Real Estate

How has the business changed for the Agent and the Consumer?

s a Computer Educator and Real Estate Broker I have been both amazed and delighted with the Technological changes during the last 10 years. I Beta Tested Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 Operating Systems for Microsoft.  So when they hit the market I was ahead of the curve. I must say that Patti wasn’t so happy because of the problems Beta Testing offers the users, e.g. “The machine won’t start sometimes and freezes a lot because of incompatible programs that have yet to be fine tuned”.  But it was great for me to learn of the new changes that would affect the business world and specifically the Real Estate Industry in the near future!

With the onset of the Internet and the new Operating Systems, the Real Estate business would change in a BIG way and this change would make obsolete the way Real Estate Agents and Consumers would do business save the interaction between the Agents when the time comes to negotiate.

The old “drive around the Buyer (s), to show them homes” would be out the window! Now Buyers can go online to sites like Realtor.com which has bought into most of the County's Multi-Lists, and preview specs and photos of the prospective properties in the comfort of their homes and/or workplaces!

Agents as well can go online from their homes (where many more of them work now that there is so much more info online (meaning that they don’t have to go into the office for property information). It’s a very different world than it was just 15 years ago for the Real Estate Profession!

 Agents also have a myriad of new tools at their disposal: 

mailing a client rather than calling or postal mailing allows both Agent and Consumer to have the information at hand, enabling each to re retrieve it, in the event they would like to go back and look at this information at some later time. For both, it also serves as a way to document what information has been exchanged in case of problems in the future. 

Mobile Phones have afforded the Agent the opportunity to contact the Consumer with new Listings and Agreement changes in short notice. Now if you can’t find a Buyer or Seller at home or work, you can most likely find them at their Mobile! No need to lose a home to a competing offer because of lack of communication! There were times in the past where I would have Buyers making offers wait outside the home for me while I was presenting so I could contact them quickly in a very fluid market!

FLashs, a Real Estate Computer term for an applet that sets a Prospective Buyer up to receive an email with all properties as they appear on the market in a specific query (automatically), e.g. All properties in Regent Square, Edgewood, and Park Place from $150,000 to $320,000, 3 to 5 beds with at least a 1 car garage! My Buyers love this one!!

Just to name a few.

The Seller is not left out of the Technological Party. I now go on most Listing appointments with my laptop!  On it I have:

·        An up to date query of all properties that have SOLD in their immediate area

·        A full color, animated, slide show presentation explanation of all of my great abilities

·        And, a  Marketing Plan with photos of sample ads

      If a Prospective Buyer is in town just for an hour or two and wants to preview one of my listings, I can now call the Seller at their Mobile if I can’t reach them otherwise, to get the Buyer quick access! In years past if you didn’t reach a Seller at work or at home, you missed out.

Most of the Real Estate Agencies (and others will soon follow) already have the Sales Agreement on a computer and have the ability of just filling in the information-Name..Address..Consideration and so on.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System! I recently had a very nice Husband and Wife whom I sold their home in Regent Square for ask me to show them properties in an area I was not familiar with.  I answered OF COURSE! Until recent innovations were introduced, I would have had to refer them to an Agent they had never met before, that they may or may not have gotten along with, rather than working with them myself. After all, I knew them pretty well by now, we had an excellent working relationship, and I had a good idea of what they wanted! And, more importantly what THEY DIDN’T. Buyers’ really detest having Agents drag them around to view properties that they have no interest in and that they just can’t afford! Unfortunately, sometimes it takes some time to learn the likes and dislikes of Buyers.

     I purchased my GPS just a year ago and now had a use for it. For those of you who don’t know what they do, A GPS will show you where you are on the earths surface within 30 to 60 feet on an interactive street grid. You load in the maps and the satellite will track your movement. You can input an address and the GPS will point you the way!

     After setting up a Flash with these now Buyers of mine, they sent me the properties they wanted to see. I placed these address’ in the GPS and off we went. With model I have it will tell me at the bottom of the screen when I am “Arriving at the Destination” HOW COOL!!!   They and I were impressed! 

 And last but not least by a mile…..  

PDA’s are another new tool of the Technological Tornado! I recently purchased one and don’t know how I ever lived without it. One of my Buyers on LaClair showed me his at our Closing years ago, and I swore to get one (but I waited for color and a bright screen)!  I have all my phone numbers (about 400 of them), all of my listings with property information on each and PHOTOS, as well as my schedule, my families birthdays, a mortgage financial calculator an amortization scheduler, and a loan analyzing applet (again just to name a few). The new ones come with the ability to take a small photo, and soon we will have BLUETOOTH!!!  The technology that will enable us to communicate with our Pda’s connected with our cell phones enabling us to connect to the Internet, and hopefully one day to the Multilist! Imagine being outside in the middle of the country, hours away from Civilization and your Realtor pulling out their PDA attached to the Cell (or incorporated in it) and connecting to the local Multilist  showing you Color photos live and in REAL TIME!!!  What a world! What a life!!

As an example of the marriage between the Internet and the Real Estate Industry, a few years back I purchased the Domain regentsquare.com. I envisioned that the Internet, specifically the Web and the Real Estate Section of the site, would be a great meeting place for Buyers and Sellers wanting to learn about properties in the area. I am glad to say that the Real Estate Section of the regentsquare.com site has been a booming success. I get lots of mail thanking me from neighbors appreciating the knowledge they’ve gained from the articles and other information on the RE Section. The site has played a large part, in my opinion, for the prices going up in the area because of the fast access Buyers now have to these new listings.  The Internet and the Technological Revolution as a whole has been great for the Real Estate Industry and the Consumer alike!

I recently heard a Statistician remark that by his calculations, “where it took 50 to 100 years to invent something from inception to finish it is now taking just 1 year because of the collaboration that the Internet and Technology have afforded us.  With the invent of Videoconferencing and Email, where it took weeks and sometimes months to communicate, it now takes seconds or should I say mili, or micro seconds!

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