This is one of those posts, where I got a lot from the post and even more from watching two professionals bring varied views together.

Kris – Nah. Just don’t take my comments personally. They are never meant that way. I’ve lost my ability to kiss up so I just stick it out there and hope that people are willing or brave enough to engage long enough to find common ground, or at least define the differences.

I’m not sure I have a clue about “some have earned the right”. With real estate, what are the credentials? Top producer? Company president? I have seen more absolute self serving BS come from these types than anywhere else. I still have the email sent to me by the president of CB in SoCal outlining an opinion piece he wrote that was published in the paper about how the market had bottomed out an buyers should jump in to the market ASAP. Anyone who followed his “expert” advice and bought then (early 2007) likely is upside down today.

Kris’s point is one that I constantly struggle with answering: How does the consumer learn the truth of an agent’s ability before they’re hired, not after they’ve signed an agreement?

I must have missed that point as well. Reading her follow up comments, I got the feeling that Kris is dealing more with the issue of honesty and integrity, not a skillset; but that just may be my warped perspective as I look at this industry with more disdain than most of my colleagues. Some of the agents that sell the most (and therefore the most skilled?) are the last ones people should listen to when it comes to honestly and objectively discussing the market and a buyer or seller’s best interests.

So how is the consumer to know who to listen to or trust? Without looking at an overall body of work, and I do not mean sales stats or awards, they can’t know for sure. That is where the blog can help. A new agent with a new site can get away with faking it for a while, but the consumer is still taking a flyer on that agent. However, a Kris Berg with a documented and lengthy archive can be accurately vetted. If they view the archive Kris has of her published market trends they will see firsthand the objectivity with which Kris covers her market.

While I clearly missed the point Kris was trying to make, it is because I believe Kris misses the accuracy of her own title, “I Am An Expert. Ask Google.” Google IS the consumer’s background check. If all you published in a down marketplace, over and over again like a NAR economist, was that “Now is a great time to buy” while the market continues to roll down hill, then the consumer can see the agent’s “self-serving vs objective quotient” for themselves.

We can’t keep the BS that is published by others from being found by Google, so the best we can do is try to position ourselves above it, both figuratively and literally. The key here is that you do have to “work the system”, but you can do so without selling your soul, which is what it sounds like to me that you think (based on a few of your Google themed posts) is the case with Google.

You and I both know for a fact that in Scripps Ranch, you are the consumer’s best advocate, and Google is the best way for you to get that message out.

I cling to the notion that our students will come to recognize that it is not only OK but essential that they question authority.

Would it be stating the obvious if I said I agree wholeheartedly with that?

Being published or quoted makes an instant expert. It doesn’t have to be stated that the person is one. It’s insinuated by the quote, article or post.

Kris’s point is one that I constantly struggle with answering: How does the consumer learn the truth of an agent’s ability before they’re hired, not after they’ve signed an agreement?

The number of sales, awards, Google standing or quote in itself does not necessarily make one an expert.

I dunno, I understood the point completely.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a call at 3:00 from a local news reporter. She left a voice mail asking me to go on-air at 5:00 to opine on the fed bailout of Fannie and Freddy. I missed the call as I was absorbed in the opening weekend of the NFL.

Why did this reporter call me? Because I write a local blog. And maybe because the last time she called with a 2 hour notice I was able to work it in. She clearly didn’t call me because I was an expert in the nuances of the govmint bailout. I am nothing close to that. None-the-less, had I picked up the phone, I could have found my smiling mug on the 5:00 news and even if I had explicitly said, “I am no expert on this”, someone out there in TV land would have probably thought “that guy must be an expert! He’s on TV!”.

And that is rather sad. And scary.