Fresh off failing to push an Open MLS designed by his company onto unsuspecting public, Dave Barry wants to change the real estate lead generation industry … or at least make a buck.

Somehow, I don’t see where there’s a lack of competition. Here’s today’s entry fresh from my Inbox:

Are you doing everything to make sure your pipeline for 2008 is full and it is your best sales year ever? You might consider joining [lead geneation company].com’s marketing program. Work with leads coming directly from our national television commercials shown on CNN, MSNBC, TLC, and other cable channels.

We need real estate professionals to contact and close our leads today. Let us send the customer’s address and phone number directly to you. Exclusive lead programs start at only $200 per month. Remember, this is an advertising expense and you may get tax benefit from the program.

First, I might consider it … but I also might not. I vote for the latter.  Second, at least the e-mail spells out the difference in signing up at $200 a month or lighting two benjamins on fire every month: The former may carry with it a tax benefit.

Reading this company’s site they seem to specialize in conning educating the public about the wads of cash to be made in the foreclosure market. eBooks include tomes on flipping houses “fast & cheap” and buying homes at “bargain prices.”

I’m thinking the same invest the cash/light it on fire debate applies to the public side as well.

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As a tool to sell houses - at least the houses in which they are held - open houses are fairly useless. The appearance of activity doesn’t  mean actual activity is taking place.

Those who find the most success holding open houses do so not in selling the homes they are presumably trying to sell but rather in capturing buyers for other nearby listings and in getting listings from neighbors impressed by how hard these intrepid agents allegedly are working.

Watch enough sales strategy tapes and you’ll see that most of the advice given has nothing to do with the actual house being held open. The house is a vehicle for the agent to add to their sphere of contacts.

Whatever.

It strikes me, though, that if you are going to use a home you’re listing as a vehicle to attract business from the neighbors then you ought not insult those same neighbors.

Over lunch with a past client, she told me she had visited an open house two doors down. When she went to introduce herself the agent said something akin to, “I know who you are. You’re the ones who drove down all the property values here.”

Well now …

It’s probably not coincidence that the agent owns a home around the corner from my clients. I’ve written in the past that it’s not always the best idea to list your homes with agents who live in your subdivision; you hope they’re professional but you never know if they’re calculating their own property value in the back of their head as they list your home.

(This isn’t an issue if you’re in my neighborhood … I’m never going to move again so, frankly, your one sale now isn’t going to make much difference to my estate in a few decades.)

Whose interests are you representing when you hold open a house with the intent of gathering buyers and future listings?

Whose interests are you representing when you stubbornly hold to 2005 prices in hopes of maintaining your own paper gains even in the face of overwhelming evidence the market has changed?

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The short version:

1) turn control of the local Multiple Listing Services to area brokers instead of de facto requiring membership to effectively perform the business.

2) Stop making ridiculous predictions about the direction of the market and simply report the numbers, allowing those reading to make their own conclusions.

For the longer version check out my debut post on NAR Wisdom.

Editor’s note: For those keeping tabs, that’s blog posts on six different blogs over two days’ time: three of my own, NAR Wisdom, Agent Genius and the Phoenix Real Estate Technology Exchange.

Have no fear. I intend to continue ignoring the sage wisdom about the rules of blogging and writing whatever happens to be on mind that I believe has some level of merit, even if that merit comes solely in tweaking UA or UT grads.

Still, there are some forums that make more sense for certain posts and there are owners who are kind enough to share their platform with me. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of their generosity in providing some of their server space.

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