The technology edge
TECHNOL O G Y AT WORK Real estate agents become strategists rather than keepers of the data
When former entertainment industry executive Catherine Marcus was selling h e r h o m e i n Atherton, Calif., at the height of the technology boom, she grew incredibly frustrated when her real estate agent was not prompt at returning emails or phone calls.
“I could never get hold of him, he would never check e-mail,” said Ms. Marcus, who has since become a topperforming real estate agent at Sotheby’s International. “ When smart people are making the biggest acquisition of their life, they want to deal with smart people who are the most competent to get the job done.”
Ms. Marcus’s experience led her to investigate the possibilities of a career in real estate. She found her knowledge of technology was an asset in a business that is still, to a large extent, technophobic. Consumers are now empowered with a plethora of tools available to them on the Internet and a proliferation of mobile technology, and have forced the real estate industry to become more tech savvy.
“ The demand from consumers is overwhelming,” said Brad Inman, the publisher of and founder of HomeGain, based in Emeryville, Calif. “If you are not using technology, you are not talking to the consumer.”
According to a report issued by the California Association of Realtors in March, almost two-thirds of first-time homebuyers used the Internet as a first step in their quest for a home.
Before the Internet revolution, real estate agents were the only ones with access to the data from Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, where almost every agent lists a new home on the market. Now large portions of the MLS have been made available to consumers, through various Web aggregators and regional multiple listing services.
“It was a big secret book no one could get their hands on,” Mr. Inman said. “ That whole thing has imploded and it’s on the Internet.”
As a result, the role of the real estate agent is changing from keeper of the data to a strategist, psychologist and more of an über salesperson. Industry analysts and executives say there are still agents who are afraid of and unfamiliar with technology, and eventually, this could hurt business.
“ There are some agents today who wouldn’t use e-mail if they didn’t have to,” said Gregg Larson, president of Clareity Consulting in Scottsdale, Ariz. “ Your average consumer was more tech- enabled and tech- literate than the average real esate agent a few years ago, and that creates an imbalance.… But recently there has been a lot more investment in technology.”
As more real estate firms consolidate, they tend to invest in more technology, Mr. Larson said. Still, according to the California Association of Realtors, as of late last year, only 45% of their Realtors surveyed used e-mail as their primary form of communication with clients.
“It’s as if an agent picked you up to see a home in a stage coach and they said, ‘I’m very automobile illiterate,’ ” said Marc Davison, founder of VREO Software in San Luis Obispo, Calif., a developer of real estate systems, software, services and tablet PCs.
But the real estate agents who use technology are gaining an edge. With so many consumers using the Internet to peruse listings, find recent home sale prices, research a neighbourhood and shop for mortgages, agents are starting to see the Web’s advantages. Some now see it as a key marketing tool for themselves and their listings.
Those who are Web savvy also use digital cameras to post photos and create virtual tours of the properties for sale. Others use target marketing with ads to reach consumers via search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Many sign up clients for automatic listing updates to be delivered to them from the MLS, and the most advanced are experimenting with digitizing some of the documents involved in the hugely paper-intensive process of “closing” a purchase.
John Pinto, a San Jose, Calif., real estate agent, is a big proponent of the totally paperless transaction, a holy grail for the industry. He is also a founder of Transaction Management Services in Morgan Hill, Calif., a company that co-ordinates all the paperwork in a transaction, making the deal completely digital, except for final signatures at escrow.
“ It’s very much a military metaphor with a stationary headquarters and a mobile workforce,” Mr. Pinto said. “I model my operation on the military soldier of the future.”
He has a RED Tablet computer, developed by Criterion, a San Bruno, Calif., company recently purchased by VREO, with which he uses pen-based technology and digital signatures to wirelessly transmit new listings for posting on the MLS, and sends disclosures and other documents back to his office for filing in a digital vault, accessible only by clients and staff.
Therese Swan, a real estate agent in Los Gatos, Calif., said she uses direct Internet marketing to draw possible clients to her Web site, along with the increasingly standard photo tour or virtual tour of a home for individual listings. Ms. Swan, who has a degree in computer science, has created individual Web sites for very highend properties, such as a site she created, with the help of a Web developer, for an US$8.5-million property now in escrow.
“ I think I have a big advantage,” she said. “ Some of these agents are still struggling with e-mail. Part of it is I know how to get data, I know how to use mobile technology. It gives me a huge advantage in being able to help my clients sell and buy houses.”
Could technology do away with the need for a real estate agent? More individuals are selling homes themselves through Web sites such as craigslist.
However, Mr. Davison said real estate agents are not an endangered species if they provide a real service to consumers.
“What I think is endangered is any group of business people that doesn’t pay heed to the changing shifts of the consumer,” he said. Knight Ridder Tribune