Rating system enables abuse

Editor's note: The following is a reader comment in response to the Aug. 25 Inman News story, "Finding 'best value' in local markets." "This opens a can of worms. If agents and sellers use data from, at worse, uninformed Internet surfers, and at best, potential buyers who have a somewhat limited, if not slanted, view of a local market, where does expertise and knowledge that sellers are counting on their agents to provide rank? Consider this: A buyer is interested in a given home and posts many comments that the house is not a good value hoping to drive down the price. Or a malicious neighbor posts a number of comments that the house is overpriced. Or agents with competing listings (not that we would ever do such a thing!) rate an overpriced home as a good value to increase the salability of their own listings. Like I said, a can of worms that probably was not thought through carefully." --June Montjoy Information compiled by Daniel Rothamel, Inman Com...