After a several month-long “make nice” campaign — including 1) several tête-à-tête sessions with numerous bloggers, like yours truly at Inman and Kris Berg in San Diego; 2) a lively and entertaining drinks-on-Glenn event last night in San Francisco; 3) winning accolades at Inman for having the guts to take on Alan Dalton; 4) refraining from praying mantis allusions … Glenn Kelman apparently just couldn’t resist taking another potshot at the real estate industry — his peers, really.
In black and white print, in the widely circulated LA Times, Glenn refers to the real estate industry as being similar to “big oil or big tobacco,” a statement he calls “intensely regretted, insanely provocative.”
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Which leads me to ask — “Why did he say it?“ The obvious low-brow answer — that he himself is not yet rid of the epileptic fits of which the site itself is now apparently cured — is as unsatisfying as it is false. I’ve met Glenn and like him personally and, trust me, he does not have Tourette’s Syndrome. He’s an accomplished man, very much in control of himself, his statements, and his public image.
I’d say his statement was indeed provocative, but well-planned, and not regretted. He whoops up some controversy, garners more attention, and puts himself up as the vanguard of defending the consumer against the old, stodgy way the real estate business is done. As an added bonus, the ensuing online flame war — currently being lit — gives him even further attention.
Glenn, keep in mind that in this business — unlike big tobacco — you rely on your competitors to a) sell your product and b) bring product to market for you to sell. If you want to become the consumer’s champion, that’s great — but please, please figure out a way to do it without resorting to this kind of Alan Dalton-esque bombast.
You can think whatever you want to about this business, and whisper it in conversations — and when you do, you’ll find a surprising amount of agreement within the industry about some of your statements — but whatever you do, don’t trumpet it in the LA Times…unless that’s exactly what you intended to do.
Tags: Alan Dalton, Glenn Kelman, Real estate, Redfin
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Glenn Kelman // Feb 8, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Hi Kevin, good post. The funny thing is that the folks in the San Francisco office, who worked with me for six or seven years at Plumtree, all laughed at your characterization of me as a well-controlled executive. I have a long history of saying stupid things in public. That noted, I should — and now do — stand by this statement, which I have made before: the real estate industry needs to reform itself or it will be perceived as an anti-consumer industry such as tobacco or pharmaceuticals. I guess, in the flurry of writing a blog post while scrambling to iron a no-iron shirt and interview someone in a coffee shop, I just cringed at having that quote presented as my only statement on the industry, without the call for reform. We all want to seem thoughtful and nuanced, even when we’re not. I have been interviewed plenty of times, I know what I am doing when I talk to the press, and Annette Haddad did an excellent job on the story.
This does not mean I do not respect real estate agents, but it does mean that I disagree with many aspects of our industry that undermine consumer trust: MLS rules that limit information sharing, the over-recruitment of agents and the lack of stringent training and ethical standards, the way buyers’ agents are paid, minimum service and anti-rebate laws, the staffing of state real estate boards, dual agency. This distinction between the industry and its best agents is the one I made in the podcast posted by Kris Berg. There’s no need to whisper when making these complaints, but hopefully there’s time and world enough to do so more thoughtfully than a one-liner allows.
Thanks for the post.
2 360Digest » Thank you Mr. Kelman // Feb 9, 2007 at 3:20 am
[...] It was a slow news day and I was almost tempted to write about Anna Nicole Smith, but between your interviews with Kris Berg, Annette Haddad and Tina Wood and your other comments and interviews here and there, we’ve got material for days. [...]
3 Redfin Launches Consumers’ Bill of Rights | 3 Oceans -- The San Francisco Bay Area Real Estate Blog // Apr 2, 2007 at 10:31 am
[...] Not because I am uncritically accepting of everything Redfin foes; quite the contrary, I have called them out on blurring the distinction between correlation and causation (see my articles Redfin Numbers Food Fight and Agents Who Take More Pictures are Better Negotiators), I have criticized their advertising as needless stick-it-in-the-eye tactics, and I have criticized Glenn for making reckless statements to the media that do nothing to endear him to the real estate community. [...]
4 easybusinessaccounting.info » Ancient Chinese Secret Vol. 2 Revealed // Apr 26, 2007 at 3:01 pm
[...] It was a slow news day and I was almost tempted to write about Anna Nicole Smith, but between your interviews with Kris Berg, Annette Haddad and Tina Wood and your other comments and interviews here and there, we’ve got material for days. [...]
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