An Update On Brokerate
You can beta test something to death, but sometimes there’s no substitute for the real world. When we began planning Brokerate we struggled with how to handle comments and the potential for abusive behavior. At the time, we thought that we’d provide the platform, appeal to everyone’s sense of decency and let the market take…
You can beta test something to death, but sometimes there’s no substitute for the real world. When we began planning Brokerate we struggled with how to handle comments and the potential for abusive behavior. At the time, we thought that we’d provide the platform, appeal to everyone’s sense of decency and let the market take care of itself. After watching things play out over the first few days, we’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with the number of mean, trite and foundationless comments. While our goal in creating the site was clearly to provide the consumer with a useful tool, we’ve decided that on balance the comments are too destructive; while we are unapologetic about the need for more transparency and accountability in the profession, we have to listen to our own conscience–which has served us well navigating the sometimes dicey waters of Brownstoner–and balance that need with the fact that peoples’ livelihoods are at stake here. So here’s the plan: We’re keeping the rating system (which has a control in place to limit each user to voting only once for each broker), replacing the comments with a references (if you feel strongly about a broker, you can leave your email for potential clients to contact you), and are going to work over the next few weeks to build more functionality and searchability into the broker profiles (hopefully to include things like neighborhood specialization and lists of closed transactions). We hope to have the changes to the comments section done by the end of the day today. We’d also appreciate everyone’s ideas about additional functionality they would like to see in the future.
Thanks,
Brownstoner
Didn’t the Times just run a blub about the new site?
Anyway, I think this is also a good move on your part.
Well, it was an interesting experiment for a few days. And I think the comments were the most useful aspect. But yes, they could get petty and mean. Still, there really isn’t anyplace on the net for people to share this kind of info. Without specifics, I wouldn’t really put much faith in a number rating–for the reason mentioned; it seems way too easy for broker to vote themselves up and others down, especially with the help of friends. At least comments are specific. And the more there are, the easier it is to pick out the bulldinky ones. But Brownstoner, I feel for ya: who need the headache of policing?
Fair enough. Although what about requiring a work or school email that isn’t so easily created/abused?
Also, something I’ve seen on other websites is the addition of a button for every post which reports it to the moderator for those which are particularly out of line. Would still mean the review of some comments but would mean a somewhat smaller selection set.
I beta tested this, am in the process of buying a house, so thought this site would be useful. But seeing how it’s coming out, I don’t think it is useful.
There’s room for meanness, there’s room for stacking the decks. To what value? Will it weed out the unethical brokers? I don’t think so. It’s really evaluating brokers’ personalities, which is entirely relative — someone who gets along with one reader might not get along with another. If someone shows you the house you end up buying, you’re going to have positive feelings towards that broker, and it may have little to do with his or her individual skill.
As a buyer I meet all kinds of brokers, and I can make up my own mind easily about whether I like them or not, whether they’re professional or not, whether their office carries good listings or not. It’s subjective, and I don’t need to consult a webpage to figure it out.
I’m a huge supporter of brownstoner.com. But I vote against this site.
Or I would if this was a democracy. 😉
No one’s leaning on us legally but outside of biometrics there’s not much to do to prevent abuse. Anyone can sign up for a yahoo email that doesn’t reveal a thing about them. Plus, brokers are incentivized to bash their competition. And we don’t want to have to spend all day long reviewing comments and passing judgment on whether they are appropriate. This is a little different that rating hotels, given the personalized nature. We already had one broker’s physical disability mocked by two different commenters. We don’t want to be facilitating that kind of behavior.
Agree with a couple thoughts here.
1) Leaving comments is an overall positive. Gives some meat to an otherwise dry rating system. And makes the possibility of broker’s self-promoting less effective. If someone rates themselves 12 times but two true consumers rate them and leave negative comments then it may give any user pause.
2) Requiring an email authentification good way to limit both people defying the bounds of good taste and acceptable self-promotion. Even if doesn’t necessarily display to the public, having someone’s email in your database with the possibility of removing all of their ratings and comments should serve as sufficient deterrent.
3) Making the database searchable by broker name and brokerage would be a nice feature so you don’t have to scroll though would be nice.
In weighing these things, you have to consider the people who will take the time to leave a rating: people who had an extremely positive experience (or are extremely self-interested) or people who had an extremely negative experience (and both self-selected on the people who actually know about brokerate). People who had an indifferent experience won’t take the time and effort to track down a broker and leave a rating or comments one way or another. So the comments will be visceral in both ways.
One misconception I see here: 12.02 suggested posting broker’s rates so they could compete on price as well as other variables. It wasn’t my impression that this was intended as a broker, “competition” website but rather something for buyers or sellers to share information.
Also, someone suggested that they thought since brokers were generally thought of in a negative fashion, it would become a broker-bashing site. Two comments on that. One: since brokers obviously think very well of themselves, any overly negative perception by the public will be counterweighted by the overly positive perception by the broker community. And two: since this would be a universal bias, ratings that compared brokers to brokers would still be meaningful and fair. (You’re not comparing the ratings of brokers to a nun, in other words).
Last point: maybe, to the extent, that there exists an institutional mindset within brokerages, an averaging of ratings for brokers within a certain brokerage to compare across brokerages may be interesting and useful?
Appreciate the websites, new and old, Brownstoner.
The modern real estate broker is a cross between a used-car salesmen and an ambulance chasing attorney. The public has a pretty low opinion of the RE profession in general. So is it any suprise that you’d find a disproportionate number of negative comments??
Unless the NAREB has hired you as a PR flack, i dont think should you get rid of the comments section.
Additional, if you are being leaned on legally, i dont think you hould you get rid of the comments section either.
These are peoples opinions and right now they’re overwhelmingly negative. While it is your site, I dont think you should be the one to censor comments. The removal of comments, is the ultimate form of censorship. You ask for public opinion, dont like results, then want censor the results? Not a very principled position, if you ask me.
A couple of days ago someone mentioned that 99.99% of brokers are worthless. Given the tone of the comments, i’d say that 99.99% might be a bit of an exaggeration. But, 99% wouldn’t be that far of a stretch.
If the brokers are so concerned about their livelyhoods, there is alot they can do. They could ask their customers go to Brokerate and hopefully if enough happy customers share their comments things would balance out. Kinda like the Hotels.com rating system. I’ve found their comments to be most helpful. Things like which rooms to avoid, what days to avoid, what not to eat the restuarants etc. Mostly negative stuff, but comments that definitely helped me make a ‘purhase decision’.
I’ve been to many hotels that are clueless about the rating system. I’ve been to others that as part of the check out process they ask you to go online and complete the survey. They want to make sure word gets out about a good customer experience.
Brokerate could do the same thing. But its not going to happen without’customer’ input. Change only happens when the voices are loud enough. I’m sure the industry has heard the voices. From their perspective, it would be easier to shut you down or force you to censor public opinion than to actually address people’s negative perceptions/opinions of their industry.
I think public comments are a good thing (I tastefully bad-mouthed a few brokers I’d had bad experiences with) but I think the only way to keep it fair and honest is to make people register as users with an email validation if they are going to post comments. Keep the rating system anonymous, but let everyone (including the brokers) know who is bad-mouthing them.
It would be really nice if the broker profile showed what commission the broker charges. If they are a 5% broker it would show that, a 4%, and so on. This would make it so that brokers actually compete on price in addition to knowledge, courtesy, and effectiveness.