Any suggestions for doing Referrals that WORK?

[Jeff Takle]

I'm a realtor in both Virginia and Massachusetts and my current work situation has me jumping all over the East Coast. As a result, I've shifted my business almost entirely to doing referrals, but it's driving me crazy. I still get a pretty decent flow of folks moving each spring/fall but because many of them are moving outside of the areas I worked specifically, I'm having to refer them based on my broker "sourcing" new referrals to people I've never met. Each time, I've phone interviewed the agents first, but I'm batting about 10% on getting quality realtors. As a result, my friends, family, and clients are getting crappy service and that gets attached to my credibility.

I basically don't trust any of the services I am aware of that claim to provide or source out "qualified referrals" because there is no incentive for those third party services to provide a good quality service to someone who isn't a repeat customer (listing agents, home sellers, and buyers aren't repeat customers for them...the business model doesn't encourage repeat customers). [size=18]Does anyone have any suggestions?[/size]

Or, another tack...putting together an ePinions.com or realtor review website that allows freedom of commentary, allows users to rate their Realtor--does this exist somewhere?