Basically a ratings and review engine for real estate agents.

incredibleagents.com

I like the concept but the coverage is pretty weak right now.

Has it gained any traction in the industry? I looked up a few agents and noticed that they didn't have any ratings/reviews on any of them.

Do they have any major competitors who are doing the same thing?

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Its been around for a year or so, I haven't seen much happen.....I don't like the concept, it will probably fizil out. I don't see alot of people researching the agent online, I would say only 1% would type in a name. and find out if they are a good agent. Plus how many people are acually going to rate the person, so you would need at least to people to rate the same person what are the chances of that. Plus the site doesn't rank well in the first place.

Also if I am a crapy agent not that I am, the last thing I would want people to do is write a reveiw about me.

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Two points about this site:

• You're on it whether you want to be or not.
• The law of averages dictates the more business you do, the more likely someone is to have a grievance with you at some point (even from the side of the transaction you're not representing).

I have not signed up on this site, nor had any reviews been entered last I looked, but I've been getting emails from them once or twice a month. The following, received Saturday, starts out:
An agent could, of course, do as IA suggests and ask their clients go to the site and review .

I also don’t like the concept and I don’t support it. It is very manipulative; anyone can add anything they want. I just looked at NJ and there are 3 reviews on first page, one good and two very bad ones. One of them got 3 reviews on the same day stating that the agent had stolen the client’s husband and the others stating shed had s..x with their partners. Weird stuff and very fishy since were posted on the same day.

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Hmmm. Interesting counterpoints. Although, as a consumer, don't you feel that ratings and reviews are valuable when making a purchase decision?

Take Amazon for example....one of the best features they have are products ratings and reviews by real customers. Do you think that the manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic, Samsung etc oppose this service? After all, anyone can post anything. The good products are reinforced with positive reviews. The bad products are called out with negative reviews.

However, it s true that these sites need a critical mass to be successful, both from a user value standpoint and an accuracy standpoint. No reviews=no value. If an agent only has one review and it's negative, does that mean that agent is poor? Possibly, but unlikely. In order for this to catch on, the end user has to have some kind of incentive to post a favorable review about a particular agent.

That's the tricky part. Why would users spend time to write positive reviews of their agent? Why do people write positive reviews at all? I think part of the reason is self-validation. It makes people feel like they made the right decision.

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Yes and off course ratings and reviews are valuable for consumers. Actually, I always buy books from Amazon based on reviews. What I meant was that I don’t support any type of agents review and that’s because it is manipulative. It isn't common to see Motorola giving bad reviews on a Samsung’s gadget or an author bad reviewing another author’s book on Amazon. However, in real estate there are many unscrupulous and unprofessional agents out there that would do anything to destroy his/her competitor. They also may ask their whole family/friends to give them good reviews. That said, I don’t think any of these systems to review agents would be credible for consumers, I wish it could though.

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It has been shown that the reviews on Amazon are written by the authors, editors and publishers so don't take much stock in what they say. Why would someone go back to Amazon and write a glowing review after they read the book a month later?

These types of sites just open the door for competition and vengeful dipsticks to hurt innocent people.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=57&aid=70463

http://www.intuitive.com/blog/buyer_...amazoncom.html

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/monsonh...com_revie.html

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Thanks Bigtoe for the information. I guess I should be more cautious when buying from Amazon.

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On another note, these sites are the reason I have my name in google alerts. If someone tries to sabotage my business I want to know about it immediately.

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I think the network effect makes IA.com and many other rating sites worthless.

The value in amazon, netflix, etc ratings is that they have a decent amount of participation. I can read 10 or more reviews on most books that I come across.

Also, the reviews on some like netflix are from people who like other movies that I like so the reviews can be considered useful.

Lastly, the review type sites have mostly been focused on commodities. Agents have good days, bad days, etc. Just because they did good in one area on one buyer or seller doesn't mean that they will do good for a different buyer or in a different area.

My 2 cents.

joe

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