| |
| |
|
|
Real Estate |
|
Reinventing Real Estate, Part 1: Online and Empowered Consumers Are Taking Charge and Paying Less
For decades, the real estate world turned in a predictable manner. The roles of buyers, sellers and real estate professionals were fairly well defined and transactions followed a predictable path of yard signs, newspaper ads, open houses and miles of paperwork. Recently, online and empowered consumers have changed the game. Real estate professionals now face issues similar to the ones that have transformed the retail, personal finance and travel planning industries. As technology advances and new business models evolve, the real estate industry has begun to transform itself from providing traditional, carefully controlled "agent-centric" transactions to new "consumer-centric" practices. The following is a look at some of the recent industry trends and how buyers, sellers and investors can expect to benefit. The "Five Ds" that are driving change in real estate are: 1. Disruption - Over the past 10 years, the Internet has matured into a powerful platform for delivering real estate information, forever changing the interaction between buyers, sellers and real estate professionals. 2. Displacement - The popularity and acceptance of self-service and consumer-direct business models is being felt by real estate professionals, who are striving to develop attractive new offerings for Web-savvy consumers. 3. Demanding consumers - You now have more real estate knowledge, tools and resources at your fingertips than ever before. More savvy consumers tend to be more independent and demanding. 4. Downward pressure - Traditional real estate commissions of 5-6 percent of a property's sales price are facing downward pressure. 5. Developing alternatives - The real estate industry is transforming itself to provide targeted services and exciting new options that add value for consumers. Disruption "We are going to see our industry go through dramatic transformation via the Internet and consolidation of agents and companies." - eRealty Times Columnist Dirk Zeller Some industry observers have adopted Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen's term "disruptive technology" to explain recent developments in real estate. Though it's easy to point to the World Wide Web and advancing technology as the main changes in real estate, that's only part of what's shaking things up. Essentially, the real cause of disruption is not just technology, but technology-enabled real estate consumers. Web-enabled consumers According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), more than 72 percent of homebuyers now begin their home search online. The popularity of online real estate ads surpassed newspaper property listings back in 2001, and the gap is widening. Less than one percent of buyers first learned about the home they purchased on the Internet in 1995, while in 2004, that number passed 20 percent. According to a California Association of Realtors (CAR) survey, 97 percent of respondents said the Web helped them understand the buying process better and 100 percent said using the Web helped them understand home values better. Web-enabled homebuyers like you are taking a more active role in researching homes and neighborhoods. You also now spend less time with real estate professionals once you have completed your research. Internet homebuyers also used the Web effectively to filter out properties that did not interest them, visiting 6.1 homes on average versus 15.4 for traditional buyers. Today, you can view photos and detailed information for hundreds of properties in the time it used to take to visit a single one. And the Web provides much more opportunity than simply moving print listings online. The growing availability of residential high-speed Internet connections has boosted the popularity of virtual tours and interactive maps, providing consumers with powerful and flexible visual search tools. In addition to making home searches easier, automated valuation model (AVM) software is making a big impact in how properties are evaluated. AVMs, which generate valuation estimates by analyzing and comparing property information data, are becoming increasingly sophisticated and accurate. While not considered a substitute for human appraisals, AVMs are gaining popularity because they are inexpensive, easy to use and produce valuation estimates in minutes. Now AVMs, used extensively in electronic mortgage approval processing during the recent refinancing boom, are becoming available on real-estate Websites aimed at consumers. This is a significant development for independent sellers, who often find it challenging to price their properties correctly when selling on their own. The MLS goes public "In real estate, MLS data sits at the apex of the change, specifically the MLS information that is pushed to the Internet every minute of the day." - Bradley Inman, Publisher of Inman News Once an exclusive tool for real estate professionals, the multiple listing service (MLS) has in recent years become a very public platform for real estate listings. The MLS is the nation's most comprehensive database of properties for sale - four out of five homes sold in the United States are listed on the MLS. MLS properties are available to agents and brokers worldwide, and are now accessible via consumer Web sites such as Realtor.com, WSJ.com, Excite, Netscape, AOL and MSN. MLS listings also appear on local, regional and national brokerage Websites through Internet Data Exchange (IDX) agreements that allow participating Realtors to share listings and display them to consumers. Even though only licensed realtors can list property on the MLS, the system has begun to figure prominently for the $110 billion independent seller (for-sale-by-owner or FSBO) market. About 13 percent of real estate sales are now FSBO, conducted without a broker's assistance. Type "flat fee MLS" into any major search engine, and you'll see dozens of real estate professionals willing to list your property in the MLS for a fee. If you are willing to pay a commission of 2-3 percent, you can attract the attention of thousands of agents who will show your property to prospective buyers. You can then reduce the cost of the sale to about half a traditional 5-6 percent sales commission, plus the cost of the MLS listing. If you find an independent buyer working without an agent, you could make a sale with no commission at all and pay only an MLS listing flat fee. Displacement Currently, about 2.4 million real estate licensees operate nationally, according to the Association of Real Estate License Law officials. The NAR has more than one million members, up from about 760,000 members five years ago. Many real estate professionals and industry observers expect a significant decline in this number because some tasks traditionally performed by agents and brokers can now be done more quickly and easily by Web-enabled consumers. "Historically the fundamental driver of the real estate industry was the control of information. The real estate agent and the real estate office were the only sources of comprehensive information on which properties were for sale and those who might be interested in buying them. With this control revenues were practically guaranteed. Moreover, because this exclusive control was akin to a monopoly by virtue of the multiple listing service (MLS) any firm of any size could serve the customer equally well. As a result, the number of real estate companies grew without regard to market efficiencies. Simply put, the traditional model is too inflexible. Consumers are seriously questioning the value of a real estate agent. They frequently feel that many of the traditional tasks undertaken by the agents are now either no longer required or can be done by the consumer themselves." - Swanepoel & Tuccillo, Real Estate Confronts Profitability The quotes above, from a popular report on emerging real estate business models and dwindling profit margins, highlight a number of issues traditional real estate professionals are now facing. And if the real estate industry has grown historically without regard to market efficiencies, the issue has only been compounded since 2001, as new agents signed on in droves, lured by low interest rates and skyrocketing home prices in many areas. It's likely that the number of traditional real estate agents will decline, while new types of real estate jobs will be created to deliver value to Web-savvy customers. NEXT in Part 2 of 2: - Demanding Consumers, Downward Pressure and Developing Alternatives Charles Warnock is Marketing Communications Manager at Homekeys in Miami, Florida. Homekeys is a non-traditional real estate Web site that helps consumers buy, sell and save thousands on real estate. Learn more at http://www.homekeys.net. Charles writes frequently on real estate, finance, advertising and marketing communications.
MORE RESOURCES:
Real-Estate - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
10 Home Purchase Abroad Tips For Success Are you seeking your little corner of sun drenched heaven on earth? If you are you're certainly not alone!Many Northern Europeans, Americans and Canadians are looking overseas for investment real estate or for a holiday bolt hole and if you're considering buying a second home in the sun, a home from home abroad or an investment property overseas and you're in a hurry to get started, these top 10 home purchase abroad tips for success should set you off in the right direction.1) Legal AdviceLegal systems differ from country to country so never assume that you understand how exactly the entire house purchase process is going to work, and never expect things to necessarily go exactly your way! To be assured of the fact that your personal interests are being looked after and that you, your money and your property are 100% secure, legal and legitimate it's essential to seek independent legal representation in the country you're considering buying property in. What are the Elements in Real Estate? Each element has a specific color associated with it. Because color (light) vibrates and is such a high frequency, it immediately lifts the "energy vibration" in our listings. Helpful Hints for First-Time Home Buyers Buying a house can be a daunting task, even for someone who has owned several homes. My husband and I recently purchased our first home together, and it was hard to find good advice that we truly found useful. What is a Foreclosure? A foreclosure is an action taken against a property owner by seizure of his/her real property. It can be for many reasons. Kings Bay Georgia Real Estate - An Amusing Tale About a Real Estate Agent This story is true and not meant to hurt anyone, but the more that I think about what happened, the more it makes me laugh. I hope that you not only get a chuckle from it as I did, but take your time and look for a professional real estate agent. Can I Sell My Private Mortgage Notes? In this country millions of homes are sold every year. In most cases buyers go to a bank or finance company to seek mortgage financing. NAHB's Voluntary Model Green Home Building Guidelines The voluntary Model Green Home Building Guidelines are designed to move environmentally friendly home building concepts further into the mainstream marketplace. Currently, there are approximately thirty communities throughout the U. Buy FHA HUD Homes FHA HUD homes are those dwellings that have been acquired by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The HUD oversees the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which offers federal insurance on home mortgages. Using Color Psychology to Sell Your Home When painting your home for resale, choosing the right colors can make a huge difference in your paycheck at closing. For instance, did you know that the exterior color of houses selling most quickly is a certain shade of yellow, but that choosing the wrong shade of yellow can kill a sale?You'll find many brochures in paint stores, showing various combinations of exterior paint colors. Rehab Foreclosed Houses the Right Way and Keep All the Profits! I've been teaching people how to buy foreclosure properties for a long time.And we all make the biggest profits on the deals that we rehab the right way. Good Tenants - Learn Twelve Ways Landlords Keep Them Happy, Long-term Good Tenants Paying On Time How to Create a Win-Win Relationship for the Both of You!After you've found your tenants, how do you keep them? Establish a friendly, pleasant, business-like relationship with your tenants, so they'll want to renew again each year. By using one or a few ideas below, you will learn how to keep good tenants. Real Estate Bubble: Fact or Fiction? The real estate market buzz across the country these days revolves around the anticipated and much feared "bubble". The implication is that once burst, prices will spiral downward taking with them the major assets of those foolish enough to buy at a time when disaster looms large. Selling Your House Fast! The physical senses of buyers respond to a home's design, and buyer base their purchase decisions on what the see, hear, smell, touch, and even taste. But what do buyers actually want?All buyers what a home that most closely suits their needs and makes them feel a sense of happiness. Real Estate Financing - Ten Ways Do you remember when real estate financing meant you saved up enough to put 20% down on a house, and then you got a mortgage loan for the other 80%? Well, you can still do that, but there are many more options now. Here are ten of them. How to Use the Internet to Help Your Apartment or House Hunting So you are looking for an apartment to rent or a house to purchase. One of the most important steps is researching the neighborhood to decide if you really like to live in that area. The Benefits of A Real Estate Agent 101 Buying and selling property is not as easy as you may think. There are many things that you have to consider when purchasing a home, or when putting a home up for sale. Negotiating A Short Sale - The High Road to Huge Foreclosure Profits Buying foreclosures can be extremely profitable for real estate investors. However, most of these homeowners are mortgaged to the hilt. I have a buyer for your property and I can sell it now! A Realtor has just talked to you and said, "I have a buyer for your property and I can sell it now; perhaps for more money than the price your current real estate agent has it listed for." Have you heard this or a version of this? Or, "I have a buyer for your property and I can sell it now; for Big Bucks (with an incredibly high figure named) perhaps for more money than that. Investment Real Estate Made Easy - Make the Most from Each Investment Dollar When it comes to buying investment real estate, there are many schools of thought on how to get the most out of your money. Some say lease optioning your houses is the best and safest way to go. Credit Help: Buying Real Estate -- Not the Same as Buying Cars Credit for Buying Real Estate is Different than Credit for Buying CarsForget what you've been told about credit.You may be shocked at some of these tips because this information runs contrary to what other so called experts tell you.
|
|||||||||||||||
