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

by Jay Thompson on July 22, 2008 · 7 comments
Written by: Jay Thompson

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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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Jim Johnson CRS July 22, 2008 at 6:59 pm

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!

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2 Scottsdale Homes July 23, 2008 at 3:14 pm

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

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3 Mortgage Samson July 23, 2008 at 3:36 pm

FSBO ends with 0 for a reason.

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4 RonOrr.com July 24, 2008 at 10:53 pm

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?

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5 Austin Real Estate Blog July 26, 2008 at 3:26 am

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.

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6 Tony Sena July 29, 2008 at 3:22 pm

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.

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7 Jay - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy July 29, 2008 at 4:22 pm

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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