High Rankings

REALTOR® Magazine tackles agent ratings and reputation in their March issue.  Here’s a snip of the coverage of AgentRank.com:

One site, still in beta testing, is AgentRank. Its rankings are composed of up to 25 data points. When you sign up to be evaluated, you provide information on your professional network, client endorsements, sales history, market forecast, blogs, experience, and designations. AgentRank is a sister site to RealtyBaron, a Web site that matches practitioners with consumers; practitioners pay a fee if the transaction closes.       

At AgentRank, real estate practitioners invite their customers and clients to post reviews, explains founder Marc Dugger. Negative reviews aren’t posted, but they do go into the overall evaluation, he says. “It’s not about tearing down agents or pointing the finger; it’s really about elevating great agents,” says Dugger. “No one is searching the Web for a bad agent.” 

Browsing these sites, it’s clear they’re not yet ready for prime time. A quick search at AgentRank of Dallas ZIP code 75204 shows five practitioners, only one of which has posted a photograph. The first—with a ranking of 9 out of 10—had no client recommendations, market forecasts, blogs, sales, or other information posted, just an invitation to visit her Web site.

The author pans us at the end.  And we probably deserve it for ranking an empty profile so high.  However, a major overhaul of how rankings are distributed is under development and will prevent the scenario she describes above.

Website traffic was up 4,996.43% yesterday after the Associated Press included AgentRank.com in a round-up of real estate agent review web sites:

AgentRank, for example, launched in March and remains in its beta stage of development. The company brews agent rankings through a complex recipe. Put simply, it bakes all kinds of variables into an agent’s profile — recent sales history, client reviews, experience, average days homes stay on market, among others — and assigns them secret values that are then pumped through an algorithm that distills everything down to a rank between one and 10, with 10 being the best.  Visitors can search for agents by ZIP code or city and state, and they receive a list of agents ranked in descending order.  A key component of AgentRank and similar sites is the gathering of testimonials from agents’ clients.  What better way of ranking agents than by the number of positive reviews from past clients?  The site tells agents they can improve their ranking if they “close deals and make your clients happy.”  Currently, agents solicit testimonials from their clients to place on the site. But that will change by next spring, when the site begins accepting unsolicited reviews, says AgentRank.com chief executive Marc Dugger.  A search of agents in Los Angeles on AgentRank turned up only 15, which is a precious few.  Dugger acknowledges the site is a work in progress. It has profiles for up to 5,000 agents spread out nationwide, which can lead to some regions having more than others, he notes.  Ultimately, relying on referrals from friends or relatives doesn’t always work out, Dugger insists.  ”People are very quick to hire an agent based on a single referral, but the power of these reviews are the fact that you get to see a pattern of success for an agent,” Dugger says. “There are some agents that have upward of 15 to 20 reviews on the site, and that, in my opinion, would instill great confidence in that agent.” 

Overall, a solid review.