I came across a real estate agent referral site called topagent guide.com located at http://www.topagentguide.com/ It is a site that identifies and categorize real estate agents based on “client type”, neighborhood, property type, language and price range.
I think this is a great concept but the recommendations given by this site may be viewed as tainted. As disclosed in an article on a site called Real Deal, two of the founders of the site are identified as real estate brokers from Charles Rutenberg Realty. Upon further reading of the article, it seems as if five of the agents recommended on the site are from the same real estate brokerage firm, Charles Rutenberg Realty. Any appearance of impropriety will cloud claims of impartiality regardless of the qualifications of the agents.
Below is a link regarding the above referenced article :
The comments following the article on the Real Deal site evidences a probable public perception that will prevent it from really being a useful tool and cause it to be viewed as a marketing tool. If the identification and rating of real estate agents were based on an indiscriminate formula or on recommendations (similar to the linked in website) the site would be viewed as more trusted. A rating system of reviewed recommendations would help curb complaints of phony submissions. If a rating scale were employed without limit as to the amount of agents, there would be repeat visits to the site by curious agents to check their ratings or the posting of recommendations. The increased traffic would assist in the increased rating of the site on search engines like Google.
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