Commissions at Risk: A Real Estate Professional's Guide to Beating Online Competition - Softcover

Babb, Danielle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1419593234 ISBN 13: 9781419593239

Publisher: Kaplan Business, 2006

Synopsis

Real estate professionals will soon be faced with fierce competition from web-based transaction systems that decrease commissions, flatten rates, and enable consumers to eliminate the middleman.  Commissions at Risk demonstrates the use of technology in today’s real estate market and its impact. 

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Danielle Babb is a consultant for real estate organizations, where her primary goal is to help them survive the coming wave of technology.  She has a Ph.D. in Organization and Management with a Technology Emphasis, and M.B.A. with a Technology Emphasis, and a Bachelors degree in Business.  Dr. Babb is an adjunct faculty member at seven area colleges, including: Indiana Wesleyan University, Capella University, Baker College, American College of Computer and Information Sciences, Walden, and North Central University, where she teaches courses on IT practices affecting all areas of business.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The technology needed to transform real estate to a web-based business is already available and is being integrated today with systems making them completely capable of replacing traditional real estate models. Now that many barriers are being broken down and technologists can mimic complicated processes online with a series of computer systems, the need for the agent is diminishing and changing.

Real estate has long been a person-to-person industry, relying largely on personal relationships and trust. The cost however of that relationship is now becoming so overwhelming to Internet savvy consumers cashing in on large home sales that web based systems are fast becoming a viable alternative to the real estate agent or mortgage broker.

In the future, it is viable that the middleman will be largely driven out of the market leaving behind a series of web-based systems to handle much of the processing and transaction-based work that real estate professionals have done and used to solidify their value.

Real estate is information intensive and largely driven by once-proprietary information. Real estate agents connect buyers and sellers while mortgage brokers connect borrowers with lenders. Both are middlemen markets, which have largely been replaced in other industries by web services. The fact that real estate and lending are both transaction-based systems makes it more likely that the relationships and processes will be replaced with online transactions. Information technology has always taken an underlying role; obtaining loan approvals but not completing the transaction for example. The advent of new technology being released in the next two years coupled with standards created for these transactions, information technology will take a more active role and even replace many brokers and agents. To bullet proof a business from the natural web based transition will take ingenuity and creativity, and knowledge of what is about to come. Having a thorough understanding of the history of technology in real estate, the insecurity those information-driven systems is creating, and the technologies about to be deployed will allow a professional to stay one step ahead of the curve. As individuals become increasingly comfortable with buying and selling property, the need for a professional will diminish naturally with web based technology taking over. We ve seen this in other industries whereby the once-privy professional is replaced by information driven web sites, creating entire groups of professionals who no longer have a competitive advantage strictly due to holding onto information.

Many real estate professionals are worried, whether they admit it or not. Studies reveal that they should be. In fact, research conducted on this very topic reveals a naïve approach by real estate professionals as to the profound impact that technology is and will continue to have on their business. Many look at the nice accommodations technology has given them; fast access to their clients, lots of leads, and online MLS listings. However, the future of technology is not web-enablement but web-based, and this creates a new ballgame for the players. When we look at the drastic changes that have occurred in similar industries, such as travel, where an agent handles the details of a transaction, we can see what is about to happen to real estate. In fact many signs exist indicating that it has already begun, and now real estate professionals need to prepare for tomorrow s technology rather than focusing on web pages and email servers; essentially web-enabling a business that will require total transformation....

Edition details

• Publisher: Kaplan Business
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1419593234
• ISBN 13: 9781419593239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224