Loomio
Tue 21 May 2019 2:30PM

Is RE industry at a turning point, should we document transition with exhibit?

BW Bill Wendel Public Seen by 168

Tom Wemett is one of the gifted members of this peer-to-peer group, and I’d like to use his birthday to ask for your feedback on an idea starter. From my perspective (and as evidenced by the UPDATE below), the industry has reached a turning point, see blog post:

http://bit.ly/reMarathon_1Q2019

Others may not agree but it’s important to step back and ask, how did we get here? That means recording changes over the past 25+ years — the history of how the digital era and abandonment of the common law of Agency have changed the real estate industry. How that story is told would likely vary by funding source. For example, if the Ralph Nader-inspired Tort Museum in Connecticut funded the exhibit, it would focus on fiduciary duties. If the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley funded it, it would focus on tech-enabled changes and tech-toys. If the Harvard Business School or MIT’s Center for Real Estate (now hosting their World Real Estate Forum) funded exhibits, they’d have other slants.

CROWDSOURCING: My assumption is that we all have documents & gadgets that we could put on a digital timeline to start creating a timeline. Should we be content to do a retrospective or look forward, too?

In the absence of a final report from the FTC / DOJ inquiry last year, we could do their work for them by looking backwards and then forward. Thinking of revisiting my own public comment, and believe Tom Wemett submitted two. Should we turn them it into something more dynamic, ie. A roadmap for reform, a real estate manifesto, or tools for real estate consumers to achieve better outcomes by knowing how the real estate cards are stacked against them? Those are Tom Wemett’s words — the subtitle of his book, hence my desire to float this idea starter on his birthday!

https://tomwemett.com/

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UPDATE:

To underline the importance of this turning point, encourage everyone to scan the headline below. Rather than biasing your read with my own observations (at least for now), will simply ask what stands out for you?

The Department of Justice Demands CoreLogic Turn Over Documents and Answer Questions

http://bit.ly/REDemandDOJ