Barbie Takes a Bite (Again!)

“Redfin has sometimes been characterized as the anti-realtor”

Gee, ya think? Take a look at this post and ask yourself why.

This post is utterly ridiculous. You’re going to bash an agent, including name-calling, becasue she mentions your change in business model?

I hope you treat your clients better than you treat fellow professionals.

Have you met Kris Berg? She’s one of the nicest, most caring and compassionate people I know. And she’s a damn fine real estate agent too.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

As seen on Twitter:

“Wow, My respect for Redfin and Carol D Hian, has gone down signficanty. Good thing these post come back to bite the author, hard.”

And no, I didn’t write it.

Word travels swiftly when one inserts foot deep into mouth.

Talk about an empty post…

All you did in this post was trash another agent for having a canned food drive and donating the food to a food bank. Maybe instead of whining like a three you old you could do a can opener drive…

And then to do all of this crying because you got called out over changing your business plan is seriously petty. $20m in venture capital, and you can’t even figure out how to actually make money yet… It seems the only thing you can figure out is that you needed to make your business model more tradition to even have a shot…

So much for turning the real estate world on its collective ear.

Although I have not met Kris and she has not met me, I have followed her blog and admire her writing and commentary. I have even gone out of my way to let her know that. But repeated biting makes one agitated and at a certain point it is necessary to bite back. My previous opinions aren’t changed. I will continue to appreciate Kris’ contributions but that does not mean I won’t speak up when she chooses to undermine ours.

“I am not a big fan of “competitor” bashing.” Then why did you go there? Kris gives of her time and intelligence daily to help other agents and her clients.

An attack on a successful food drive makes you sound petty and elitist, even if you aren’t. And the “party” versus a food drive line is too reminiscent of “let them eat cake”.

I’m going to brush my teeth now, you are the one who has left a bad taste in my mouth.

This is despicable on so many different levels that I don’t even know where to start, so I won’t even bother.

I think that Jon hit the nail squarely on it’s head.

I hate the kind of monkey-see-monkey-do cronyism that drives too much of the RE.net, but I can’t imagine what you were thinking by doing this. Your point, if any, is lost on me. Should the Bergs feed-the-people out of their own pockets, rather than by organizing a canned food drive? Should they have had a four-food-groups drive instead? I think you’re simply whining because Kris is a very talented writer.

I’m a very talented reader, so I want to draw your attention to two words in your post: “bitter herbs.” If this is not an anti-semitic jab, then you are even more thoughtless — a word in English that means “without having thought” — than this post would indicate.

You’re free to do what you want, and I’ll defend your right to do it, even the anti-semitism, but I cannot for the life of me conceive of an objective that would have been advanced by this artifact of the mind.

Looks like you don’t post track backs:

http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/the-most-asinine-real-estate-blog-post-ever/913

Bitter herbs an anti-Semitic jab? That Greg Swann– what a nebbish nincompoop.

This post makes me physically ill. It is not consistent with how those of us at Redfin who have met Kris Berg feel about her or her charitable activity. Kris is a wonderful human being and a credit to our profession.

We have a clear policy that the contractors who contribute local posts about the real estate market should focus only on the real estate market, not on competitors. We are clear with everyone with whom we work that Redfin works as a partner with other real estate brokers, not as an antagonist.

Had we known that Ms. Hian felt this way about Realtors, we would not have commissioned her to write for Redfin at all.

As much as we would like to, we cannot take the post down because it would be sneaky to do so. But we will take steps to ensure something like this never happens again.

I apologize on behalf of Redfin for this post, both to Kris Berg and to the real estate profession.
Regards, Glenn

I wrote this on Twitter, Jay, and will take full credit for it.

“Wow, My respect for Redfin and Carol D Hian, has gone down signficanty. Good thing these post come back to bite the author, hard.”

Reputation management is tough and will be a full time occupation. Carol knew what she was doing was not the smartest thing, if you question that why would she put up the caveat in the first sentence.

About the only way out now is to put up a full and complete apology and link to it very often.

We all make mistakes, it is human nature, just with Google these mistakes do not go away so quickly.

Nice job Miss Hian, in 1 ill-timed “Open Mouth/Insert Foot” moment, you have singlehandedly embarressed yourself, your company, and family of Bloggers who work hard to overcome just this type of “Trash”. I am sure your mother and your Boss are very proud of you today!

Not sure what state of mind you were in to think that you could start the post off by “I am not a big fan of “competitor” bashing” and then proceed to do just that. And on that superficial and distasteful level? Wow…

Much like a certain county assessor in Northern Virginia, you will quickly learn that the net NEVER forgets or erases what you’ve written.

I was going to say nothing publically, but I do want to briefly break my silence to say thank you to Glenn. I appreciate your comment and, while not directly related, I know you know that our differences have always been philisophical, never personal.

Barbie speaks!

wow, 32 comments before it even hit my feed reader, that’s an active post. It’s nice to see that for once it’s not a breakdown along business strategy lines. Better yet to see RE bloggers and professionals calling a turnip what it is and circling the wagons around someone I’ve often admired for her skill and prose.

Dear Ms. Hian,

In your blog,you stated, “In all fairness, hunger makes people behave badly.”

I would like to know what your excuse is.

Regretfully,

Jay Burnham, VP
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
North Shore, Massachusetts

Wow, if it weren’t for Twitter, I might not have found this post. Sometimes, when I’m angry or frustrated, I do go to the keyboard. However, those files are never to be made public! This is only a reminder that when you do want to gripe in the foreversphere of blogging, incorporate a cool down period to ensure emotions don’t get in the way of common sense. Glenn, it’s great you’re going to leave this up and not remove it. I’m sure it’s painful, but there are some lessons to be taught here.

Wow. I really don’t know what else to say. The previous commenters have pretty much summed it up for me.

Ouch! ooooo…..Ouch….

I was one of the first to comment on this bad idea for a post. I then went and played golf (still rubbing it in @activebob). I was pleased to see an official apology from Glen Kelman and hope this can be a learning experience for Realtors, Bloggers, and Consumers.

Sure, this all goes down while I’m out working all day…

Kris- you know you had this coming… they always go after the fastest gun (or in your case, wit).

Removing this post wouldn’t do anything. It’s already in countless feed readers and indexed by Google. That’s just one of the reasons people need to be careful about what they say on the Internet.

I think Glenn’s apology in the comments, as well as the reference to the corporate blog post added to the top of this post were well done and make Redfin’s position crystal clear.

Removing a post with this many comments and trackbacks and comments on other blogs would give the perception that Redfin is trying to brush off and/or ignore the problem. By leaving it intact and addressing the issue up front, they are far more likely for people now and in the future to understand.

Removing a post doesn’t remove the problem. Addressing it for all to see is the way to do it. In my humble opinion.

Glenn – You have taken the high road with your swift handling of an ugly situation, and I respect you for that.

…and before all the finger-pointers jump on it, I do realize the irony in the fact that I spelled intelligent wrong.

Hats off to Glen for taking the appropriate action in this. You have my complete respect for doing the right thing here. This post was completely unwarranted. “Ken and Barbie” are consummate professionals with ethics and high level real estate skill and it is clear their business has flourished because of it.

Glenn, I laugh at your claim of ethics for not taking down this mess. I assume you must be speaking of “ethical publicity”, as Redfin does take down comments that aren’t flattering! Several of my comments have been pulled.

Jay Burnham said:
…you stated, “In all fairness, hunger makes people behave badly.”
I would like to know what your excuse is…

….. Her excuse is alcohol abuse! Maybe that should be on the employment questionnaire, do you consume more than 2 bottles of wine in the course of an evening? Oh regularly?

Bahn said:
…about Ms. Hian and her relationship with Redfin: our bloggers are contractors… They are ???school teachers, journalists, real estate hobbyists??? and so on… not representative of the way we feel about Kris Berg or anyone else…

…Really, so your model is what? Pick the low fruit and let the tree die? Funny I would have thought everyone, with a spine, had learned a lesson about turning your back on an associate. It is clear that Hian is an idiot, but YOU (Redfin) hired Hian and at some point she must have represented you position!

Wow, what a fucking cunt.

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