april fool’s day contest
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April Fool’s Day 2007: Real Estate Parodies & Predictions
Yesterday, a leading real estate technology news service published it’s Top 10 predictions on the future of real estate blogging. Preliminary comments agree with Prediction #5:
The blogging community will give voice to those in the industry who previously didn’t have one — making them a force to be reckoned with. This has already happened, but will grow stronger this year. The open dialog will spark change the industry has never before seen.
What role will real estate consumer will play in that revolution, and what are the most effective ways to get homebuyers and sellers involved? Humor — the kind that has turned political commentary into infotainment — could be an effective way to attract and engage real estate consumers. So a year after launching our original menu of wikis, which was so serious that it is still password-protected, The Real Estate Cafe’s newest wiki has a more light-hearted goal:
Prediction #11: Real estate bloggers and zillions of homebuyers and sellers will pool their wits on April Fool’s Day to publish a parody of the current housing market and real estate practices.
Hopefully, like satirical TV programs, there will be some serious content between the laughs. Better still, maybe ordinary home buyers and sellers, turned "radical consumers advocates," will launch some lasting reforms; insuring they have the last laugh. Who says real estate professionals, homebuyers, and sellers don’t have a sense of humor? Anyone reading the paper knows that housing prices are a joke. What else about the current housing market or real estate practices makes you laugh (or drives you crazy)?
Last year, our April Fool’s Day post asked: Is designated agency an April Fool’s Day joke? Use this "April fool’s real estate" keyword search on Google to see what others have done in the past.
DRAFT: April Fool’s Day 2008
Time to begin a discussion about systemmic flaws and conflicts of interest in the current real estate transaction, and cost of blind bidding wars, not just to individual buyers but to society.
If attorney general office m
Two years ago:
Is designated agency an April Fool’s Day joke?
http://realestatecafe.blogs.com/real_estate_cafe/2006/04/is_designated_a.html
RealEstateCafe
August 16, 2007 02:15 PM
What do real estate agents think about "bad brokers?"
http://tinyurl.com/2ryrdd
Speaking as a buyer agent, I hope it is just a matter of time before
the press begins asking if questionable real estate brokerage practices
contributed to the overvaluation of housing markets and unfolding
mortgage meltdown.
Here’s an example of another kind of "bad broker" from our blog post
entitled, Double Bubble: How counterfeit buyer agents inflated the
housing bubble:
"My so-called buyer’s agent (who promptly switched roles at contract
signing without explanation), initially advised me to bid $750,000 for
my house of choice, which was listed at $699,900. When I told her that
such an offer was beyond my price range, she was quite adamant that I
not offer anything under the list price. When I finally backed out the
deal because of her bait and switch scam, I later heard that the house
in question sold shortly afterwards for $682,000–in other words,
nearly $70,000 less than the bid suggested by my so-called buyer agent."
"This type of price inflation (caused by seller’s agents
masquerading as buyer’s representatives) must have a very distorting
impact on housing costs. The economic fallout is enormous: ordinary
citizens are forced to move out farther in search of decent, affordable
places to live, which leads to a host of problems connected with
traffic congrestion, suburban sprawl, etc."
"As I perceive it, the real estate cartel’s use of dual agency
[a.k.a. "designated agency"], which works to the detriment of the
average consumer while enriching dishonest agents through the practice
of double-dipping, contributes significantly to the manifold problems
we see in the residential housing market and therefore should be fully
exposed."
The homebuyer above concluded, "Isn’t there any investigative team
or media personage with the courage and tenacity to shed light on this
problem?"
Full blog post online at:
http://tinyurl.com/yp8ocw
Proof of concept: Managed competition: Auto insurance
Dual agency detective asks, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Cartoon caption contest: 1. Do-it-yourself homebuyers, have you encountered this situation during your house hunt, particularly just before you make an offer? 2. Home sellers,…
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