end of an era for Manhattan Loft Guy / a new day dawns?

evolution, not revolution
As I look back out how this blog has evolved over the last 25 months, one of the most interesting (to me) things I have done is to put in context what is going on in a particular building or street — what lofts have sold for (or not) and in what condition, compared to lofts that are now available for sale. Specific information that has been based on inter-firm data or public sources. I suspect that such posts have been of the most interest to you readers, as well.

In the Happy Talk world of Manhattan real estate promotion, I thought that these posts stood out. Based on feedback from readers, they seemed to be valuable.

But I won’t be commenting on specific current listings in that way any more. Indeed, over the next several days I will be stripping out past content that talks about specific Manhattan loft listings newly available for sale, or just back on the market, or had a price change, or recent contracts, or upcoming open houses.

in brief
The short story is that an agent who believes that a post of mine that put in context a specific listing (comparing it to other sales or non-sales in the same building) "cost them a deal", which led to some conversations between that firm’s Chief Operating Officer and mine, including reference to language in the uniform co-brokerage agreement that REBNY members all sign that arguably prohibits any REBNY agent from saying anything in public about anyone else’s listing. I don’t know the facts about any connection between my blog post and the buyer’s decision, but it is not hard to see that a seller, an agent and a listing firm would be pretty upset about a lost deal.

Long time readers with good memories will remember I blogged about a complaining Angry Agent 15 months ago (Jan 16, 2007, please don’t bite the blogger), which generated a short dialogue about whether it was permissible under REBNY’s code of ethics for me to comment like that. I read my ethical obligations as permitting me to comment so long as I didn’t do such bad things as be misleading or to denigrate the listing or the competing agent. Hence, I have tried in all my comments to be factual — critical in the sense of analytical rather than in the sense of negative, while making connections between various strands of data. (Whether I have ever crossed the line in making a snarky comment or not, it has always been my intention to be critical-not-negative.) If that sounds sanctimonious to you, so be it — but it is accurate.

I had checked the REBNY Code of Ethics way back when because I wanted to do things right, knowing that making any comments was both unconventional (at least within the industry) and potentially controversial. Indeed, I tried to find all the limitations that could apply to my blogging, but did not come across the REBNY co-brokerage agreement until now.

burning bridges is not  a business plan
Much as I think that past MLG posts have been both useful for members of the public and accepted by some REBNY agents, this is a collaborative business. My sellers are not helped if agents are mad at me for talking about their listings and so won’t bring their buyers to my listings. My buyers are not helped if I don’t get calls returned trying to set appointments to see the listings of agents who are mad at me because of my blog.

Not to mention that my firm is not very excited about being penalized for my blog, potentially to include loss of co-brokerage within REBNY.

So I am going to stop doing that about current listings. And I am going to begin to strip from the archives comments about still pending listings, while (probably) replacing the old post with a standard comment about why What Was There is no longer there.

Of course there is a longer story to go with this (somewhat) brief recap. You can be sure that I will comment further on that in the days ahead, in my typically verbose way.

not the end of Rico (or of MLG)
While this will continue to be a distraction for me (especially in scrubbing the archives), I will continue to post and will — over time — figure out ways to try to be useful. I will write more about listings as they close (a somewhat dated view of The Market, but valid nonetheless) and will continue with posts that don’t involve specific listings (such as my weekly review of new listings and closed sales by price and neighborhood, and inventory). It will be awkward at first, at least for me. But I will keep slogging (not a typo, btw). I hope you will stick around.


© Sandy Mattingly 2008