Crowsourcing is the process of arriving at the best solution by aggregating information from a large number of sources. Crowdsourcing works because, apparently, human beings are smarter as a group than any one of us is individually.
The Internet is an excellent medium for crowdsourcing because it can accept input from so many people. One local real estate board is making use of the Internet’s crowdsourcing capabilities to raise the bar professionally.
The Houston Association of Realtors® (HAR) has created a Client Experience Rating system, which uses information from the “crowd” to assess the performance of real estate professionals. At the conclusion of each transaction, buyers and sellers are invited to rate their agent. Clients are asked to rate their agents on competency, on the agent’s knowledge of the market, on how well the agent communicated with the client during the process, and on the client’s overall experience. Clients area also allowed write free-form comments about their agent, and about their buying or selling experience.
HAR complies these surveys and gives each agent a score (e.g., 4.8 stars out of 5). Agent’s scores are then posted in a number of places on the HAR website, including on the agent’s web page and alongside his or her MLS listings. Prospective clients can see the agent’s score, and can know many transactions that agent has completed before hiring him or her. At some point, the Houston Association of Realtors® plans to allow clients to search for agents by score, which will, no doubt, reward better agents over time and weed out weaker ones.
Crowdsourcing has allowed Wikipedia to become a bigger, more vibrant encyclopedia than any paper reference book could ever be. Crowdsourcing has the potential to raise the stakes for the real estate profession as well.
