Year after year I attend the Trends in Real Estate Event, organized by Arizona Association of Realtors®. Always thought-provoking, informative, entertaining, insightful. I usually take one insight and test how it worked in my business and what I can do to make it better.
This year's Trends in Real Estate was held on December 5th, 2019 at the Phoenix Art Museum. Three excellent presentations took us from understanding how consumer preferences have changed, through working with i-Buyers when representing the Seller, and into insights of the new automation software that is entering the real estate transaction process.
Nobu Hata, Director of Industry Outreach for the National Association of REALTORS®, talked about new-school techniques to service better our Buyers and Sellers, and mentioned that more changes have occurred in our industry for the last 1-2 years, than in the last 20 years combined. He asked: What are we promising on our websites to consumers? Is what we are doing off-line displayed prominently enough on our web-sites? Our authentic self, do we convey the message well - it still matters. Do we have the systems and processes to show 20 homes on a Saturday and Sunday to a relo client? Now that the median time to stay in a home is 10 years, how do we keep our repeat business?
How do we work with the two categories of people - connected and disconnected.
Which platform our clients like better? Facebook or is it another one? Where do we have to be?
Debbie Yost, often referred to as "The Systems Queen", made us think about a world where homes are controlled by a phone, contracts are written and read on a phone. She and Melissa Yost Fuentes shared their experience working with an i-Buyer, as a Seller's agent. The i-Buyers from the audience also participated.
One important take-away for me from their presentation was to compile a list of local market examples and learn the cost of convenience.
Jeff Turner, the Resident Entrepreneur for Second Century Ventures, specializes in topics at the intersection of technology trends and human behavior and advises technology startups, navigating the complexities of the real estate market. He emphasized watching one trend - Automation! New technology companies are coming to the market, focusing on adding efficiency on activities from the transaction process.
When he was talking about the three tech innovations that will impact the automation of everything, it seemed like it was coming from science fiction books - even though I have been accustomed to seeing self-driving vehicles in Phoenix for the last couple of years.
One example - Parafin - a software company whose product can create millions of site-specific design configurations, complete with Budgets and Pro-formas.
The amount of research and information that Jeff Turner shared with us in those hour and a half that he talked, was amazing.
He closed on an optimistic note. Pay attention to what's happening! Stay involved!
I just finished this blog and saw Endre Barath, Jr. 's challenge for this month - it seems my blog post may qualify for participation.
Thanks for stopping by.
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