There have been a number of featured blogs on Active Rain decrying what the authors perceive as either negativity, finger pointing, or undignified criticism of the competition on the part of fellow bloggers. Their rationale is honorable; they don’t want the public to see agents bickering among themselves, nor do they feel it professional for one licensee to point the finger at another. I respect their intentions, but I disagree. 

Here’s why: Licensees, especially REALTORS, should not have a Blue Code of Silence. That Code, if you don’t know, is the unwritten ethic of police officers not to rat out another who has broken the rules. If the public sees an agent annoyed with another, it doesn’t look very nice sometimes. Agreed. If the public thought that we are covering up each other’s misdeeds, we it would be a mortal blow to an already injured public image. 

NAR members are already under criticism for a Pollyanna-like spin on the market. If you added a saccharin style of blogging where calling out the bad practices we see were avoided at all costs in the name of being positive, it wouldn’t make up more professional. It would make us more fake. 

The public appreciates authenticity. They want to work with real people who have real feelings and see things the way they see them. If we get to a house and The updated kitchen turns out to be from the Brady Bunch, I’m going to kvetch about it, right there. I’m not going to make an excuse for the listing agent. And I’ll blog about it. I certainly won’t write “That jerk Phil Faranda doesn’t know what an updated kitchen is,” but it would be a good characterization of the events. There are lines not to cross. You don’t make personal attacks , ad hominem accusations, or violate article 15 of the Code of Ethics. But you should call it how you see it without spin. 

I have often said that we need to police ourselves and call out those among us who do a bad job. The public needs to know that we value holding our colleagues to a high standard more than we value propping up a phony image. There should be no complicity among us except to serve our clientèle. 

We got a call the other day from Ronnie, our admin who is in the office daily from 9-5. Half the office was without electricity, and the other half still had juice. I told her to contact the property manager, a bookkeeper upstairs who arrives between 9 and 10am. 

By the way: there are two kinds of people reading this post. One is wondering why only half my office was blacked out, and the other half who are, right now, saying “circuit breaker.” I am in the latter group. 

Unfortunately, the computer and phone were out, meaning I was out of business. Ronnie couldn’t move everything without complicating things with the WiFi router and wiring, so we were out of business until things got fixed. I was on a morning appointment. I figured the manager would handle it when she came in. 11am rolled around, and Ronnie called me again, clearly annoyed. The manager told her the problem was Cablevision, who had a problem in another office the day before. Cablevision is not our electrical utility, ConEd is.  Ronnie had prodded the manager to call an electrician, and she acquiesced and called a client who would come in at the end of the day. That was BS. I couldn’t be blacked out for 8 hours.  

I was able to come in at noon. I went upstairs and asked the manager if I could get into the utility room. That wasn’t necessary, she said. She already checked and it was cablevision. Not wanting to explain Newtonian physics to a 70 year old, I asked her to humor me. I found the first floor panel and unscrewed it open. There was just one 200 amp switch and no breaker for my office.

Now, there are two kinds of people reading this post. One is wondering how this could be fixed, and the other group, who has already muttered “sub panel” under their breath. I am in the latter group.

So I had to go upstairs and ask Madam Cablevision where I might find a sub panel. She reluctantly admitted there was one in her closet. She then walked over into her closet, opened it, and turned to me saying that nothing was amiss. She was blocking me from checking myself. She reminded me of Bugs Bunny and the “He’s Not Hiding in the Stove” cartoon. Again with the Cablevision. 

I’m starting to get a little frustrated here. My company has been blacked out for over 3 hours. I called the landlord. He called back within 5 minutes, and gave me the location of the first floor sub panel. I found it and what do you know? Circuit 5 was popped. FLICK and I’m back in business. I shared with him my frustration with Ms Dolittle upstairs, and we hung up.

5 minutes later, the Grand Dame stormed into my office.  First, she wanted to see the sub panel, which I showed her. Then, she groused about how I went behind her back and complained to the landlord about how she was handling things. Well, frankly, I told her, she didn’t seem to care that I was out of business. That incensed her. That’s not true, she said.

I answered her by informing her that it took her all of 5 minutes to come downstairs when she thought she looked bad to the landlord, but in 3 hours she never bothered to come downstairs when my employee was pleading for her to help. Caring is as caring does. 

Frankly, I don’t know what goes on in her heart or anyone’s heart, but the contrast in pro activity to my observation, was quite ironic. If you care about you first you’ll be miserable. If you care about others they’ll know it and appreciate it. Big lesson there. 

Did you ever write a thoughtful, heartfelt post and as soon as you posted it, got a comment right away? You click on the comment to see what the reader’s reaction is to your sharing, only to read this:

Thanks for your thoughts. We learn so much on Active Rain. Best wishes.

Huh? Did they even read what you wrote? Probably not. These are point pigs, only interested in their 10 comments per day.

What about this: You click on your blog subscriptions, and see in the new blog feed 3 new posts from the same guy. Curious about this prodigious content machine, you click on his blog. Whoa! 200 posts in January so far! 275 posts in December! But on closer look, this clown is actually cycling the same 6 spammy, self promotional posts every day. The search engine simpleton thinks that if he vomits a tidal wave of duplicate content that he will fool Google. Good luck with that one. 

Another variation of the Google gaming freak is the reblog guy. This is a another 10 post a day content machine who hasn’t posted an original thought since the Cold War. He’s not using the reblog  to pass along good thoughts; he’s de facto scraping others’ content so his blog will have lots of material he’s too lazy to write or research. Reblog guy also plagiarizes from sources outside of Active Rain, passing the content off as his own.

But by far the biggest laugh is one I was made hip to earlier this week. Almost 300 January posts, all “Members Only.” He claimed Google was already indexing him because he found himself in Google searches. I guess this gnu doesn’t realize that if he’d log out of Active Rain that the search results would disappear. This is significant, as consumers are not logged in to Active Rain.

Rain Camp, common sense and good faith all tell us that a good blog is original, fosters an interested readership, and does not engage in black hat search engine optimization (which, by the way is contrary to terms of service). You can make your blog any way you want, but I would ask what part of “community” you do not understand.  

This will be somewhat of a rant, but after being sick as a dog with some exotic bug my kids brought home from school, I am in one of those moods. There is a word for a home inspector who will take $500 from a home buyer for inspecting a co op apartment they are looking to buy: Thief. My opinion? Maybe. The opinion of reputable, licensed home inspectors with ASHI memberships whom I have discussed this with? Yup. 

By and large, inspecting a co op apartment is not needed the way it is for a house. The windows are the co-op’s responsibility. The same goes for the heat. 

…and the roof.

…and the plumbing and water pressure

…and the electricity

Are you getting the picture? There is no yard. There is no basement. There is no utility room, water heater, or laundry (in most cases). Many times, there isn’t even a dishwasher. It isn’t even like a condo, where you own the paint in. You are a stock holder with a proprietary lease, and the corporation is responsible for the physical plant.

There are exceptions to every complex. Some have a laundry in each apartment, for instance. And this doesn’t mean that if the dishwasher breaks or the toilet dies that you don’t have to buy new ones yourself. You do. But it does mean that anyone who treats the co op like a single family residence and charges you the same to inspect it is taking your money. And it’s not just me saying that. Most co op buyers do not get an inspection at all.

If you want to get your co op inspected, get an inspector who won’t charge you like the 900 square foot self-contained apartment is a 3000 square foot house on half an acre. We have a nice duplex in Rego Park, Queens under contract and we’re going to pay the guy less than $200 for a walk through, and that will be as thorough as you can get. The scope is just too small.

I welcome opinions of home inspectors familiar with New York co op apartments  to tell me why I am right or why I’m wrong. 

I posted earlier this week that an agent in my company had elected to leave for another firm. The day after he resigned, prior to our meeting and settling our affairs, he sent an email expressing irritation at me for not releasing him on the Department of State website right away. That only served to attract the ire of the company admin, namely my wife, who sent him an answer that he probably had coming for over 6 months.  That did not set the stage for a comfortable meeting when he came to my office Thursday. 

I wasn’t appreciative of the drama; I told him that all we needed to do was meet and go over files and he’d be released. He was the one that waited 2 days to come in. He arrived late, and was clearly tense. He had a box of folder, some of which were files I’d have to take over and the rest I figured was marketing material. We went over what I thought were the necessary issues to reconcile, pending deals, signs I loaned him, and  the like. Truth be told, I can count on one hand the number of agents who have left my company since 2005, and the guy was pacing my office floor like an expectant father as I fumbled my way through the state website to confirm his release. Ann had to talk me through it on the phone. 

When I was done, I gave him his release confirmation slip and offered my hand. He grimaced and got the box of folders. He began to explain to me things about the 3 remaining listings he had, and when I told him I wasn’t interested, he said they had to stay with the company. He was right, of course, technically they are mine, but I had no intention of keeping them. Law or no law, they were more his than mine, and I told him that we’d release them so he could take them with him. I was only concerned about pending transactions. He could have his listings. I took out the memorandum of agreement I wrote after I hired him, and reminded him that a condition of his hire was that I would allow him to take his active listings with him if things didn’t work out. I was just keeping my word. 

He was a different guy after that. Floored, really. He said that he thought that I was going to bust his chops because I didn’t terminate him right away; I reminded him that he made me wait. I would have complied if he came in 2 days prior. I was’t holding things up. He was. And I would keep my word. The whole room shifted. He couldn’t believe is ears. I pointed to the memo. I wasn’t going back on anything we agreed to 6 months ago. He thanked me and left, shocked look and all.  

I don’t care one way or the other, but 5 bucks says he’ll come back sometime. If he does, he’ll view me through different shaded glasses. 

RPR, which stand for Realtors Property Resource, has been described as Big Brother, NAR’s answer to Zillow, the precursor to a National MLS, and many other things. But regardless of what opinion you may have of the system, it is coming, and it knows you. The project is the National Association of Realtors initiative to index the data on every parcel of land in the the USA. 

Every single one. They are starting with the public records, but guess what? If it is listed or has a sales history, they’ll have that too. If there is a violation on it, they’ll have it. Mortgage? Yup. Notice of default? That too. 

In short, they’ll have combined Zillow, the MLS data, your public records, RealtyTrac, and a few other sites into one source. If it is listed, they’ll have the broker information. It will even have a wiki-type feature that will allow registered users to edit what might be inaccurate informations, such as square footage of a listed property. Are you getting the picture? 

One more thing: it won’t be available to the public. It is only available to NAR members. It will be rolled out this March. 

It is not a national MLS, however, for several reasons, not the least of which is that there is no published offer of cooperation. But, like Realtor.com, there is nothing stopping you from contacting the listing agent and finding that out. Scary? Exciting? Both? 

Interesting commentary from Robert Hahn on RPR can be found on his blog. RPR has their own blog, which can be found at http://blog.narrpr.com. 

Individual MLS systems have the option to opt out, but here is the quandary if they do: at some point, someone was going to publish all this information, and Zillow has gotten a massive head start. If you are a licensee, who do you want at the head of the curve on this, a private company, or the NAR? It was going to be done anyway. 

We are witnesses to massive change. Forewarned is forearmed. 

Spam is spam, whether it is for a Nigerian diplomat or a 3 bedroom ranch. The whole point of a high tech MLS system is so we don’t have to exchange information via archaic means, such as listing books, letters, faxes, or smoke signals. The information is at our fingertips. Moreover, saved searches and hotsheets tell us when a match is made with a prospect. So why do I still get emails with subject lines such as “price reduced” and “new listing”? 

Is this how some agents pacify their clients? It doesn’t work. If I wanted to know your every move I’d follow you on Twitter. 

If we have a prospect match, maybe an email would work. But agents who announce their every move via unwanted email announcements clog inboxes, annoy, and waste valuable time. It’s not something colleagues do, and it hinders more substantive communication, because if you train me to delete your spam daily you just might have an offer get whacked also. 

So, this week, I am implementing a new spam policy: I am going to politely ask anyone who spams me to remove me from their database. If they do, swell. If they don’t, their email addresses will be blocked, and they’ll have a nice Mailer-Daemon sent back  to them every time they litter. Hopefully, they’ll get the message. 

We need to revamp our culture as professionals. Sending out spam should not be part of how we interact. 

This is inspired by Richard Weisser’s outstanding blog piece about, well, blogging. It is admirable the way his blog has built his personal brand. 

A real estate broker is always recruiting people in 3 categories: sellers, buyers, and salespeople. Hiring, however, always seems to come as an afterthought, especially to an independent firm. We don’t have in-house recruiters the way larger franchises do. Yet I have been getting new agents to join my company with my blog. Last year I heard an agent tell me for the first time that she liked my blog and wanted to work for me. This month, we’ve put on three new agents and have another waiting in the wings. 

It isn’t a mystery why. Our blogs are a look inside, without a needy posture, about the kind of brokers we are, and how we do business. Any agent that is “looking” will appreciate the opportunity get the free, unrehearsed glimpses. The interviews have been easy, because the recruiting pitch is not needed- they already know me. We can get on to more substantive things, and they have thus far his the ground running. 

I’m not sure that there is anything different to ‘do’ with regard to blogging and hiring, except to simply let people know you are hiring in your blog. You might be surprised at who wants to know. 

Back in December I wrote a blog post aimed at my fellow broker owners asking them how fast they paid their agents once a deal closed. The post was featured and got over 100 comments. It was gratifying to get input from my colleagues across the country. 

Today I have a new question, and this is also seldom discussed. When an agent resigns from your company, how long before you formally release them with the state? Here in New York, additions and terminations are done online on the Department of State website. One particular agent resigned yesterday, via email, and asked to be terminated right away. I responded that we needed to get our affairs reconciled and then I would do so. However, he was not able to meet with me until 2 days later (we are meeting tomorrow). We have a few things to discuss, and I don’t want to give him his release without clear understandings on pending business, the return of signs and lock boxes, and some other housecleaning. 

I don’t think it unreasonable to have company property returned prior to issuing the release. I don’t want to trust the guy to do the right thing, especially this one, only to end up schlepping all over the place to pick up signs and lock boxes myself. That isn’t right. If he had come in, spoken with me personally and returned the things I would have released him right away. However, today, 24 hours after his resignation email and prior to anything being returned, he sent me a critical email for not releasing him yet, with the clear suggestion that I was obstructing him. I think he’s out of line there, but then again, we won’t miss him for those very reasons. 

When he joined our company, things moved at a glacial pace. I didn’t quibble about it. I don’t see why I’m judged by a different standard than his last broker. To give you a little context, his next firm will be his 3rd firm in less than 7 months. He was here all of 180 days. 

Would you grant a release with loose ends untied? 

To my way of thinking, few things make a house a home like a pet. We’ve rescued a few dogs in our time, and the latest is Max, pictured below. He is a purebred German Shepherd whom I rescued for a fraction of what it would have cost to buy a new puppy with papers. Westchester County has plenty of resources for pet adoption, and here are a few worth checking out:

• Elmsford Animal Shelter– We adopted Logan here in 2000. First class place. 
• SPCA of Westchester– walking distance from my office
• Pet Adoption League of Lower Westchester
• Westchester Shore Humane Society
• Yonkers Animal Shelter
• Little Orphan Animals in Cortlandt Manor
• New Rochelle Humane Society
• Petfinder.com has lots of local connections and is virtually the craigslist of animal recue
• Lastly, AnimalLink.org has some really good niche organizations, such as rabbits and Ferrets.