Apr 16, 2008 8
A Question of Canaan
Marc Davison recently issued what I consider to be an important challenge, sort of tucked away into the dictum of his post called “Exodus from the bondage of 1.0 tradition“:
Like catcalls from construction workers to pedestrians, false bravado, come-ons and innuendo continue to adorn broker websites. They stand as a gripping example of how out of touch brokers are with the times.
It’s getting old.
It makes no sense anymore.
And it’s not what real estate is really about.
Marc then goes on to describe Chase Nation whose website is in dire need of a redesign, and a new search interface. (As an aside, Marc might direct Chase Nation to this post about not mixing Web 1.0 with Web 2.0; that search UI is from like… 1996?)
But that isn’t the important challenge. The important challenge/question is the last sentence quoted: “And it’s not what real estate is really about.”
So since Marc raised the issue of Exodus, I raise the question of Canaan. It’s one thing to leave Pharaoh’s bondage — where is it that Moses 2.0 is leading the community? If the realtor’s obsession with listings, properties, client testimonials, and ‘dream homes’ is not what real estate is really about… then what is real estate really about?
I’m thinking through this question as well, but I have not the vision that Marc has of utterly repudiating the current paradigm of ‘what real estate is really about’. My thinking is fairly limited at the end of the day to changing the way that real estate professionals behave, bringing new thinking to the methodology and techniques of marketing, and applying lessons from other industries to this one. But ultimately, real estate is about matching a buyer to a property to the satisfaction of all involved parties. Nothing more, nothing less.
But then, I’m no Moses, but a mere scribbler.
-rsh
