Tsunami heading for the Real Estate industry

[ChicagoDrew]

Can the Real Estate industry and its related industries (mortgage, insurance and title) keep business as usual? Especially when you are walking along the beach and notice that the water is resending a clear signal that a Tsunami is on the way. I know many websites that allow free listings are just incubating till they get a foot hold then bam they will start asking for referral fees. But with customers i.e. potential clients now have more access to information through the internet. Also more customers are more and more comfortable with the internet or use it as their main stay for getting info. So with Trulia, Zillow and many others that seem to pop up have more and more of the tools that customers want.

So do we agents that see the real end result of theses companies fight the good fight with the probability of losing business now and in the future? Also let’s add the fact that Realtor.com says it is for us REALTORS but I have never got one hit of traffic to my website hence one lick of business from them. They have a redirect or your link on your listings to your personal website is more like a pop up window and is blocked by most every web surfer.

With the supposed deterioration of the MLS and the new web 2.0 becoming more and more of a realty, I think the next 3- 5 years are going to be monumental or more like evolutional to our industry and those involved in the purchase and selling of real estate. What do you think? Have you tried any of the for-mentioned websites or any other that weren’t mentioned? I know I have one listing on Trulia which was taken from my site and I don’t think I have seen any traffic of business from it…yet. Do we fight, flee, bury our heads in the sand or get ahead of the curve?

[Mert]

Drew buddy first happy new year (you sound so depressed...). You dont put your head down and you put up more money or simply you quit. You dont put it in Trulia only you put it in 100 websites. I think you need a vacation. But yes we all feel like cornered rabbits sometimes in this technology.

[ChicagoDrew]

Not depressed, was just curious about what others thought. Yes I do need a vacation. So you agree with having it on Truila? I have it on other sites as well but those I mentioned seem to me the fore runners and the 900 gorillas. So stay cornered shivering or go with the flow?

[Mert]

OK sorry I was swamped for a while. Honestly, 100% companies like yours take your minimal commission fees but also leave you alone when it comes time to market your site. I am trying to establish a brokerage centered marketing machine leaving only the selling to agents. I think as an agent you are wasting your time trying to market your own products. A lone wolf will always lose the real estate game in my personal opinion without a true backup from the brokerage and right now sadly there are not that many brokerages out there who is willing to do that or agents out there accepting lower commissions for better marketing.

[ChicagoDrew]

Ok not sure this was what I was getting at in my original post. I was talking about the whole real estate biz (nationally) as a whole not just differentiating between 100% and 50-80:split company. As you mentioned leaving you alone, that depends on the company. I have been many companies all promising to train, educate, market, increase your sales volume, blah, blah blah.... I think you get the point. The real difference is I make more money on every sale.

so with that said, what are your thoughts on my original post?? Especially now with increased talk of a National MLS. Although your comment about trying to establish a brokerage centered marketing machine leaving only the selling to agents sounds like what many big companies want but have the agents as employees not independent contractors. I think Coldwell Banker has this business model and at is called BlueChip.

[Mert]

I have never believed in the concept of an employee. I have always done better working for myself rather than as an employee. The whole issue is that at the same time you cannot work by yourself. In a brokerage there has to be certain components. I believe these components are web/graphic designer(s), programmer(s), outsourced quality hosting, a quality writer, outsourced army of cheap manual labor (and I mean a lot of it to do the details such as Trulia advertising, printing, snail mail preparation etc., and a ppc/seo expert for lead generation

A realtor is asked to be all (or most of the above) and noone is a superman. That is why I did some 100% brokerage bashing. To be successful, a realtor has to do all those tasks but cannot afford by himself to do it. An agent's job has to be showing homes and selling and negotiating constantly. If you are not doing that all the time you are not doing something (or many things) right. Again, I am not singling out anyone but you asked the future. This is the future.

[kensmith]

Mert that is why teams work so good. I have one person deal with marketing, paper work, and past client contacts. I deal with sellers and the web site. Then I have buyers agents who only have to show homes and talk to buyers.

[ChicagoDrew]

Hey Mert,

An agent can do all that with VA's (Virtual Assistant)which will give the agent more control more money and more tax write offs. The days of agents being successfully with only big brokerages are gone. Everything a brokerage can do can be done online with VA's and outsourcing. Which hits on my original post about the internet changing the way real estate is practiced. A single agent or a single Broker can have all the extras that many of the old guard power houses had and have.

[ChicagoDrew]

Hey Ken,

Excellent point. Would love to hear your thoughts on my original post, even though I think we have talked about them before.

[kensmith]

We need to remember that as agents that are more internet experienced then most we see all these little and big sites like Trulia or Zillow and wonder what might happen. The thing is most agents have no interest in the internet so these sites will have a hard time getting enough data/listings to actually keep visitors on the site.

This is the same for agents that only use IDX in the Chicago market. At some point the consumer will say "this site is missing listings" and move on to find a site that has them all. The consumer wants to be in control and that is all web 2.0 is about. So let them be in control.

I don't care if they spend months looking at homes on my site without ever talking to me. This doesn't cost me a penny and more important it gives the consumer what they want. If more agents would just give the consumers what they want the other sites wouldn't even be an issue.

To be honest I think these other sites will just draw even more consumers to the internet that will end up on my site and buying from me. Once they see that the other sites are bs they will move on and search for another site and I will be #1 for that term and it's now my business to loose.

How do you loose that consumer? IMO Simple, don't give them access to all of the listings.

Now I do feel that agents need to be careful and not provide these new sites with all of our data. If at any point Trulia or Zillow has enough listings that it becomes expected that we should advertise all of our listing on them by the consumer then we are in trouble. At this point these sites can charge anything they want for the advertising and even add in referral fees or other charges. They can also allow fsbo's to advertise in their sites and it would be effective (currently there are really any good fsbo sites out there IMO).

Without agents giving the power to these sites we are fine and it will actually help those that have a good online presense. If we cross the line and make these sites authorities then there might be a problem.