Steve Belt finally figured it out. Of course it took lunch with Heather Barr to be convinced that there was little reason to be a contributor to Trulia Voices; why he didn’t come to this conclusion based on my incredibly persuasive arguments the world may never know.

Steve has decided to stop participating in Trulia Voices, the free-for-all where buyers and sellers who want the advice real estate agents can provide but don’t want to have to pay said agents for said advice can ask whatever questions they choose. Answers about local real estate here in Phoenix amazingly often come from the West Coast, from New Orleans and from other areas where Arrowhead Ranch neighborhood experts are laying in wait like sleeper agents.

(My favorite moment was when someone in California was arguing that their knowledge of real estate in general qualified them as an expert in Casa Grande. Sure it does.)

Jay Thompson is following suit. Bully to both.

A large percentage of answers are of the “ask your agent” derivative, ignoring that if these folks had agents they wouldn’t be on Trulia looking for free advice. Other answers pay no heed to small details such as Fair Housing laws. And others have no basis in reality.

Some answers are dead on … you usually can tell these by the “thumbs down” votes from agents who believe “call your agent and if you don’t have one call me” is the best answer to virtually any question.

The product we as agents sell is ourselves, our knowledge and our expertise. When you have someone asking for a valuation of their home, as happened the other day, why does it make sense to answer the question? Especially without ever seeing the property? If they want a blind guess send them to Zillow. You’re not going to win any business this way. And if you do it’s based off the list price you’re suggesting which is a no-win way to compete.

Back on target …

Trulia could fix the problem in an instant. Stop counting the number of questions asked. Stop counting the number of answers given. Stop highlighting how many “first answers” someone has and how many “best answers” someone has.

Just stop counting and the problem will go away. It’s a remarkably easy fix.

Until then, let’s hope some others see Voices for the farce it has become and join Steve, Jay and I on the sidelines.

P.S. Taking your answer you would have posted on Voices and posting it on your blog is a tremendous idea. I should know.

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For the record, it’s impossible to relate just how happy Tobey is that I don’t send monthly postcards to my farm areas anymore.

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Sales over the preceding 30 days moved closer to the 2,000-mark, well below any 30-day period so far this year. Inventory in the Phoenix real estate market also has climbed above 41,000 single-family detached homes, leading to an absorption rate just shy of 20 months.

I’ve talked in the past of phantom inventory - homes priced so far above prevailing market trends so as to be virtually unsellable. Not that this prevents many sellers from convincing many agents to “just try” a certain price and reduce later.

This way of conducting business came up during a relocation certification class I attended this morning. It was mentioned that the great relocation gods that be check to see what percentage of listing presentations convert into actual listings. It is fear of this percentage which likely leads agents to inflate suggested list prices; I decided a while back that I’ve got no use for overpriced inventory on my own sheet of listings.

Many agents will suggest a higher price and include automatic price reductions. Having done that before getting smarter, what usually happens is the seller begins spending the dollars from the higher list price and ignoring the time you spend telling them their house will not sell at their desired list price.

While phantom inventory is one issue, bogus and fully-invented list pricing is another issue at this point in time. I’ll be attacking this on a later post but there’s a growing trend as short sales increase to place low list prices on homes knowing full well the bank may not ever accept even a full price offer. How this is allowed to continue, I have no idea.

Then again, our Arizona Regional MLS also puts time shares in with the regular property entries. Such is life.

As always, you can click on any marker for details in the given town or city. And also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Definitely not guaranteed.

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Apparently something may be in the works with Redfin’s essentially dormant “consumer bill of rights” more commonly known as the Redfin employment and venture capital justification act.

A reporter from CNNMoney.com called this morning to ask me a few questions about the Bill of Rights. Sadly, I didn’t have what I’d written in the past in front of me in my car and I ended up winging it. Having been in the business myself, I know our five-minute conversation will be strained to a couple of sentences max.

(This was the first time I heard one of my quotes coming back to me out of context before it ever reached print … the reporter rephrased his paraphrase after I called him on it.)

Since this initiative has been all-but-dead for months I couldn’t figure out what the news angle would be. We’re still at a whopping 25 signers of the bill of rights, leaving us a little short of what our Founding Fathers came up with once upon a time.

I was told “Redfin and NAR are going to be talking about this” sometime in the next week, thus the fresh angle on the otherwise deceased quadruped. Given NAR’s tendency toward protectionism (such as this spring’s “successful” effort to ban the rebate real estate model in Tennessee) rather than supporting at least the concept of any business model and letting Darwinian evolution take over, I can’t wait to see what would come from such a conversation.

When the story posts I’ll add the link.

Fellow agents may feel free to use the comments to explain how they declined the request for an interview and that I really was the 178th choice.

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As loyal readers of this blog (and thanks to all four of my readers from the very bottom of my heart), you probably have noticed the paucity of entries over the past few weeks. You’ve also probably noticed that I’m trying to make up for this in some way by utilizing impressive words such as paucity.

Time has been short of late which in real estate often is a mixed blessing. It seems that real estate agents often find themselves busy with little purpose or reward. Such is the life when you’re working on a contingency basis. (I have a friend who’s a patent attorney who often is in the same situation, though his percentages are better. Where’s Ralph Nader to complain about the checks earned by patent attorneys?)

Some of the gap has been caused by a general dark mood which started when I read a comment on a bubble blog by an attorney comparing the “sleaze” factor among real estate agents vs. attorneys. He maintained we were much sleazier - all the while billing some client in a 6-minute increment for the gray matter thus expended.

My wife spends most days bemoaning her commute and I’m sympathetic, having made the same trip myself for eight years once upon a time. But then came the tale end of last week. Friday was Avondale. Saturday was Glendale, my home, to Scottsdale to east Mesa  to south Tempe then back to Glendale then back to Tempe then back to Glendale. (The latter portion was for the ASU game so consider those personal miles.) Sunday was back to Avondale and then to Peoria. Today was Scottsdale and back.

Suddenly I miss my 20-mile commute.

All of that time spent in the car means time I can’t spend on the blog. Oddly enough, I’ve been fielding more calls and leads over the past three weeks than I have in a while. Some, like last week’s Canadian residents confusing a Super Bowl-rental with an actual mansion for sale for $100,000, were off the mark while others have inquired about seasonal rentals in Westbrook Village and elsewhere.

Right now, my attention is being drawn to a pumpkin with flies in it. Why there are flies in the pumpkin, I can’t say. But that also will pull me away from the blog.

In short, the blog is a wonderful thing. If anything I feel some pangs of guilt because this has been my lightest posting week on record. Still, with a little luck and avoidance of comments from silly lawyers, we’ll be back on the ball by tomorrow.

Oh wait … that’s all-day relocation training.

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