Breaking Commissions Begins

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have started initial research into writing a book covering real estate's mainstream business model, real estate commissions. The name of the book will be the following:

Breaking Commissions: The Dark Side of the Real Estate Commission Model

The main title of the book is a play on the tv show, Breaking Bad, in which the main character breaks bad or commits illegal acts to support his family. The subtitle is a homage to the film Star Wars and its antagonistic theme, the dark side of the force.

The tentative chapter order and names are as follows:

1. Introduction


2. The Anti-Model


3. Independent Conundrum


4. The Miseducation of All


5. Survivor Realty Show


6. The Act of Unaccountablilty


7. Cult of Control


8. The FUD Principle


9. Too Tight Coupling


10. Wag The Dog


11. For Sale By Owner


12. Fee-For-Services


13. Project Management

I intend to post excerpts and revisions as I develop the manuscript.

--Corey

A New Book Beginning

Gaining inspiration from my latest research on strategic human resource managment and the real estate industry, I decided to begin new research on the real estate commission model. This topic has many tentacles to flesh out so below is a beginning point for what I hope will become an eventual book. I intend to post excerpts of the work here on my blog as I develop the project. I look forward to contributing a new view on this mysterious space.

Introduction

Luke knew deep down that there was still good in his father, Darth Vader, and he was right.

Deep down, real estate agents are good people, too. You may snicker or laugh at this statement, however, I believe this to be true just like Luke did about Anakin. What makes real estate agents seem like bad people or potentially unprofessional is actually the business model that they are bound by to conduct their services. This business model is known as the real estate commission model. When one first hears of real estate commissions, images of big cash payouts and large commission checks come to mind, right? I am assuming you agreed. Well, unfortunately there is a dark side to the real estate commission model.

This book objectively discusses and points out the many flaws of this business model which is implemented throughout the industry and for more than a century now. My motivation for writing this book is not to call anyone out or any specific businesses, but bring to light the inner workings of the real estate commission model for the new agent ready to enter into "the business", for the public consumer who is in "the market" or for anyone else curious to know more about this subject.

Secretly, my aspiration for this book’s discussion is for one day, real estate brokers and agents will eventually realize the negative aspects of this business model outweigh the positives ones and turn to the light side by switching to an alternate business model such as the fee-for-services model or a project management model which I will propose as an alternative solution at the end of the book.

This is my new hope.

--Corey

Repatterns Book in Development

After some research, I've decided to include my previous book projects, "The Web is the MLS", and "Real Estate Is Global", into one single book with the tentative title and subtitle, "Repatterns: Applying Computer Science and Design Patterns to Real Estate." The reason for the two-in-one inclusions was because I felt the two previous book efforts were similar enough patterns extending the same pattern, Network Pattern, to be included into one full patterns book covering real estate and computer science together.

Here's a working abstract for the book:

Patterns are everywhere. We live in a world of visible and invisible patterns. From our birth, patterns exist to help us learn, to save time, and to be productive. This book will apply principles from computer science and well known design patterns to the business processes and procedures within the Real Estate industry. From these patterns, you will discover inefficient patterns, anti-patterns, along with learning how to think differently by replacing such anti-patterns with more efficient design patterns.

For the new book cover, I reused the "The Web Is The MLS" cover since the design was already very "patternistic" in nature. In addition, the textual change in inkscape was very easy to do.

Tentative Book Contents:

Table of Contents
Preface
Ch1 Introduction
Ch2 Factory Pattern
Ch3 Observer Pattern
Ch4 Mediator Pattern
Ch5 Request-Response Pattern
Ch6 Point-to-Point Pattern
Ch7 Facade Pattern
Ch8 Network Pattern
Ch9 Proxy Pattern
Ch10 Compound Patterns
Appendix
Glossary
Index

I look forward to working on this project while at the same time using these patterns on my current projects. Lastly, I hope others will also learn to recognize anti-patterns and design patterns within real estate or their respective industry because of this work.

--Corey