"I hate REALTOR.com." That was pretty much the response in the comments from FSBOs on Realtor.com. I’m so glad Jay found that and wrote about it. Eric Blackwell over at Bloodhoundblog wrote about it too. I think Michael Wurzer’s response is spot on but that Michael was way too polite.
Let me go on record publicly as directly calling out ForSaleByOwner.com owners and executives as liars. Blatant and knowing liars. I understand that as a Realtor I am not supposed to utter an unkind word about a fellow Realtor (which they are). So I encourage anyone who owns or works at FailuresByOwnerSales.com to file whatever complaint they can against me. Just so there is no misunderstanding: You are lying in your press release. You know that and therefore you are a liar. You do not have FSBO listings on Realtor.com. All listings on Realtor.com come directly and only from MLS feeds. Listings can not be "added" to Realtor.com any other way. Again, they only get there from an MLS feed.
Please hate Realtor.com for the right reasons. The stupid and misleading press release from Eric Mangan, of ForSaleByOwner.com isn’t one of them. Realtor.com did nothing wrong here. They aren’t "guilty" of anything in this instance.
It is not unusual to see venom spewed regarding Realtor.com. Realtor.com in its present incarnation is a massive betrayal of all working Realtors. What is ours has been given to an outside company so they can charge us as much as the traffic will bear. They get to use our name (Realtor.com) to drive traffic to the site so we get to pay MOVE.com huge amounts to "enhance our own listings".
Almost every agent who pays the outrageous prices does so for just one reason and one reason only: to be able to tell sellers their listings are "enhanced" on Realtor.com. There is no other reason. NAR has wound up setting up a situation where we are being taken advantage of when their original goal was to help us. I just renewed for next year. I can add virtual tours and unlimited photos, along with scrolling text to all of my listings (which would all be there anyway). The cost? $3,659.00 for the year. What a deal. Why did I do it? It is easier to pay it than to play defense, telling my sellers why we are not there. No other reason. None. None, really.
From The Notorious R.O. B., here is a very interesting idea of how NAR could take Realtor.com back. Totally worth reading. Here is the NAR takes back Realtor.com links page. Please check it out.