“Negotiating” does not necessarily equate to “Discount.” Silly.

We’re thinking differently.

See all of my videos here at Viddler.

Update 26 May 2009:

Transcription follows:

Jim Duncan here with RealCentralVA.com here responding in a little way to some of the feedback that we have received regarding Nests’ launch. Apparently in one of the video’s or blogs or something we have communicated that we are negotiating our fees. What we meant by that is we’re negotiating our fees differently.

For example, recently I’ve done hourly fee consulting plus percentage consulting and representation and also just your standard old commission-based transactions. What we meant by it was that we are doing things differently; that we are discussing our fees, that we are defending our fees and we are backing up our value.

It’s interesting to me that one of the first responses by more traditional thinking Realtors is that negotiating means discount. I’ve questioned if your first thought is discount, what are you discounting from? What we’re talking about at Nest is determining our own values based on what we are worth and what our professionalism and our value-add is and what we bring to our clients. Not negotiating in the sense that whoo hooo, we’re a discount brokerage. There are clearly negative connotations that go along with that.

We’re just doing things our own way and not depending on what others say. You know what? Sometimes negotiating means going up and our buyers and sellers are more willing to pay us more. Negotiate doesn’t mean down. Negotiate often means better.

Thanks for staying tuned.