The Rate your Realtor program is simply a bad idea.

Let’s just look at the results of two large organizations, the California Association of Realtors and the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards. Quebec set up a new designation or certification program called Quality Service Certification for Realtors and to get this certification you must take a course that costs $175 and an annual fee of $60.  I don’t quite understand the logic of developing another level of certification, other than for revenue generating purposes. Why not just incorporate the program in the current licensing requirements?

The Quebec program started in the fall 2011 and to date has only 10 per cent of the Realtors participating in the program with little change in numbers over the last five months.

The California program started in January 2011 and approximately 5,000 Realtors of 158,000 or just over three per cent are actually participating in the program. Participation numbers that are, in my opinion, not very impressive, although it is early in the game.  Both organizations have chosen to use the same independent survey company and report a very high response rate to their questionnaires – 34 per cent in Quebec and 20.15 per cent in California. Both organizations have also reported a very high consumer “satisfied” or “very satisfied” rate of between 95 and 96 per cent. In both organizations a poor rating from the consumer was negligible. The rating system is out of five with five being very satisfied.

CREA is contemplating a similar program with their stated benefits being that there will be a “greater transparency and openness “and this somehow will improve “trust and confidence in Realtors”. CREA also thinks the consumers’ comments will provide an “intelligence gathering mechanism regarding consumers’ priorities and concerns”. I am not sure how they can judge one consumer’s reaction to the service of a specific Realtor as a reflection of how Realtors provide services in general. So why do I think the Rate your Realtor concept doesn’t work?

I think the concept is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:

1. The data that is presented lacks integrity because the Realtor who has the client and the broker who provides the data can influence the results. The Realtor can influence the client to provide a high rating, knowing that they will be receiving the so called independent survey, or by manipulating the data that is actually sent to the independent survey company. I suggest to you it is already happening if response rates to questionnaires without any incentive to respond is at somewhere between 20.15 to 34 per cent. If the rating system lacks integrity, do we think this system will improve the consumers “trust and confidence in Realtors”?

2. Without 100 per cent participation by the brokerages or Realtors, which neither the Quebec federation nor California association has even come close to achieving, what kind of message does this send to the consumer? That only those Realtors that are rated on these sites are the good ones? That a Realtor who has an average rating of 4.5 is better than the Realtor who is rated a 4? I hardly think so!

3. Doesn’t the design of the program place undue pressure on Realtors and brokerages alike to participate in the program, lest the consumer may think that the Realtor was not worthy of a rating?

4. Is there not a confidentiality aspect to giving emails to third-party organizations that will send surveys to our clients? Who is sending the data to the third-party survey organization?

So let’s make a big assumption that CREA is successful and gets 100 per cent participation and also let’s assume that the current results obtained in Quebec and California are an accurate representation of what we can expect from our survey, which would mean that most Realtors are going to have a rating of about 4.5 to 4.75, and as in California, 87.5 per cent will receive a 5. Wow!

So what have we accomplished here? Does anyone actually think the quality of service is going to go up because there is a rating system? I have been a broker of record and managing other Realtors for over 27 years and I can’t honestly say that I ever met a Realtor who tried to provide their client with bad service! I am not saying that a small percentage did not provide bad service. I am saying they did not try to do it. A rating system is not going to improve service, but education and regulation will.

Realtors are not going to try harder to improve their rating – they’re going to manipulate the data to get higher ratings. The ultimate weeding out of poor Realtors is the market and sometimes the regulators. Either Realtors provide good service or they have no business, or in some very rare cases, the regulators will take their license where warranted.

Let’s save a whole lot of dollars and time and not build a rating system that lacks integrity and in my opinion, will not effectively accomplish any of the goals it was designed to do.

Vito Campanale

Broker of Record

Century 21 First Canadian

London, Ont.