Real estate is the Sleeping Giant of Consumer Movement! #RE2020's mission is to cocreate a new ecosystem capable of delivering billions in consumer savings by 2020. Share #GamesREagentsPlay with app builders & consumer advocates to develop reforms as well as money-saving strategies & solutions.
RECartel Retrospective: Nader's 1st Speech to Buyer Agents 31 yrs ago
31 years ago, Ralph Nader delivered his first speech to the New England Association of Buyer Agents. In retrospect, it was a "Coming of Age" for buyer agents and an occasion Nader used to call for a consumer movement in housing.
Unfortunately, since then, buyer agency has been coopted and the affordable housing crisis generated more headlines than housing units.
So, while The Boston Globe Spotlight focuses on the housing crisis we'll invite fellow real estate consumer advocates to aggregate content to take take our message directly to consumers - both homebuyers and sellers across Massachusetts.
Over the next 50 days, we hope to aggregate and share content here and on social media from our peers. If we do that twice daily, that will generate 100 updates over next 50 days.
Why 100? That number reflects the magnitude of potential consumer savings EVERY month across Massachusetts -- a stunning $100 million per month - from one of the massive class action lawsuits against the real estate cartel, aka #RECartel.
Why 50 days? There are 50 days till the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and as in the past we'll use that date to talk about throwing real estate commissions overboard.
This year it's not a question of whether that will happen, it's whether the proposed #MLSpinSettlement and others will deliver BILLIONS annually in consumer savings - as is the Department of Justice's goal.
Our hope is to help homebuyers and sellers learn how they can get their piece of those savings, and we look forward to interviewing some of them for this series.
Please contact us if you'd like to be interviewed.
19 Jul 2023
FLASHBACK: May 2022, has full-blown price correction run its course?
Recorded May 2022, does the uptick in prices being reported 13 months after this recording signal the end of #PriceCorrection2022 or a seasonal distortion before heading into a deeper downtown? Taking a #RETimeOut waiting for more data that will reveal #SummerSlump2023?
26 Oct 2022
30 years after buyer agency movement co-opted, is stage set for long-overdue Consumer Movement in Housing?
October 28th marks the 30th anniversary of Ralph Nader's first speech to buyer agents. At the time, buyer agents were the rising stars of the real estate industry because they were committed to protecting and empowering millions of homebuyer clients, particularly first-time homebuyers. For the same reason, they represented a threat to the traditional real estate industry which leading consumer advocates like Steve Brobeck of the Consumer Federation of America called "an informal cartel (https://twitter.com/RealEstateCafe/status/1478865738094063625?s=20&t=yCxqT3p4eWa9RXwd3BgBiA)." Nader used the occasion to criticize the real estate cartel's attempt to co-opt the buyer agency movement by papering over conflicts of interest. He call blasted dual agents and designated agents, calling them the "language of hypocrisy." Nonetheless, within a few years, conflicts of interests were normalized in the real estate industry as traditional brokerages competed to collect both sides of the commission.
Fast-forward to the pandemic-driven Great Real Estate Panic. Without checks and balances in the housing market, homebuyers waived contingencies and normalized overpaying for properties. At the peak, 1 in 6 homebuyers paid $100,000 over asking price across Massachusetts. Even before prices began to decline this Fall, 1 in 3 homebuyers already admit they overpaid (https://twitter.com/RealEstateCafe/status/1569698075068751874?s=20&t=yCxqT3p4eWa9RXwd3BgBiA) and buyers remorse is running at 70% among Millennial homebuyers.
How did we get here and what can be done to protect homebuyers from another boom / bust cycle? Listen to this retrospective and add your own thoughts about creating a Homebuyer Bill of Rights (https://twitter.com/RealEstateCafe/status/1567176874412974080?s=20&t=yCxqT3p4eWa9RXwd3BgBiA) and a long-overdue Consumer Movement in Housing. Nader called for that 30 years ago, and a recent article in The Economist suggests that coming political storms might be an opportunity to mobilize a consumer backlash against the #RECartel.
What's your take?
https://bit.ly/Detonate_BillOfRights (https://bit.ly/Detonate_BillOfRights)
Contact #RE2020: Disrupt Real Estate
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of #RE2020: Disrupt Real Estate?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
