Inman

Will Realtors go the way of the record labels?

Editor’s note: The following is a reader comment on the Oct. 22 Inman News column, "Big brokerage model is ‘on the roof.’ "

"I come frm a background in the music industry. In the mid-90s consumers were demanding peer-to-peer, single-song business models. The six major record labels said "no way" to the consumer, cut out singles sales and tried to force the consumer to buy a full 10-song CD if they wanted a single song. Napster came along and destroyed the music business and forced it to reckon with consumer demand.

The NAR needs to come up with its own national, open version of the MLX [sic]. If not, someone will come along with the MLX [sic] version of iTunes (Zillow, Trulia to name a few) and really leave Realtors out of the home-buying equation.

Creating value to the consumer has always been a challenge for real estate agents. Time for the NAR to think outside the box unless it wants to become as irrevelant as the six (now three) major music labels are to the music industry." –Tony Diamante

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