John, This is probably the "best of breed" Agent Rating competitor to watch, even if it never goes public.  Was created in a new product development contest at the leading real estate technology conference in San Francisco in July, 2009.  Some of the most respected thought leaders have added comments to the blog post below, but I have not made time to read them yet.  It IS possible that the National Association of Realtors is putting seed capital into this product development to make sure it remains "Realtor" friendly.  Others on a panel about the MLS of the Future at the NAR convention in San Diego (11/09) predicted that disruptive agent rating models would emerge from outside the industry.  Blog commenters below may be making the same points:

 

Updates on Agent Scouting Report from Diverse Solutions blog:

Agent Scouting Report – An Experiment in Transparancy

 

If the industry convinces members that they must open themselves to ratings, they will likely propose a model that does NOT result in a referral fee so members don't have to give away 20-35% of their commission. 

 

Updates from comments on Blog post above:

 

Not sure what their revenue model is, but NeighborCity.com may have a first-mover advantage with a C2B referral model.  I wasn't impressed when I saw them in San Francisco, but they are being advised by some of the sharpest real estate consultants in the business, and I found a reference to them on this blog post by 1000 Watt Consulting.  They aren't in Massachusetts, yet, so maybe we can get our own first-mover advantage with expired and canceled listings this month but learning from some of the things they are doing well.  Haven't drilled down on this list of "Top Agents by City" yet, but looks like it would worthwhile to publish some info about the 25 most expensive zipcodes we are targeting.  If we don't get out there with expired and canceled listing reports, it's just a matter of time before a new competitor does.

 

MUST READ:

 

11/28/09:  Best overview of state of the art in Agent Referrals

 

Evaluating Professionals:  Imperfect Solution for An Imperfect World

 

Comments are excellent, too.  See Michael Erdman's comment, an attorney (not a Realtor) and fellow real estate consumer advocate, who launched AgentsCompared.com in Chicago earlier this year, their only market so far.

 

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LIVE Wiki notes from ConnectSF09:  July ? / August ?, 2009

 

Agent Scouting Report

▼    ❑    Agent Scouting Report

    ▼    ❑    Joe consumer

    •    ❑    Want to sell house quickly

    ▼    ❑    How do I identify who is great for selling my particular home

    •    ❑    Could interview them

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Great if there were some way to evaluate these agents

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    TAKE MLS DATA

    •    ❑    All sold,

    •    ❑   

•    ❑    Created numerous algorymths

•    ❑   

▼    ❑    Things like

    •    ❑    How many sales last 180 days

    •    ❑    Price ranges

    •    ❑    Cities

    •    ❑    Price changes

    ▼    ❑    How long to sell

    •    ❑    (How many DOM:  Days on Market)

    •    ❑    What percent of asking price

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Agent Scouting Report

    •    ❑    Put in City

    •    ❑    Show all agents who have sold

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Overall

    •    ❑    Rep buyer

    •    ❑    Rep seller

    ▼    ❑    How many sales did they have

    •    ❑    $600-$800K price agens

    ▼    ❑    Sales in past two years

    •    ❑    Median price they sold

    •    ❑   

•    ❑    Don't want an agent selling $3M house who haa worked in lower price ragne

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Agent photo

•    ❑    How

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Median

•    ❑   

▼    ❑    Actually showed listings

    •    ❑    First listed

    •    ❑    Price change

    •    ❑    DOM

    •    ❑    Sold date

    •    ❑    How many open houses did they have

    •    ❑   

•    ❑    Hwo many propelat

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Negotiating advantage

•    ❑    Median price SF

•    ❑   

•    ❑    CAR survey:  Agents don't

•    ❑    Rank in office in numer of transactions

•    ❑    Average number of

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Agents claim their profile and add infor

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Current number of active listings

•    ❑    Average number of photos

•    ❑   

•    ❑    All reality, this probably will never become public

•    ❑   

•    ❑    Who would like to see this?

•    ❑   

▼    ❑    Justin

    •    ❑    "Probably will never see the light of day because of MLS rules" (confirm quote)

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Represented sellers

    •    ❑    By price range

    •    ❑    By region

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    All agents of SoCAL

    •    ❑    Excluded

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Lot of people who loved this

    •    ❑    Need to have approval from MLSs to use sold data

    •    ❑    In this particular case, MLS will allow use pricing history that has been private

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    What was the key factor that allowed you to do this in such a short time

    •    ❑    Lot of planning beforehand

    •    ❑   

▼    ❑    Column heading, sample rating page

    •    ❑    Name

    •    ❑    overall

    •    ❑    Buyer

    •    ❑    Seller

    •    ❑    Local sales

    •    ❑    Median price

    •    ❑   

•    ❑    Justin will blog about the Agent Scouting Report on DiverseSolutions.com and will post some screen shots from Blitz development effort

•    ❑   

▼    ❑    Glad to take inquiries from interested MLS's and Brokers?

    •    ❑    Justin LaJoie (check name)

    ▼    ❑    Sales@DiverseSolutions.com

    •    ❑    Get specific email (not on card Justin handed me)

    •    ❑    Screenshots