Well, it never ceases to amaze me just how far the real estate industry will use - and abuse - technology to lose customers. Consider this week's announcement by the Southern California MLS system to remove days on market from customer reports:

The bottom line is that you, the real estate professional are in the best position to explain to your customer - buyer or seller - what the true DOM figure is and what it means.

To that end, the SoCalMLS BOD, after getting input from MLS Committees and other practitioners, have decided to remove the DOM and CDOM fields from all Client reports. You will still have this information available to you in the Agent reports, which also link to the history report for each listing. The history report gives you a much more precise overview of what transpired for a particular listing. With that ammunition you should be prepared to better explain to your client the ramifications of the DOM data.

 

Apparently, the MLS system doesn't show customers the "history" properly for the days on market; it just shows them the "latest" days on market which may be since it was relisted, expired, who knows what kind of interim situation...

Sure, there can be some justification for letting the REALTOR "explain to the client" the DOM data... but that DOESN'T START BY REMOVING THE DATA FROM THE CUSTOMER'S VIEW! In fact, removing it will make it even LESS LIKELY for INEXPERIENCED buyers to ASK THE QUESTION because, well, the first time buyer is so confused and inexperienced, they might not even think about DOM as a reason to modify their offer or ask further questions.

But what about all the customers who DO know about DOM? Will the sudden disappearance mean anything to them? I'm betting - if they are just ordinary repeat buyers (like, me) they will be INSULTED that a critical information item they are USED to seeing is suddenly gone. They're going to wonder why - get suspicious even - and that's not going to enhance anyone's relationship or reputation. In fact, if the information is missing from the printout TO START WITH, then Gen X and Y are going to be EVEN MORE UNLIKELY - yes UN-LIKELY - to believe what's coming out of the REALTOR'S mouth...

... and that's if they EVEN KNOW. Aat a showing last week, the Agent accompanying me to THEIR OWN LISTING didn't know the DOM for the property we were looking at - which would have been crucial to the decision making process for my town, where properties have been on the market for more than a YEAR (tells me they are WAY overpriced for buyer tolerance...)

Look, even if you add up all the GOOD reasons to remove DOM, it only takes a few BAD reasons to do the damage. Maybe homes have high DOM for good reasons - good for BUYERS to know, that is - like they are overpriced or terms are unreasonable or they have serious defects. And considering so much OTHER information about homes can be found online - even those NOT currently for sale - the idea that DOM is missing (worse, that there is a press release saying the REALTOR community decided to remove it!) is just stunning to the 80+percent of people using the web to search for valid information on available property.

It's also hypocritical of an industry that poo-poohs sites like Zillow on the basis of "accuracy" ....!

So, let's just summarize: Properties on REALTOR.COM don't show STREET ADDRESSES (which Zillow does, and so does Trulia) because, somehow, it's consumer friendly to MAKE THEM CALL YOU (since half the brokers aren't paying for enhanced platforms to make their listings EMAIL READY on REALTOR.COM) and now, it's somehow even MORE consumer friendly to not show them critical information - like Days on Market - which can be an important factor in making an offer.

Anyone else wonder just how the industry can use its technology to lose customers, do less business and generally mess up its reputation further?