{"id":321182,"date":"2025-11-27T08:25:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T08:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/friday-flash-whoops-1000watt\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T08:25:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T08:25:38","slug":"friday-flash-whoops-1000watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=321182","title":{"rendered":"Friday Flash: Whoops | 1000watt"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

There\u2019s right and wrong, there\u2019s the law, and then there\u2019s appearances.<\/p>\n

Or \u201coptics,\u201d as we say now.<\/p>\n

Whether you think they\u2019re A-OK or seriously shady (believe me, I am well-versed in both arguments), or however you interpret the law, undisclosed referral fees are indisputably bad optics<\/em>. Especially given\u2026 ahem \u2026 events of the past few years.<\/p>\n

So, could we possibly imagine a dumber act than last week\u2019s NAR board action (via something called a \u201cdelegate body\u201d) to overturn a vote mandating the disclosure of referral fees?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m struggling to bring one to mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inman\u2019s headline was: \u201cRealtors reject proposal to require disclosure of more referral fees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

My headline: \u201cSecretive NAR body votes to keep hiding compensation information from consumers in breathtaking self-immolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

This vote happened at the very same event where NAR leaders threw everything they had at reclaiming trust, relevance, and less vulnerable legal ground. Instead, the board rang the dinner bell for America\u2019s plaintiff\u2019s attorneys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whoops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This episode underscores the core truth of NAR\u2019s dilemma: However smart and well-intentioned its new staff execs are, however full of ideas they may be, the institution is structurally unsound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been very impressed with Nykia Wright, but have come to believe that you could have Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs, or Joan of Arc in the CEO post, and it would be all for naught without a major structural rehab.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t seem to be forthcoming. What a bummer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2026
This story from Inman <\/em>a couple weeks back is a harbinger:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

I wrote a few weeks ago that I think AI will increase <\/em>Realtor numbers<\/a>, not decrease them, because AI makes many things an agent does easier.<\/p>\n

Marketing is at the top of the list. Soon everyone<\/em> will have their marketing and content machines running at full-tilt, slicing, dicing, jump-cutting, dancing, mimicking, repurposing and algorithmically optimizing for maximum \u2026 something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to work for a while longer. But eventually we\u2019ll have something like a marketing and content crash. The audience will be cooked. Millions of light rings and little fuzzy microphones will be bulldozed into landfills. Amid the cleared landscape will remain, newly prominent, the towers of enduring meaning: brands, professional skill, and differentiated value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I know. A touch dramatic. And it\u2019s not like I don\u2019t view digital\/social marketing as valuable. My point: When everyone is telling you \u201cmore, more, more!\u201d it\u2019s probably good to take a beat to think a few steps ahead.<\/p>\n

\u2026.<\/p>\n

So, speaking of bad optics, Zillow\u2019s getting sued a lot. Zillow haters are loving this, including Andy Florance, who spent a disproportionate amount of time talking about Z on his Q3 earnings call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a legal expert, obviously. So I have no idea as to the merits of the lawsuits, which center on purported RESPA violations around Zillow Mortgage and Zillow Flex (now \u201cPreferred\u201d) teams, and those pesky undisclosed referral fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What I do know is this: Zillow\u2019s leaders, a) aren\u2019t dumb, b) certainly retain some of America\u2019s finest legal talent, and, c) haven\u2019t been acting as if they\u2019re worried about either of these issues.<\/p>\n

On this last point, do we really think Zillow would anchor its present \u201cSuperapp\u201d\/enhanced market strategy on a referral fee model if they didn\u2019t feel extremely confident about its legal durability?<\/p>\n

Do we think Zillow would publish its Flex team requirements publicly<\/a> if they thought they were legally vulnerable?
We\u2019ll see how it plays out. But litigation is a cost of doing business \u2014 sometimes a big one.<\/p>\n

Enjoy your weekend.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s right and wrong, there\u2019s the law, and then there\u2019s appearances. Or \u201coptics,\u201d as we say now. Whether you think they\u2019re A-OK or seriously shady (believe me, I am well-versed in both arguments), or however you interpret the law, undisclosed referral fees are indisputably bad optics. Especially given\u2026 ahem \u2026 events of the past few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20818,2368,6989,94159],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-321182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-1000watt","tag-flash","tag-friday","tag-whoops"],"yoast_head":"\nFriday Flash: Whoops | 1000watt - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=321182\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday Flash: Whoops | 1000watt - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s right and wrong, there\u2019s the law, and then there\u2019s appearances. 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