Bart Wilson

The good old days of 6% commissions have come to an end. Welcome to the new world of on-line real estate where survival in this market means you need top page rank on Google. Don't have it? Too bad. Broker Bob does. Which means he gets the business and you don't. Darwinian Theory illustrated; Those brokers and agents that don't have page one visibility on Google will eventually die. They are quickly being replaced by those who DO have top page rank visibility. Many REALTORS do not want to accept the end of the old way of doing things. Which is why I left the sales part of the business years ago. I know the end is coming. Too many FSBO sites are coming up. Many people question why they have to cough up $30,000 at the time of closing because we know how to take a digital photo, shoot a virtual tour, add an ad in the local RE guide and then we market the listing on our MLS, the IDX and Realtor.com, Kayyah.com , and others. Attorney At Fact Transactions, and the new breed of discount-Internet brokers like Redfin and others have signaled the END of the full service brokerage. Homes magazine died and will be off life support in October. Many newspapers are failing. The Albuquerque Tribune shut down in February 2008 without a buyer. They died after 100 years in operation. There are too many choices for today's buyer or seller to want to stick with a full discount broker anymore. Thinking that the market will correct itself and go back to the days of the Sellers Market like it was four years ago is nothing more than wishful thinking. Bart Wilson

It's interesting to see that money still has to be raised by Trulia and Zillow to fuel their monthly burn rate and they are still chasing profitability. With gas hitting $5 a gallon soon, Indy Mac is dead now and taken over by the government, 400,000 homes are in foreclosure. Thousands of people have lost their jobs and have been grafted onto the rear end of the unemployment line. More than 74% of all new home searches begin on Google. Not Zillow, Not Trulia not HomeGain, not Realtor.com. Yet there are VCs out there willing to toss millions of dollars on bad business model like Trulia and Zillow. I don't get it. Bart Wilson

The sheer concept of a VOW was a stupid idea to begin with. Lock up the data so you get people asking for more information so it generates leads. Smart idea on paper but lousy in actual execution. Here's why: Customers aren't stupid. Next time home buyers are becoming quite educated. No one is going to register on a site when users can go to Broker Bob's website and search the MLS anonymously and for free. The plan for MLS's to survive now is to open up the doors and begin syndication and sharing their MLS data (albeit read only of course) with real estate marketing innovators who know how to put butts in seats and make the cash registers ring. Founder and CMO Voyager International http://www.Voyager360.com