Housing Rumble: US News & World Reports “Do You Need an Agent” Debate Concludes

by Jay Thompson on July 22, 2008 · Comments

in Real Estate, Selling Real Estate

UPDATE: Here is the link to vote for the winner of the debate.

The debate over at the US News & World Reports Housing Front blog has ended.

Here are links to all the posts:

Day 1 (Thompson)
Day 2 (Healy)
Day 3 (Thompson)
Day 4 (Healy)
Day 5 (Thompson)
Day 6 (Healy)

Sometime later today of the Home Front Blog, there will be a voting poll set up. Read the posts, and vote for who you feel “won” the debate.

I know who I’ll be voting for, you should vote for who you felt presented the best argument.

I enjoyed debating with Greg Healy. Seems like a nice guy. He has a vested interest in the success of his FSBO site, and I of course, have a vested interest in the success of my real estate brokerage.

FSBO works for some. A very small some. More power to you if you can pull it off. Personally, I think it’s a mistake to go FSBO, but there is no denying some can do it, but most can not.


 

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Housing Rumble: US News & World Report Debate, Day 3
Housing Rumble: Online Debate at U.S. News & World Report
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  • There's no doubt a good real estate broker can sell a home quicker and for more money than a For Sale By Owner. We have proved that time and time again in the Bend Oregon real estate market! Nice blog! Keep up the good work!
  • Jay,

    I just voted, and voted for you. While the other side made a decent arguement, stats prove that he is wrong.

    Congrats on going head-to-head on behalf of the entire industry.

    Matt Pellerin - Realtor
  • FSBO ends with 0 for a reason.
  • Has this question been around forever, or do some feel that with the internet this question is seriously being raised more with CL and other sites?
  • I have had a few people attempt to go FSBO run into numerous problems and then call us as an agent. Going into a large and complex financial transaction without someone with experience is simply risky.
  • Your opponent is now doing press releases that they won the debate. I wouldn't be suprised if they emailed their clients the link and asked them to vote.
  • Hey Tony - Yeah, my Google alerts have been lighting up all day. I love how they still push a fundamentally flawed Stanford paper in their press release.

    And the conclusion from this *completely* non-statistically significant vote has now become, "Consumers Read Both Sides and Decide that Agents Aren't Needed to Sell a Home".

    Interesting.

    And no, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they emailed clients. Heck, I asked people to vote for me. Sadly, there were a ton of people that would have but we were all in a conference in San Francisco during the voting, and we had very limited internet access.

    Oh well. I knew going in I'd get slaughtered in the vote. It was still fun. I think both sides made valid points. The bottom line is, FSBO works for some, and doesn't work at all for others. There is no one right way to sell a home.

    Congrats to FSBO.com for winning the vote!

    Here's the press release if anyone is interested.
    http://tinyurl.com/6q4nm9
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