I was in Chicago last week at a technology mastermind meeting . . . . for one of the tech products that I provide and use.
It was a great meeting. I learned a lot. I will be making some changes based on what I learned.
One upshot: Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and other real estate technology companies are relentlessly improving.
If you use one of these applications on your iPad . . . they seem to average an app update about every 2 weeks.
When our local Board of Realtors looks at a platform change – that’s a 3 year process.
Even a software update to our current MLS is a 6 month to 12 month action item . . .
Relentless change by vendors with millions of users vs a local board with 1200 users simply cannot be competed with.
So I expect that the search tools consumers use will continue to outpace the tools used by Realtors behind closed walls.
There is also a blizzard of new and diverse applications that hit the market for smartphones every day.
There are too many to keep up with.
So when I meet up with some agents from other areas, and we talk at length while breaking bread, it invariably happens now that one will pull out an iPhone, show me an app that solved a problem or provides a better solution . . . and then in 30 seconds it is up and running on my iPhone.
In the past? That was a trip back home. A phone call to arrange a demo. A CD arriving to install. Time to test and evaluate. Then a purchase decision with training or data conversion to follow.
Now?
Done in one minute. I might risk $1.99 to $3.99.
The pace of change is faster. The cost of evaluation and a mistake is miniscule.
What’s next? My guesses:
Agents ability to predict what buyers are looking for and what they need to look at – driven by smart programming and algorithms is coming.
Total elimination of paper in the transaction is on the horizon – and I look forward to that.
Tools to help buyers predict the value of what they are looking at.
Tools and apps to help sellers rank agents or rate agents.
Tools and apps to allow better mortgage decisions, better title decisions, and better house buying decisions.
All coming soon – in a disruptive, chaotic manner.
Think back, if you can, to how you web tools changed travel, stock buying, mutual funds, and shopping for a car.
That’s the kind of technology change awaiting real estate.