Lies, deception, and scare tactics are being used by some Realtors to sell houses. DROdio Real Estate Inc. is guilty of such practices. DROdio Real Estate Inc located in Northern Virginia (Washington, DC suburbs) has a website where there is a counter 'showing' (it has since been removed off of their front page) what the "average home in the Metro DC area currently sells for"
The counter continues to show rising prices. If you click on the price it takes you to a webpage where it states:That is the average estimated sale price of a home in the DC Metro / Northern Virginia area!
According to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR):
"Average sales prices continued to rise through December [2005] in Northern Virginia, despite a decrease in sales and sizeable increase in inventory. The average sales price [in Northern Virginia] rose to $552,621, a 16% increase over December 2004's average of $476,941."A 16% rise in home prices annually means a 1.3% rise monthly. This translates to a rise of $239.47 increase in value daily, or $9.97 per hour!
Become a home owner and have this $9.97/hour work for you, instead of against you!
Every hour you wait is costing you $9.97 in equity!
The counter is a lie for multiple reasons. Here are some reasons:
Reason 1: On the front page of the website where the counter is located it says the counter reflects the "average home in the Metro DC area," but when you click on the link it take you to a webpage which references number for Northern Virginia. Northern Virginia and the 'Metro DC area' are not interchangable. [Update: The counter has been removed from the front page]
Reason 2: Their price counter is based on outdated statistics from December 2005 for Northern Virginia from the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors which takes their numbers from the MRIS. The price counter assumes evenly distributed price appreciation throughout the entire year which is fictitious. As of 9:25pm on 8/15/06 the price counter showed a average price of $607,705. If we check with the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR), they show an "average sales price of $537,731 in July 2005. This represents a 3.94 percent decrease from July 2005's average of $559,790." According to the NVAR average sales prices are actually decreasing, not increasing. The price counter is thus going the wrong way. Currently, the counter shows an average price of 607,000 which is 13% above what the average sales price was in July 2006.
DROdio Real Estate Inc use lies, deception, and scare tactics to sell housing units. The price counter must be removed. Additionally, DROdio owes an apology for its despicable practices.
If you are so inclined to take on the lies, please contact them and tell them to remove their price counter. Call Us: 1-800-705-2782 or email from their contact page or go to their directory page.
Update: I just recieved this email from Daniel R. Odio. It was recieved less then an hour after my post:
My Response: I am glad you have indeed removed the price counter from your front page. It is still on other webpages as of 12:15am 8/16/06. The price counter must be removed from all webpages. You still owe a public apologize for keeping the price counter up for so long. You are obviously very aware of it being there because the company has a very savy website, including a blog. The fact that you were able to repond to my post within 30 minutes of it being posted speaks to the sophistication of your web operation. I demand a full apology and a commitment to represent reality when dealing with clients. If the price counter is not removed by 5:30pm on 8/17/06 EST, I will be using my contacts at the local media to report DROdio Real Estate Inc. and will also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
David,
I agree with you in that the figures are outdated. I've removed them from our site.
I'm very sorry to see such a negative posting. You should just realize that we're a very hard working group of people trying our best to fairly represent clients and their interests. Using words like "lies, deception and scare tactics" to describe us is not at all a fair representation, and marginalizes the many, many satisfied customers we have, and the years of work I have put into building our company. I hope you reconsider your position.
Regards,
DROdio
Owner & Managing Broker, DROdio Real Estate, Inc.
Update 10:20am 8/16/06: DRODio Real Estate Inc has removed all the price counters from their website. They now have "We've removed our house clock while we recalibrate it for the changing market conditions. Look for it in the next few weeks!" Thank you for doing the right thing and removing it. Bubble Meter will continue to monitor your website.
Posts
