REALTOR bloggers should watch their words

Some agents and brokers have adopted blogging as a method for marketing their services, and reaching the wide audience of people looking for information on the Internet. When doing this, be careful what you say.

A real estate broker in Irvine California (who is not a REALTOR) recently got into hot water with a local Association of REALTORS over some statements that he made on his blog.

Larry Roberts disparaged professional real estate agents by blogging about how they failed to tell homebuyers about the price risks related to purchasing real estate. He did not call out any salesperson in his statements.

Nevertheless, the Orange County Association of REALTORS felt that Robert’s comments were a violation of the REALTOR code of ethics and followed their process for handling concerns of this nature.

Interestingly enough, Roberts is not a member of the Orange County Association of REALTORS, who called him to attend a disciplinary hearing for violating the ethics code. Furthermore, Roberts took offence to being summoned to appear at what he terms “the OCR secret court.” Roberts had his attorney reply to OCA indicating that they have overstepped their bounds.

The lesson here is that what you say in public has consequences, especially if you are a REALTOR. In another example, there was a massive outcry over REALTOR ethics earlier this year involving two REALTORS who were both using a variation of the word Zebra in their marketing and branding. Not only were those two REALTORS at odds, but a slew of other agents picked sides and joined in the battle – which was loudly debated on blogs, Facebook, twitter, at conferences…..everywhere!

As REALTORS, the code of ethics is something that we hold core to our beliefs in our professional conduct. That includes the quality of service we provide to clients, the relationships that we have with our fellow real estate agents, and importantly the information we publish about our industry. Remember the old proverb… if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it.