I recently read a brilliant article on the future of our industry by Marty Frame, General Manager of Cyberhomes. He really knows what he is talking about and he does in a most eloquent way.

Much of what he says resembles what I have been saying. I have been prophesying about the metamorphosis that our industry is experiencing and how much of the change we are going through may be mistaken for the downturn. What I mean by that is that many industry professionals, from agents to title officers believe that things will pick up when home values bottom out and the economy begins to get better. I, along with Mr. Frame, would argue otherwise.

The economy is correcting and that means that we should not have as many homeowners as we did. Many of our previous clients should have never been our clients and therefore will not be for some time. The home prices are correcting, not just going down. Our industry is shrinking, not just downsizing.

As I said in my previous blog, there will be fewer of us and fewer clients for us. 

I was recently in Home Depot and the lady that was helping me pick out door locks was a Realtor as well. She told me that she was just waiting for the market to pick up again before she re-entered the game. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this is the game and it will not pick up to the point where she will want to get back into it. Frankly, this is a culling of the amateurs and faint of heart.

I would like to comment on one other point that Mr. Frame made. He said that the institutions in our industry will be forced to reorganize because of capital. I assume he means capital constraints. He says these reorganizations will not be forced by consumers or technology. I understand that he is talking about their downsizing to reflect the current market. That downsizing might be called re-adjustment to a new, and semi-permanent, reality.

I would still argue that this new reality is still driven by consumers and technology. The consumers are demanding a better service from us all and they are using technology to do it. When most home searches now originate online, that is someting for every agent to note. When the consumer now compares mortgage rates and escrow fees online, that is also is something to note. Large banks can no longer monopolize their clients and title companies can no longer just get their clients from agents. If there was a profit to get the capital will chase it.

Yes the big institutions are having to reorganize and adjust to this new capital-sparse market, but there is still capital where there is profit. There always will be.