The Changing Face of Real Estate:
The Completion of the Real Estate Evolution is Near

By David Gibbard

The Internet, technology and competition are causing change within all industries. Within the last few years, this is very evident in the real estate industry, which traditionally has been slow to adopt technology and embrace new ideas. The Internet has vastly improved the consumer’s ability to get information that previously was not accessible to consumers. Technology and its simplification have improved the efficiency of systems as well as the ability to effectively and efficiently use the information. Competition has created new or improved ideas and challenged many businesses’ traditional way of doing business. 

As the real estate evolution continues, I believe and I am seeing the role of real estate agents change. Consumers of traditional real estate services are now able to access many of the home selling/marketing services from sources other than traditional real estate agents. Lock boxes and for sale signs can be purchased. Internet marketing for those who know how to ‘effectively’ market services on the Internet can now do so quite easily. Even the ‘sacred’ real estate Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is available for home sellers to list their home for sale for a very reasonable fee.

The MLS was, and remains, the most effective way to allow real estate agents to match their home buyer’s to homes that are for sale. For years, the MLS was only accessible by licensed real estate agents, which allowed them to become the “gatekeeper” of real estate information and homes for sale. Therefore the real estate agent was the center of the real estate transaction. Technology and the Internet have made all that information, which used to be inaccessible, available to home buyers with a click of a mouse. For the past 5-years, the MLS data has been published online on popular real estate web sites real estate portals such as Realtor.com, atlmls.com and hundreds of other real estate web sites and portals.

For those empowered home sellers and home buyers who wish to use the technology available to them and ‘go it alone,’ there are tools and services available to help them accomplish their goals. For those home sellers and home buyers who are willing to invest the time, energy, resources, and money and are willing acquire the expertise and experience to take the real estate transaction from marketing to closing, opportunities for success exist.

In fact, I foresee the day when motivated and educated home sellers will be able to successfully market their homes for sale, and home buyers will be able to locate homes that meet their needs with little or no involvement of a real estate agent. The real estate agent may or may not provide some or all of the services a home buyer or home seller wants or needs to successfully accomplish their goal of locating a home or finding a buyer for a home.

AlphaFSBO is a pioneer in this area, offering home sellers and home buyers the ability to market their home or locate a home that matches their search criteria as part of our Seller Select Marketing and Contract to Closing Services.

Seller Select Marketing and Contract to Closing Services is designed to give home sellers the ability to purchase only the services they want to use to market their home, and take the transaction from marketing to closing at a fixed cost. Our 1½% VIP Home Buyer Cash-Back program is designed to allow home buyers the ability to search and find a home that matches their needs, without having to use a real estate agent to control the process and be the “gatekeeper” of information.

Any experienced real estate professional knows that marketing or locating a home is only the first step to successfully completing the real estate transaction. Once you have a potential buyer for your home, or you have found a home you want to purchase, how do you proceed? Make an offer ……… right? Right, but here comes the dilemma. Where the Internet and technology can provide home sellers and home buyers with information and tools to successfully market or locate a home, they cannot interrupt the data and show you how to use it to maximize your opportunity.   

A home is, to most people, their greatest financial asset. Buying or selling a home is not the same as selling clothes at a yard sale. Without expert assistance, consumers ‘going it alone’ more often than not, fail in their attempts to buy or sell for the greatest value.

To maximize your home buying and home selling opportunity you must have:

1.      Experience, current real estate knowledge, and know the local real estate market conditions

2.      Marketing skills or marketing services (a marketing plan)

3.      Strong knowledge of contracts, legal and real estate terms

4.      Exceptional negotiation skills

5.      The ability to objectively review and interrupt the information

6.      The ability to keep what is a very emotional process objective and factual

I see a future of real estate professionals providing an "elevated role." They will become an objective advisor, using their years of local real estate knowledge, and making sense of what the mounds of data actually means -- something the Internet can NEVER do! Instead of real estate agents installing signs, running around putting lock boxes on doors, waiting at the seller's house to meet the appraiser and playing tour guide, real estate professionals will be using their professional expertise and experience advising, negotiating, and trouble shooting?  Rather than simply "doing the paperwork," real estate professionals need to provide the vital "contract to close" service. This is not semantics -- it's a true reflection of where a real estate professional’s value is TODAY. Selling a home or locating a home is only the first step and often the easiest part of the real estate transaction -- getting the transaction to a successful and profitable close is where the rubber meets the road.

Changes are indeed afoot and the continued emergence of new models only point out what is becoming clear as day to anyone who will pull their head out of the sand: that in as little as five years from now, the people earning a living in real estate will overwhelmingly be consultants who are paid for their expertise and counsel, not salespeople who are paid to move product. Change is not something that should be feared -- it is in fact inevitable and necessary. After all, there was a time when the horse and buggy was our major means of transportation but someone came up with the automobile and thought that it just might work better!

The growth of technology offers doom and gloom for those in the real estate industry that sit back and let their role be disintermediated. Real estate professionals will be paid for their time, knowledge, and the expertise that can only come from years of experience. An attorney or trusted advisor can do the legal paperwork. Only a “seasoned” real estate professional can use their years of knowledge and their local real estate expertise for the advantage of their client to help maximize their client’s best interests.