For homebuyers, sellers and agents alike, a rapid increase in real estate tech
Technology has revolutionized real estate -- and not just because we can check out photos of homes for sale while sitting around in our pajamas.
There are smart-phone apps for finding the nearest listings while you're driving about. Programs that email or text you when new homes that fit your specifications hit the market. "Zestimates" of everyone's home value.
John L. Heithaus, chief marketing officer for the region's multiple-listing service, Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, says this rush of technology -- and tech-fueled information -- is creating opportunities and challenges for buyers, sellers and agents alike.
"The real estate business is now open seven days a week, 24 hours a day, because of technology," he said.
MRIS held a tech-oriented conference last week in Silver Spring that drew nearly 300 real estate professionals, who came to hear about social media, digital marketing and the like. So the subject is on Heithaus's mind.
He thinks the challenge for consumers these days is the overwhelming amount of information to sift through, not all of it useful or accurate.
The challenge for agents, he says, is to keep up with fast-changing expectations. They need to be in "the center of the conversation" via social media, figure out how to use a variety of tech tools and hop to it if a would-be buyer sends a text that she's in the neighborhood and wants to check out their listing right now, he said.
"I'm a third-generation real estate kid," Heithaus said. "I can remember my grandfather's real estate business -- all he needed was a car, the multiple-listing service and a telephone. ... It's a whole new world."
MRIS is working on a "collaboration center" in which an agent can open a password-protected spot online to share information with a client and vice versa. The company has also launched a web television station, MRIS TV, with an HDTV-esque show called Distinctive Digs -- featuring homes for sale in the Baltimore-Washington area -- and another, Real Estate IQ, that has trends and suggestions.
"Our objective really is to start a dialogue with people," Heithaus said.
What real estate tech do you find useful? Do you do your real estate-ing primarily on your computer, your phone or another mobile device, i.e. iPad?
For that matter, what real estate tools or information do you want that you're not getting?
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Comments
I used to print and bring stacks of paper on showing marathons with my buyers, but now I just bring my iPad with the listings queued up... I can pull all the photos, maps, tax info, the seller's mortgage amount and more on the fly rather than either printing it all or saying "okay, I'll find that out later and get back to you."
Of course, email also makes it such that I feel obligated to answer client emails and such at 10pm and later... So it's a mixed blessing!
In some ways the technology puts some people at a disadvantage. I actually had a buyer lead call me and ask me to mail her a list of available homes because she did not have a computer or access to the Internet. I ended up driving them over to her.
Posted by: John K. | July 1, 2011 9:18 AM
Technology should save buyers and their agents the time of going to houses they'd really have no interest in. First off, a house with no pictures online is just suspicious from the get-go. Secondly, you can usually get a good feel for the quality and layout of the house from the pictures. A good listing has 10-20 pictures these days. If you're selling something that someone is going to pay off over 30 years with hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's well worth your time to borrow or buy a digital camera and put some time into letting buyers see your place so they can plan their list of interesting properties accordingly.
Over the past year, I've seen dozens of houses that had very shoddy or limited online pictures. If I was the seller, I'd be pretty pissed--you're paying a commission on the sale so the RE agent will market your property. If they're not putting together a quality online listing with a dozen or more pictures, what are you paying them for? Seriously.
Posted by: AFGHANI | July 1, 2011 1:29 PM
Like the shift that happened in the mid 90s from brick and mortar retail to Internet shopping, right now we're seeing so many people making the switch from using their desktop or laptop to do their real estate search to using their smart phone instead. It's important to be where the consumers are--and mobile is a critical space.
Realtor.com offers free mobile apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7. We think they're fun and easy to use, and there are currently over 1 million active users. In fact, an average of 13 properties are viewed every second on our apps. It's definitely an interesting time for real estate technology!
Posted by: Jill Kipnis | July 1, 2011 4:56 PM
In theory technology provides a 24/7 open house but in reality it is not. Buying a house or any other real estate is not the same as buying a a book online. It is very unlikely that one would be touring a property or closing a sale in the dead of the night.
That said technology has provided persons with the ability to do the necessary research prior to making contact with the realtor so this is an obvious advantage. I do agree that anyone who is serious about real estate should have some form of online access, twitter, facebook, or online store.
Posted by: St. Lucia Real Estate Rentals | July 4, 2011 1:50 PM
My realtor & I would tour properties at 1am!!!! We each carried a flashlight!
I rememeber standing on a back deck looking over the city right after the superbowl when Baltimore was painted purple in a Foreclosure home w/ no electricity and 1am was the only time we both had time to check out properties. He was really cool like that! We would meet at 10pm and go from like 10 to when ever we were finished.
Posted by: pigtown girl | July 7, 2011 1:52 PM
Holy cow, pigtown girl! That's a great example of real estate as a 24-hour-a-day biz.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | July 7, 2011 1:54 PM
The important thing for people to know is that technology isn't the answer, but a tool to assist in the process. Far too many associations and companies tout the latest and greatest tools for automating or simplifying different processes, but in the end, much of the info provided is less accurate than old-school techniques.
Take automated valuations, for example. Many companies now provide these, but rarely are they as accurate as the work of a skilled appraiser.
As someone in the real estate technology space, I urge people to take all the tech with a grain of salt. The bottom line is that it still takes a seller and a willing buyer to make a transaction happen. The rest is just cogs in the wheel . . .
Posted by: Joshua Dorkin | July 9, 2011 1:10 AM