop this passage from the REALTOR(R) Code of Ethics, we will enter the wild west and it will be every agent for themselves, and our clients would be barraged by unscrupulous agents that would view them with the same dollar signs as FSBOs... people that they know are in the market to sell.
The only real solution I see is all agents cleaning up their act, or getting out of the business... ok, I guess I don't really see a solution. Unless we increase the standards that we hold REALTORS(R) to, I don't think we will see an increase in the professionalism of REALTORS(R). The public perception of our profession will continue to be low (despite the fact that their perception of most of us as individual practitioners is actually quite high).
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