The Oxygen of a Real Estate Business
Among real estate agents there has been a lot of clutching of pearls lately. Instant offers/iBuyers, pressure on traditional marketing, and boatloads of venture capital trying to rewrite some rules have people worried. But mostly I think folks are just distracted and confused. Here’s my advice: If you are a solo or team agent, tune all that stuff out and let your team lead or broker worry about it. The best will lead you safely through change. Your job, as always, is to focus on the basics, put your nose down and work your butt off.
The only thing I think everyone does need to be aware of and respond to is the change in consumer expectations. In the age of Uber and Airbnb, people are responding extremely well to the juxtaposition of efficiency and humanity that they offer. You should strive to be efficient as a rule, but don’t begin to think you can beat Opendoor et al. at their own game.
However, on the humanity front you’re already winning; mostly because you are an actual human, but also because the piece these folks have not figured out is how to create and leverage real relationships. They didn’t go to high school with the woman who owns the coolest sandwich shop in town, they haven’t been getting their hair done at the salon in the center of the village for 20 years, and they don’t sit on local charitable boards and give of their time and talent to the community. But you do. And you’re good at making sure people know about it.
If you hope to stay competitive in the next few years you are going to lean hard into your super power: relationships. You will absolutely use technology, but only to the extent that it serves one of three purposes:
Makes you more efficient
Helps you deepen relationships
Communicates how you do #1 and #2 to the benefit of your clients
Let the bots be bots. You go out and do the voodoo that you do so well.