What Did My Mom Say About Cows Giving Away Milk?
Posted on November 19th, 2007 by Jonathan Dalton
Actually that speech went to my sister. Being blessed with a Y chromosome I usually was search of the milk-givers and less concerned with those situations where purchasing the cow was a requirement.
Still, the analogy came to mind the last two days after viewing two questions on Trulia Voices:
“How do I find a tenant to rent out my downtown Phoenix condo when there are many other units available on craigslist?”
Some questions I’ll answer here. This one I won’t answer in either place for the simple reason that I’m being asked to give away my product - my expertise - for nothing. To me the question reads,
“I have no intention of hiring a real estate agent because I don’t want to surrender a small percentage of my gross rents but I want one to tell me how to rent our my condo when faced with competition.”
Thanks, but I’ll pass. Hire me and we’ll get it rented and probably not through craigslist.
Here’s another:
“Hi, I am looking for house at Gilbert. I got one for $300,000 - 2,000 square feet and it is a spec home. I want to confirm whether the value is okay or high at the market value.”
Read another way …
“Hi. I didn’t want to be troubled with hiring an agent to represent my best interests at a new build, instead trusting the sales people working for the builder to look out for me, too, as illogical as that may be, even though working with a buyers’ agent would have cost me nothing out of pocket.
“Now that I’m in this contract I’m not sure that I got the best possible price and would like someone, most likely a real estate agent, to tell me now if I got a good price even though their advice and expertise was useless to me before I got under contract.”
Again, best of luck to you.
Am I jaded? Perhaps. But it amazes me how many of those asking questions on Trulia Voices don’t see value in working with a real estate professional until discovering that it’s not always as easy as it seems. They won’t work with us up front but want one of us to help bail them out.
It doesn’t work that way. Our advice is no better later than it was at the beginning. Either decide you want that expertise or commit to going it alone. It’s almost like me trying to scale Mt. Humphreys solo before realizing halfway up that it’s a lot steeper than it looks. An experienced guide could have taken one look at me and the mountain and told me the truth, but I didn’t want that. I was convinced I knew what I was doing.
Now that realize I didn’t I want the same folks I had no use for before to effect a rescue.
Um, sorry. If you contact me directly, maybe I’ll do the same. But if you’re asking the question in such a public forum where it’s clear you only want the milk for free but still don’t really see the value, at least not enough value to pay for it, I’ll take the pass.
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Great great great points. Like you’ve said before- you get what you pay for.
That sounds so familar…evrybody wants to pick brain for free.
I don’t mind it per se, Monika. I just think some agents ought to be smarter about the kind of questions they answer.
General information’s one thing. But for value-added info, doesn’t make much sense to me.
I hear you! Many agents give away way too much.
Hi Jonathan-
You make a good point about Voices. I can say that the tone and vibe I get from each question determines whether its worth my time and effort to craft a detailed and useful answer.
While Voices may have it’s good points and bad points, I tend to cut the folks at Trulia some slack. Every interaction that I’ve had with them has been positive and understand that creating a vibrant community, of which Voices is a part of, is no small feat.
It’s all going to come back to ROI for the agents participating. If they’re not getting anything in return, I’d expect the flow of knowledge to dry up eventually.
I agree, Andy … I give Trulia credit for the creation of Voices and their online community in general.
But there are issues with Voices. This past week there were three questions that seemed like they were posited by a really stupid Fair Housing tester.
There’s been a drop off in the useless answers coming from agents out of town, so that’s a positive. But they ought never have been there in the first place; the system of counting answers and questions encouraged such things.
My best return has come from someone who hired me two months after posting their question (and not remembering that I’d been one to answer) and from a reminder to follow-up with someone asking about specific communities we already had discussed in a general way.
[…] note, check out Doug Quance’s post - especially the YouTube clip at the bottom. Sums up my feelings about Trulia Voices and those who fall all over themselves to provide answers to those unwilling to pay for expertise. […]