When you sat down to write this article, you must have thought, although the idea is great, how many Realtors out there would have the nerve to charge for the information? As you said, lawyers do and so do appraisers who use our information to compile their appraisal.
The final figures are not out yet, but to Jan. 28, 2005, there were 1,182 sales in my area, compared to 4,428 agents in the system. Let’s see, that works out to .27 sales per agent, or 3.75 sales agents per sale. My numbers might be out by a bit, but you can see that nobody would dare charge for a listing presentation if they thought they would lose a potential deal.
Yes, we truly have shot ourselves in the foot and it will continue to happen so long as the existing situation exists.

R.D. ‘Bob’ McDonald
Keller Williams Realty South
Calgary