It has been a while since I have taken time to visit Active Rain and my blog.  The real estate landscape is changing in so many manners right now.  I have been taking time to work on my business, client base, and integrating my business for the year ahead. Obviously, we have the tight lending, massive foreclosures, and shortsale issues to deal with.  Add into that the banks consolidating and the federal actions to stimulate the economy and a massive drop in interest rates (yeah!).

However, the landscape is also changing as our business transforms itself in relation to both technology and the players involved.  Not long ago, everyone and their brother became a real estate agent and that really impacted our market and our service level.  Overall, I think consumers suffered because as a whole, our level of service and experience came significantly down with new agents all over the place.

Now, many of those agents are washed out of the business AND experience counts and more importantly is needed again for a much more complicated and intense real estate world.  I see the same players in the game who had the ability to weather the storm and used their skills to find business and success where others couldn't.

One aspect of finding that business led yours truly to Active Rain.  Where many people folded their tents, the long term experts found great technology outlets like Active Rain, learned short sales, got involved in REO listings and thereby created success by working harder. 

In consideration of that, it seems that perhaps the biggest change in real estate is probably technology.  The REO phenom will move on at some point.  The traditional marketing will always have merit to it because this is a people business.  But how many of us just two years ago used the internet as much more than a website or electronic business card?

I see so many agents that still do and still don't get it.  There is so much change in real estate from a technology standpoint now.  And it is imperative to learn so you can be successful.  How many people have learned SEO, utilize Craigslist or Youtube?  What about multiple websites or electronic flyers, web feedback on listings, or a myriad of other technologies to work?  How many people use pay per click or Homegain, Realtor.com, or whatever services are out there?

When you consider all these things in light of two to three years, we have fundamentally changed how real estate works and how people look for real estate across the board.  And with my first blog post in quite a while, I would urge new and old agents alike to get involved fast.  Because there is a new category of agent (look at Active Rain) that understands these technologies and will prosper significantly while you are left behind.

There is no better place to start then here at Active Rain.  This is perhaps one of the best tools to learn and apply all this new technology to increase your business.  I thought I was doing pretty well but in just 20 minutes I learned several new things that could significantly help my lead flow.  So take a look around and get started!