I watched 60 minutes the other night and saw the segment about a real estate company named RedFin.

The very ambitious owner says he is changing the real estate industry. Cool it needs it.
But is giving the backbone of the industry away for free the way to do it? I don’t think so. I want the business to change but I am willing to do heavy lifting to do it. Manipulating the MLS system is not heavy lifting. The MLS, Multiple Listing Service, was developed by Realtors as a tool for Realtors. We at ChangingStreets.com have never messed with this, it belongs to practicing Realtors. Our for sale by owner listings have never gone in the MLS, they shouldn’t, they are for sale by owner.

Companies that think they can change by cheating are wrong. Can you imagine how angry big car dealers would be if I got a deal with GM to sell cars and trucks with out having to build a dealership, employ customer care employees, but I could use the tools the dealers built to do it? Bad Idea.

Why can’t RedFin create its own market place? ChangingStreets.com did. It is thought that 80% of homebuyers in Genesee County visit our site and web traffic rankings and sales results could put it higher than that. That is why our true FSBO program works, two sold last week, we have build a market place. Our full service listing team has the highest success ratio in the area, why, we built a market place. And consumers have the choice of which one to use.

How did Redfin get on Sixty minutes, two words: Venture Capital. I admire these guys for trying but come on; they are based in Seattle (great market) and sold less homes than ChangingStreets.com did last year in FLINT! There expansion across the country are agents (one or two in each market) working from home (actually this is pretty smart for a small company, ChangingStreets.com will probably try it).

My point is Changing the way real estate works is two fold: there is the need to create an alternative market place to the MLS. The MLS was created by and belongs to Realtors, it is not a public utility. If it is then so is ABC, NBC & CBS and I want access to programming planners. MLS was created years ago by agents meeting for breakfast and handing out index cards with their listings on them and offering to pay other agents for assistance selling them. Companies like RedFin talk like Realtors but don’t walk like them. Now I am not going to pretend all agents are competent but at least the consumer knows what the agent is suppose to do. At RedFin and many other MLS exploiters the consumer assumes they get services and don’t. That is why there needs to be limited service bills in Real Estate Nationwide. This will not impair competition like the exploiters would lead people to believe it will create better experience for consumers. The biggest Consumer industry with out limited service standards? The Mortgage Industry how is that working out? Terrible, foreclosures are at an all time high, most people have no earned equity in their homes. Pathetic and seriously slimy loan brokers have made a nice living off the sweat and pain of others.

OK the second way is to use the limited service standards and accountability to raise the level of professionalism in our business. Make it difficult for large brokers to hire anyone with a pulse and make them accountable for the actions of their agents. The funny part is that would be best thing to happen to the brokers that would fight it. And yes consumers could speak with their checkbook.

Did you know that ChangingStreets.com is the only “hybrid” company in a decent size US market to be ranked in the top five of all agencies in the market? True. RedFin, no, Zip Realty, no, and they make 60 minutes and our own local newspaper will not even talk about our accomplishments, let alone call us for accurate facts before printing a real estate related story!

Yes I have media envy.

But the bottom line is that cheating the system or exploiting it, or working outside the spirit of it is not changing it.

Has anyone noticed the word Change used a lot when it comes to real estate? Imagine that…..the streets will not look the same.