Word of mouth is one of the most common ways homebuyers and sellers find a
real estate agent. Now, there are several Web sites that tout a more scientific
approach: ranking agents based on criteria such as years of experience, how many
sales they've closed, and the number of positive testimonials from past
clients.
On auction sites like eBay.com, user feedback-based rankings can give
anonymous buyers and sellers instant credibility. But is it a reliable way to
find a real estate professional? Can it trump the referral from your a trusted
relative or friend with firsthand experience?
Sites like HomeGain.com, AgentRank.com and IncredibleAgents.com function as
repositories of agent profile pages. They make money from ads or, in some cases,
by selling the contact information of potential customers who visited the site.
Their rating schemes vary widely, and lack of active participation by agents can
affect the quality of their results.
AgentRank, for example, launched in March and remains in its beta stage of
development. The company brews agent rankings through a complex recipe.
Put simply, it bakes all kinds of variables into an agent's profile -- recent
sales history, client reviews, experience, average days homes stay on market,
among others -- and assigns them secret values that are then pumped through an
algorithm that distills everything down to a rank between one and 10, with 10
being the best.
Visitors can search for agents by ZIP code or city and state, and they
receive a list of agents ranked in descending order.
A key component of AgentRank and similar sites is the gathering of
testimonials from agents' clients. What better way of ranking agents than by the
number of positive reviews from past clients?
The site tells agents they can improve their ranking if they "close deals and
make your clients happy."
Currently, agents solicit testimonials from their clients to place on the
site. But that will change by next spring, when the site begins accepting
unsolicited reviews, says AgentRank.com chief executive Marc Dugger.
A search of agents in Los Angeles on AgentRank turned up only 15, which is a
precious few.
Dugger acknowledges the site is a work in progress. It has profiles for up to
5,000 agents spread out nationwide, which can lead to some regions having more
than others, he notes.
Ultimately, relying on referrals from friends or relatives doesn't always
work out, Dugger insists.
"People are very quick to hire an agent based on a single referral, but the
power of these reviews are the fact that you get to see a pattern of success for
an agent," Dugger says. "There are some agents that have upward of 15 to 20
reviews on the site, and that, in my opinion, would instill great confidence in
that agent."
Another site, IncredibleAgents, beefs up its roster of agent profiles by
tapping states' data on licensed real estate agents. As a result, many agent
profiles on the site haven't been updated by the agents and offer slim to no
details or client reviews.
The site, which launched two years ago, has 25,000 agents who are actively
updating their profiles, says owner Damon Pace.
But faced with incomplete search results that turn up many stale profiles,
it's hard not to feel like the overall rankings are pretty thin.
The rankings themselves are also somewhat puzzling. The site's current top
agent in California, John La Mattery, has a score of 926. The next highest agent
has 883.
The scoring is an average of 16 attributes, among these: "Office Logo,"
"Photo" and "Welcome Message." These seem arbitrary at best, when one considers
what makes a good real estate agent.
Pace says the site helps validate agents' success and rewards those who are
actively promoting themselves on the site, not just asking clients to submit
testimonials.
"In a referral, you don't really have validation," Pace says. "You don't
really know if that person is who they say they are, or who that person (that
referred them) says they are."
The site lets anyone post a review of an agent on the site, whether it's
positive or negative.
San Diego-based La Mattery racked up 70 reviews in the two months since he
discovered his information on the site.
A link to the site on his e-mail signature is the only encouragement he gives
clients to submit testimonials to the site, he says.
Even with his top gun ranking, La Mattery says he has yet to see any client
referrals from the site.
"It's just to me another piece of the puzzle and it takes a lot of different
pieces to have a client trust you and rely on your expertise and then actually
work with you," he says. "Truly, it's an experiment for me."
Another site whose rankings might not instill great confidence is
HomeGain.
Agents are ranked with one to five stars based entirely on consumer feedback.
However, agents post the client testimonials of their own choosing, and to get a
five-star raking, all they need to do is post five.
It's telling the site warns visitors that "consumer feedback may not reflect
the actual quality of service" that they receive from the agents.
Matt Malmgren, senior manager of client services for HomeGain, says the site
performs audits of agent profiles to make sure the testimonials are legit. In
one example, the company booted an agent last year who elicited several consumer
complaints and allegations of fraud. Prior to the agent's expulsion, however, he
had a star rating of four or five, Malmgren says.
"It can be misleading," Malmgren says of the feedback ranking system. Still,
he stresses, "if you meet an agent on the street, they're only going to give you
testimonials they want to give you."
Another entrant into agent ranking is ZipRealty.com, an online real estate
brokerage that is taking a slightly different approach.
The company rates its own agents based on responses from clients who are
surveyed by an outside vendor. Clients are allowed to post comments and rate
agents on a five-star scale. The company says, on average, 75 percent of survey
recipients respond.
"We have them rate how we did as a company ... agents' performance," says Pat
Lashinsky, ZipRealty's chief executive.
One sign ZipRealty's approach may be on the right track -- Lashinsky says:
"Agents are nervous."
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