Do YOU Play By The Rules In Your Market?

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't generally post rants and tend to be more of a Suzy Sunshine when it comes to my blog posting. I admit to it fully, although once you meet me in person you might be surprised to find that although my blogging is one facet of my personality and I try to keep it "clean", I do tend to speak my mind and probably should work on getting a better filter. But, it is so cold in Seattle today and I was too cold to walk my daily 5 to 10 miles, so I am going to rant.

So here it is - my "filterless" real life rant. No Suzy Sunshine Here!!!

In my market - the Seattle real estate market - there are rules that ethical real estate agents should follow....actually even if you are unethical, you still better follow them!

It isn't rocket science and surely applies to all areas of our profession no matter where you are located. These basic things aren't difficult to figure out because they all pretty much stick to the Golden Rule - you know - do unto others...

1. Be Nice & Don't Lie

Come on! Really? Do I need to put this in here. Yes I do.

2. Don't Steal!!!

Please don't copy and paste my images and use them for your own "content". This includes grabbing my MLS photos to talk about homes for sale in that neighborhood.

3. DO NOT advertise another agent's listings without their written permission

Yesterday my partner found another of our listings advertised without our permission on Craigslist. The "professional" real estate agent literally copied our description straight out of the NWMLS and pasted it into a Craigslist Ad and then put in their phone number and a link to a page of home listings on their IDX site (one of which was the one she advertised without my permission).

She then swore she did not advertise our listings....

This isn't the first time I have caught this person stealing my own content. I have politely asked her to remove my content when I find it, but fear that I am seriously just touching the tip of the iceberg of the unethical rule breaking going on here.

Soooooo... I did a search on Craigslist using just the phone number on the ad.

Guess what I found! 155 Craigslist postings and no duplicates. It was all either stolen content from many Seattle real estate agents or spammy little blurbs that were a violation of Craigslist rules and also had links going to their site. Many of those were fictional properties, but at least half were advertised listings that were not theirs.

4. Don't Mislead the Public.

The above ads on Craigslist are all VERY misleading - the first obvious clue is that when I pulled stats on the NWMLS, the agent who posted them has one dinky little listing in all of our Seattle market and funny enough - that one was not anywhere to be found on Craigslist. hmmm... This isn't the only case of being misleading to the public obviously, but clearly I am irritated.

Saying you are a real estate agent when your license is inactive or delinquent and has been for many months is also not good.

Obviously, this person is getting leads and giving them to others, but misleading to the public never the less and totally unacceptable. Go do your education and get your license active again if you are gogin to play it off like you are a REAL real estate agent, PLEASE. It makes us all look bad.

5. Be Nice!

worth saying again....

OK, you get the idea!

Of course there are more, but these are the ones I am going to start with. Competition is GOOD. Being sleazy about it is not. Again, it makes us all look bad. Do you play by the rules in your market? What are those rules?

Rant Over and back to Suzy Sunshine...