Will The Real Estate Industry Gaurd Information & Data Until It Is Too Late?
The Real Estate industry has a massive amount of valuable data, knowledge, experience and technical information available to the consumer.
All available to you once you agree to work with a Realtor. Or at the very least agree to endure a sales pitch from a Realtor.
Now I will acknowledge for decades this has been a very successful business model. That combined with no real medium to share this information I think the industry was serving the public the best it could.
Then came the internet.
But even then the arrival of internet appeared to be a threat but in reality it just wasn't.
That is until the mid 2000's, the game changed.
Zilllow & Trulia showed up in the US bring some fear to the industry. As time went on this was subdued and the threat was downgraded to an annoyance (at least by the sharp Realtors).
The sad part is the collective sigh of relief that the industry let out once this threat was diminished and it went back to its previous ways.
Perhaps the Real Estate industry should haven taken a minute and asked itself what spurned the creation of sites like Zillow & Trulia. You know what it was?
A huge consumer thirst for information, data and insight relating to buying & selling of Real Estate. All provided unconditionally, without the accompanying pitch, without having to fill out a form, without having give anything up other than some time in front of a computer.
It will be a massive leap of faith on the Real Estate industry's behalf to open the vaults.
But it's not a leap of faith that I think is optional.
If the Real Estate industry doesn't provide it, someone else will and the Real Estate industry will not get a lick of credit for the value it provides.
How it is done will be key to is success. It will take a lot of time and effort by some very smart people with diverse industry experience to determine how to best do this in a transparent manner that is beneficial for the industry & the consumer. Doing so, in my opinion, will ensure the industry continues to thrive for decades to come.
But first the Real Estate industry needs to accept it is time...