Hi, I’m Michael Erdman, founder of AgentsCompared.com. For most of my thirteen year career I’ve been a business litigation lawyer here in Chicago, concentrating my practice in several areas, including competition law. I am not, and never have been, a real estate agent.
So what am I doing launching this website today?
Over the past eight years I’ve bought or sold real estate three times, and worked with different types of real estate agents – traditional and a la carte. In 2005 one of them introduced me to a group of a la carte agents scattered across the country and in need of some competition law advice.
Wanting to help, I began studying up on the intersection of competition law and real estate licensing. I started following dozens of real estate websites and blogs, looking over relevant government reports, and keeping track of online real estate start-ups. I attended a Federal Trade Commission/Department of Justice workshop on competition in real estate, and began meeting lots of interesting people in the private and non-profit sectors. Eventually I created a modest blog covering real estate competition law issues, and on occasion took calls from reporters interested in my perspectives.
In the summer of 2007 it occurred to me that consumers really had no place to go to discover and meaningfully evaluate local real estate agents. I’ll write more about this later, but existing “Find an Agent” websites seemed either entirely agent-centric or of limited usefulness to buyers and sellers.
An entrepreneur at heart, I began drawing up plans for what became AgentsCompared.com, a consumer-centric site devoted to helping prospective home buyers and sellers make more informed decisions when selecting a real estate agent.
Please take a moment to explore the site, look over this blog, and share your opinions, either here or via email at ideas@AgentsCompared.com.
Thank you for visiting.
