Consensus builds that the time has come to surface agent performance data, but how?

NEW YORK -- A town-hall-style meeting at Real Estate Connect New York City on whether the industry should publish agent performance data for consumers showed a growing consensus that it should be done. How to do it remains the big, unanswered question. The subtext of the discussion was realtor.com's AgentMatch ranking platform, which ran as a pilot program in two markets for close to six months last year. AgentMatch, which displayed agent performance stats sourced from multiple listing services, suddenly became a hot topic of debate in November when realtor.com publicized the tool at the National Association of Realtors' annual convention. Participants in a mostly congenial conversation included Houston Association of Realtors CEO Bob Hale, brokers Teresa Boardman and Leslie Ebersole, ZipRealty Inc. CEO Lanny Baker, Keller Williams Realty Vice President of Technology Cary Sylvester, and Inman News Publisher Brad Inman. About 100 Connect attendees were on hand for a discussio...