I spent the last four days in San Francisco at Inman Connect 2008, the leading real estate-meets-technology conference of the year. For a down year for the real estate industry, it certainly seemed crowded to me (through it was my first time, so I don't have a benchmark). While the sample might be somewhat skewed, it sounded like many brokers and agents were using this downturn to redirect traditional advertising dollars online. So maybe that helps explain the turnout.
There was a lot said about blogging, both by agents for consumers and among those in the real estate and technology industries. This obviously served as a reminder that I my blogging has been woefully infrequent of late. So I'm going to try harder.
Another discussion of one of my personal shortcomings came from Merlin Mann, the keynote speaker, proprietor of 43folders.com, and proponent of Inbox Zero. In short, he tries to give people (like me, and probably you) who can be overwhelmed by email a way out. He has a fairly simple and specific system to accomplish this, but it only works with a parallel attitude adjustment about what email is and is not. Worth a look.
I attended many sessions; as expected, some were more interesting or useful than others. One packed session was titled "Brokers & MLS vs. Listings Aggregators." Basically, it was a discussion of the merits of listing aggregators like Trulia and Zillow, and whether they were friend or foe of real estate brokers and their MLSs. It could have been really interesting, but while Trulia and some brokers and MLSs who supply them listings data were on the panel, there was really no one on the other side of the issue.
The only reason a site like Trulia exists is because MLSs so limited the innovation of their own members over the last decade. It was easier to build a consumer-friendly home search site if you were NOT a broker than if you were, bizarre as it sounds. This is slowly changing, but we're not there yet. It was only a few months ago that the National Association of Realtors finally settled a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice about NAR's attempt to restrict the business models of MLS participants like us. This finally opened the door for us to take our consumer-friendly brokerage model to the rest of the country. Not good when victory is merely having your own industry association stop trying to put you out of business.
Brokers (like Sawbuck) still have major advantages over aggregators in the depth, breadth, timeliness and completeness of the MLS data (not to mention our ability to actually improve the process of buying or selling), but we are still handicapped by both MLS restrictions and the sheer number of MLSs, each with their own proprietary systems and databases.
On Thursday, I was part of a panel entitled "Building a Brokerage Brand in a Web 2.0 World." The audience was mostly other brokers--the owners of real estate brokerages from around the country. It was an interesting session, and I had several brokers come up afterwards and thank me for my insight. But I'm still not sure my main message got through.
Most brokers have become nothing more than a collection of agents. They don't have a brand that means much more than "real estate company" to consumers. To most consumers, there is no difference between Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Prudential or Remax. And if they all swapped names tomorrow, their business would not be materially different.
If they want to mean anything, brokers will have to get out of the agent business and get back into the consumer business. They need to do something significantly different than the others, offer something more to buyers and sellers. This might annoy many of their agents, and they might leave (which is why brokers don't do it, and never will). But the agents that stay (and the new ones that will come) will buy in to that something different, and won't be in such a hurry to move on to another broker for a 5% better split. And that broker will have created something better and longer-lasting than a real estate business--a real estate brand that really means something.
I'll get off my soapbox now and get back to work building our brand.
