Real Estate Blogs: Double-Edged Swords
The opening sentence of the cover story of this weekend’s NY Times Real Estate section sets up the article with a false premise: “As unsold properties proliferate and encounters with the scalpel fail to move them, some New York City sellers are being undermined by an often nameless enemy.” See, we’d argue that the sellers…
The opening sentence of the cover story of this weekend’s NY Times Real Estate section sets up the article with a false premise: “As unsold properties proliferate and encounters with the scalpel fail to move them, some New York City sellers are being undermined by an often nameless enemy.” See, we’d argue that the sellers aren’t being undermined at all (except in the case when actually false information is put forth). Rather, in our view, sites like Curbed, Brownstoner and StreetEasy are just expediting the process of bringing sellers’ expectations in line with the market—and calling lazy brokers to task for providing insufficient information and sub-par photographs. Input from thousands of other market-savvy readers can also help to bring much needed transparency and frankness to the process, all of which—hopefully—makes the market more efficient. People are asking questions they can’t ask their broker, and they’re really interested in the qualitative perspective, in getting opinions of people,” said Dawn Doherty, the vice president for strategic development at StreetEasy.com. While there have been instances of brokers and owners identifying themselves and countering criticism successfully on Brownstoner in the past, some brokerages are clear gun-shy, and probably with some reason. We basically do not allow our agents to post comments without prior approval, because we think it’s a can of worms, said Diane Ramirez, the president of Halstead Property. Unless something is egregiously incorrect, it’s almost better to let it die, because if you comment on it, it takes on a life of its own. Some brokers realize that, more often that not, the benefits of publicity are worth the price of a few online pot-shots.
Snark Attack [NY Times]
benson- what interest would Jon have in the apartment? Was he getting paid? No. was he getting a kick back? I highly doubt it. Co-op if the Day is simply his choice- I odn’t see why it is a big deal.
I think you are misconstruing the point of blogs- this is his playground, he sets the rules. that’s what blogs are- it never purports to be the NY Times or Reuters or-heven forfend!- the NY Post (which is a perfect example of no journalistic ethics). I never saw Jon reacting with “glee” as you call it. As a person firmly on the side of landmarking, he has a right to celebrate winning that battle- and to be honest, there is absolutely no proof that property owner lost money. It was all in the realm of speculation, not reality.
I dunno, “SnarkSlope” has a much better ring to it than “SnideSlope”
😉
Found it:
– http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/realestate/25cov.html
“In the past four years, sites like Curbed.com, Brownstoner.com, UrbanDigs.com, TrueGotham.com and The Matrix have been scrutinizing the housing boom with pithy observation and, in some cases, snide commentary.”
Snide. Snark. Six of one…
“Blogs are personal viewpoints and interests”;
Bxgrl;
I can understand opinion pieces. However, be it an opinion piece or news journalism, is there not an ethical requirement of full disclosure? If Mr. B. has an “interest” in an article, should he not reveal it?
What does he mean by “Co-op of the Day”? Is there a criteria for highlighting a particular apartment? Or is it a way for Mr. B to help out his friends or sponsors? Frankly, I am suspicious of anyone who would publicly celebrate the drop in the value of a person’s property, simply because that person happened to disagree with him about the merits of a landmarking case.
I do not go around looking for ways to criticize Mr. B. All of the recent actions I describe above are his, and I did nothing to prompt them.
I could have sworn the NYT wrote an article about the changing (snarkier) tone of real estate blogs within the past several weeks.
Perhaps I dreamt it.
yeah SS, this is turning into a real circle-jerk,the mainstream media write about the blogs, then the blogs feature the article an the blogs…
Not to be snarky, but… didn’t they publish almost exactly this same article a few months ago?
“given that many buyers are really not always that shrewd, i do think that negative press from anonymous idiots is kinda scary when your financial future is on the line.”
The lack of shrewdness on the part of buyers cuts both ways, of course.
They can be scared off by moronic posters on the web, and they can be duped into overpaying by unscrupulous realtors.
Every time a realtor dupes a buyer into over paying everyone else who wants to buy suffers, and this creates some unhappiness.
Realtors have so viciously adopted a “buyer beware, if I fool you, that’s your fault” attitude for so many years that no one who understands expects anything else of them, and I think a lot of the online venom is a type of retaliation for that attitude.
I think it is better for buyers to have more information and then take responsibility for sifting through it themselves.
I don’t see why Jon writing about the apartment was a problem. Brownstoner is a blog, not a news journal. Blogs are personal viewpoints and interests, and we shouldn’t confuse them with news journalism. Benson- you need to stop looking for things to pick on jon about. You’re a regular here too. What does that say?
all in all, an interesting article, i have to say. My feeling is that before the economy tanked, there was a certain feeling on the part of brokers and sellers that they could squeeze every least dollar out of their property with the least amount of work. I’ve been to open houses where they wanted 1 mil+ and the place was filled with garbage, there was major structural damage and the bathrooms and kitchens looked like someone decorated with a hand grenade. There was the idea that if it was real estate, it could command any price.
Blogs are good for feedback-maybe its a little snarky at times, but it seems to me its a good thing to get a buyer’s point of view if you want to sell and get your price.