I have taken a week or so following my attendance at the Inman Connect Conference in New York earlier last month. In this time I have collated my thoughts around the conference to share these here now.
As has become traditional with Inman Connect conferences of the past couple of years there is usually a single takeaway that I carry with me as I return to NZ from attending these events.
In 2007 at my first conference the takeaway was social media and the emergence of blogs; 2008 was the rise of Facebook and Twitter as platforms for real estate conversations; 2009 was all about data and a growing transparency for the real estate industry – agents embracing the concept of consumer review and critique of the performance metrics of the industry.
For 2010 the takeaway was mobile – mobile as in real time, location based, real estate data, accessible on portable devices.
Mobile computing came of age in 2009.
With more than 75 million iPhones sold and a growing collection of alternative smart phones, most significant of which is undoubtedly Google’s new entrance through the Android mobile operating system and now the Nexus One, it is very clear to see that we are on the fast accelerating adoption curve where we will see many hundreds of millions of new generation smart phones purchased in the coming months and years. All of these devices are in fact far more mobile computers that just happen to provide voice communication rather than phones in the sense of what we have been using for two decades to make mobile calls.
The future as Brad Inman (the conference host and owner of Inman News) said in summing up the conference; the future is very clear and bright (and profitable) for those agents who understand and leverage the technology revolution in this industry that began at the start of this last decade and in some ways is now really hitting its stride. The great quote I often use in many presentations I do is from an Australian real estate conference of a couple of years ago “Agents will not be replaced by technology – they will be replaced by agents with technology” it just keeps on resonating as so relevant, so true.
The Connect conference is structured to provide a rich mix of technology and real estate business discussions and debates. The origin of the name came from the concept of the place where real estate and technology “connected”. It is featured packed, somewhat frenetic in nature and very much a smorgasbord of discussion groups and break out sessions as well as short – but pithy keynote presentations as well as lots of valuable takeaway ideas and initiatives.
Here then is a smorgasbord of takeaways, which caught my attention during the conference:
- More and more agents are confidently stating that print advertising has lost all relevance and now all of their focus is on the web, this even lead in one session to the heated quote from a prominent New York agent “print never sold properties”. The move online is not just for advertising properties but also for profiling agents as part of marketing themselves – their brand.
- The appeal of the iPhone and the development of the apps store replete with real estate apps has developed a culture and unique behaviour particularly on a Saturday as witnessed by massive spikes in traffic to these apps when “soccer mums” seek out local open homes to check out after the kids sports event – this behaviour has now become a phenomenon which is contributing to a noticeable rise in open home visits driven by the real time location based data.
- Google was a much talked about subject and the conference provided a platform for the company’s real estate representative to share the company’s plans. Needless to say not a lot was shared except to recognise the value that Google saw in liberating real estate data. They refused to be drawn as to any potential acquisition to enhance their already released map based search. As ever with Google they are undoubtedly the smartest guys in the room. They have very clear views and plans and they have massive resources. They will roll out new functionality to enhance basic search, it will be disruptive, it will provide opportunities for them to sell more advertising and more and more of these adverts will be bought by real estate companies and agents. Google are here to stay, and real estate for them is a key agenda item.
- Video as a complement to image based property presentation always represents a component of these conferences. Whilst the technology is improving in leaps and bounds the limitation and appeal is as ever down to the capability and professionalism behind the camera. The percentage of all listings with a video is increasing; but in reality it still represents a small percentage and always will. Buyers are looking for speed and efficiency at the early stage of search – video is just not conducive as a medium to this process.
- There were a couple of sessions during the conference titled and focused on challenges to reinvent the real estate brokerage model. This included a panel of key leaders in the industry. Having sat in the breakout sessions and the main panel, I have to confess I was particularly unimpressed by the level of innovation. There was a sense of the same model with just a new set of clothes. There were plenty of good words – such as accountability, transparency, ethics, and personal service. Lots of plans to leverage social media and engage with clients, but through it all; it was the same model – advertise and farm for vendor (and buyer) leads, advertise everywhere, manage leads and negotiate sale for a % of the selling price. The question in the back of my mind was:
* Is the current model broken” – answer “No!” (Or at least not significantly broken)
* Is their scope for innovation and significant differentiation in business model – answer “Surely must be!”
- An excellent session was a “start-up alley” of new technology companies offering services to the real estate industry. This was the chance for these new companies to share with the attendees their pitch for their company and for the audience to vote for the concept most likely to succeed – which they would most likely invest in. These were all companies, which were largely operating, and at this time many of which were self financed
- I was impressed at the diversity and innovation; they covered the range from agent business applications to online media sales to neighbourhood social – the winner being in the latter category NabeWise aiming to create social commentary around neighbourhoods.
- As ever the conference has the usual heated debates and literal stand-offs, a classic of the last day was the ubiquitous debate around the structure, value, longevity and relevance of the USA’s unique MLS structure (that is the central Multiple Listing Service) – central is actually the wrong word as there are over 800 MLS’s covering the country and all are largely built as proprietary fiefdoms who to my naive and non-US eyes and ears exemplify the analogy of the buggy maker at the turn of the century as the motor car drove into town.
As a fellow conference attendee shared his thoughts with me during the conference – this is such a valuable engagement with like-minded people, a sense of reinforcement, substantiation and affirmation that in spite of the fact that we may operate in a market of just 4 million people – a tiny fraction of the business scale of Europe and the US we can share, learn, contribute and gain so much to ensure we are constantly challenges to deliver unique and valuable service
Returning to the key takeaway again of mobile as the technological catalyst most likely to impact this industry, it is interesting to speculate as to the landscape of real estate a year or two from now. Whilst the adoption and integration of mobile enabled capabilities within the agent community is uncertain, sitting as I do running a consumer website to assist buyer find their dream home I can very clearly see the future for property seekers as they become mobile enabled with real estate data. More data, more accessible, helping buyers and sellers to make better-informed decisions.
