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Also, there are several serious problems with this technology. First, the “Heat Map” will be used quietly be lenders to redline areas they do and don’t want to lend in and the use of the map opens the door to the discussion of what’s a “good” neighborhood or not. Also, the demographic information gathered and made available lets Realtors know a great deal about the folks who live in the neighborhood, like who’s a Democrat or Republican. How about ethnic mix? How about number of children in the family? Oops, Fair Housing violation for even asking.

You’re basically giving a Nintendo game to a Realtor with this technology. Press a few buttons and you have a value of a property. This is great news for the person who just graduated from the one week real estate course and passed their test. Now they’re an expert appraiser before they even sell a home! Might be a temptation to manipulate the price to get that first sale or, worse, over estmate the value of a home and crash a sale that otherwise would have come together. By offering this “quick fix” for property valuation you cheapen the value of a Realtors services by homogenizing experience, the Great Differentiator.

Reggie indicates the anti-trust issue is “not valid in this case because data is equally available for use to the same extent and in the same way by all Realtors” Simply not true, with all due respect. I live in a non-disclosure state so the data used to create home values will not be available to you or I and therefore I won’t have full use of the system. Also, the antitrust issue raised by the Department of Justice was based on CONSUMERS ACCESS to our MLS data, not Realtor to Realtor access. The consumer will eventually have our information in full and then the profession will go the way of the blacksmith. Remember, Realtors, all that glitters is not gold. I’m a great advocate of technology, but this is a serious threat to your profession and mine. Also, I’d like to see the contract that says the system can never be sold to a third party OR MORE IMPORTANTLY that the folks who create this prototype cannot quit and start their own copy of this or head a corporation that competes with this. I’m tired of the Realtor organization training their competitors at our expense. Sorry.

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As an Appraiser I have not seen anything that would help me in my work in the RPR. Granted we are in a more rural area without larger tracts and most of our communities are very mixed in home size, age, quality and design/appeal as well as the parcel size, view and amenities so most automated systems do not work. Some features may be of more value to agents (I am a licensed broker but not practicing sales for the last 10+ years, only appraising).

Data accuracy is always a problem and after a while we have learned which sources are usually most reliable for each item and when there is a significant difference what to do. We would still need the multiple sources to do this and I don’t see RPR adding anything to this. As it is now we use the MLS, CoreLodgic-Realist, DataEexpress and the assessor web site and some times a call to the assessor.

Will California Association of Realtors new system be a part of this or will it compete? I as yet do not see any advantage in there system for my area either (I was on our association’s board of directors for 19 years and have been through at least 4 changes of MLS venders and dread the though of it). We already have a regional MLS with about all the bells and whistles you need.

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