Change continues...with both uncertainty and opportunity trailing in its wake.
Change is like the universe: it's not personal.
Its individual outcomes certainly affect everyone's personal sphere, but essentially it ignores "us".
Its happening anyway, whether we like it or not. Best, then, to discover the core of the shift, and to readress how we do things.
Really, there is no choice -- you're either in or out.
Attitude, then, is a key component to a successful transference from one style to another.
Let's focus, then, on the "change is opportunity" mantra.
Real estate, as an industry, is far down the road of change.
Although some people who have successfully been in the biz for some substantial time are loathe to admit that technology has changed the business irrevocably, it has.
Marshall McLuhan alerted us back in the 60s that the medium is the message. We are changed, as people, by our technology.
Initially, the opening years of the Internet Age saw people stuffing old methods into the new format. This is typical of a transition period.
With new gizmos every week, to facilitate the immediacy of the binary world, it means that we have to all be like Alice in Through The Looking Glass, and run very fast just to stand still.
A different kind of transition period, then. This one is where we still have a couple of minutes to arrive at the platform of our culture, in the "now".
The point: the internet erased time, geography, age, gender, race...it's really about intellect to intellect, on a global scale. Suddenly, here we are, in the midst of McLuhan's foretold "Global Village".
Recently, BBC did a series called SuperPower: it was about the Internet Generation. Thought it was very interesting, as it emphasized that this global village was recreating society. Try to catch this series!
So, with the essential shift of the consumer to the forefront of a real estate business model, at the same time as technology delivers the ability to the consumer to "search everything", at their own speed, we have profound change.
For a seller, they can now place their listings on the MLS, without benefit of a realtor, if they so choose.
Some realtors are answering this new challenge, in Canada, by offering a suite of services: around $600 gets the listing on the MLS. Around $1600 gets you more services from the realtor. Around $4500 gets you full service listing options. It doesn't cover off a buyer's side of a gross commission, however...presumeably this is still paid by the seller?
The Vancouver realtor offering this suite of services is new to the biz, and sees this suite of services menu as a way to get himself established in a real estate career, after the results of the Competiton Bureau's lawsuit with CREA. Maybe...
NAR noted that a buyer begins their property search about 8 months before they're ready to view/buy. They don't necessarily call a realtor. As they get closer, say 4 weeks out, they intensify their search/finetune. When they see something of interest, they call that realtor. Not about agency, then, or about agent expertise, etc. Just about the facts, ma'am!
So, if sellers are out there, too, along with realtors, that will definitely give the consumer more choice, and that's the point of the consumer centric business model.
The traditional role of a salesperson, though, as a link between two people (buyer/seller), a link that allowed a flow through of information via the interpretive link of the salesperson, is gone.
A Google search, an MLS search, a Yahoo search...and coming soon, ability to use Trulia and Zillow, in Canada.
What is the role of the middleman, now, in a sales process?
Oh, yes...forgot to mention the Redfin model, which returns half the gross commission (paid by the seller) to the buyer...now there's a consumer oriented business model!
To catch the attention of the global village citizens, it's important to be where they are: currently, Facebook et al. Social Media is really just getting started.
Ah, change....so, practice your periphery vision, don't rush down the trap of tunnel vision, check the edges of your viewscape so you locate the real whispers of change. Then, bring your creativity to it.
There really is no choice....change is with us, and our creative response to it will be the way through to the (inevitable) "new".
And your ideas are? Always welcome!
How may I help you to discover special Salt Spring Island & the Southern Gulf Islands? Call me!
