Remember when Mark Twain's trickster-hero Tom Sawyer is given the irksome chore of whitewashing his auntie's fence? Tom would much prefer to let someone else do it. To achieve that, he pretends to enjoy the job so much that his friends want some of the fun. They beg Tom to let them help, to paint a few strokes at least. Tom refuses, then finally gives in - on the condition that his friends pay him for the privilege of painting the fence.
Tom Sawyer's innocent con game has become the big business model of the twenty-first century. It's called GOOGLE, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and ebay. And now www.realprivate.com.au!
The genius of them all is what is respectfully called user-generated content. All are founded on the premise that users will do all the "work" and even pay for the privilege.
Statistics show that over 70% of buyer enquiries come from online property websites, the biggest being www.realestate.com.au. Access to this website is jealously guarded by commission-charging real estate agents who are the only ones allowed to advertise on it.
www.realprivate.com.au are licensed real estate agents who, for a small fee, allow private sellers to present and sell their homes directly on www.realestate.com.au without paying any further commission. How do they do it? They get the private sellers to conduct their own property inspections - after all who is better qualified or knows their property better than the sellers?
The www.realprivate.com.au website has already sold 1177 properties and another 558 are currently listed for sale (including mine). At an average listing fee of $500, that's $867,500 for letting other people whitewash this particular fence!
Tom Sawyer, eat your heart out!
P.S. I may not be able to write anything for the next few days as the wife has asked me to assist her in organising a one-day seminar for the NWICOE - see here.
