Continuing the tradition that started when the earth was young (or last year… depending on your definition of “time”), I’d like to present this year’s version of “Predictions Guaranteed to be Wrong, Or Your Money Back”! As we saw in the report card post, last year, I went 4.5 for 7 in predictions. I hope to bat lower for this year’s predictions. Of course, I can guarantee 0 for 7 by making ridiculous predictions, like “The Jets will win the SuperBowl”.
Without further ado, the predictions for 2012…
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The Birthplace of REFooCamp
A while ago, I wrote that it was time to reinvent the REBarCamp and that I would do more than just kvetch about it. Yesterday, we had a very small, very intimate gathering of likeminded and curious folks at the GoodLife Team‘s offices in Austin, TX. (Thanks so much, once again, Garry and Kristina Wise!) It wasn’t widely advertised on purpose, as I wanted to see how the format would work, whether we’d generate anything useful out of it, and yet, people came and joined in for as long as they could. Given the on-purpose lack of advance notice, I’m extremely happy that we got to test out the concept.
I can speak only for myself when I say that I thought the format worked beautifully for what I intended, and that I hope to do a more formal, more advance-notice, REFooCamp soon. Perhaps in Atlanta next? These are just a few of my observations.
If you’re responsible for real estate brokerage operations, you owe it to yourself and to your company to read this post by Glenn Kelman at Redfin. I have said for a while now that I believe Redfin to be one of few viable models for real estate brokerage of the future, and this post helps confirm that belief. It’s a long post, and worth reading in full, but here’s the money graf:
But outside of calling one agent after another, the CB CEO has no way of knowing what his agents are doing; most work as contractors, for franchises, recording their deals in spreadsheets and notepads. Redfin on the other hand has a system for scheduling home tours and writing offers, which means we also have a system for storing data about every tour & offer. Months before the numbers are recorded at county courthouses or by federal agencies, we know when bidding wars are back, or when tire-kickers have taken over the market. We can see the whole elephant, and we’re minutely sensitive to when he’s about to roll on top of us or stampede through the jungle. [Emphasis added]
Fact is, far too many real estate brokerages pay lip service to the importance of technology. Even the ones who do invest are putting money and resources towards marketing technology rather than information technology. In the long run, I think the companies that survive the Great Recession will be ones who invested in information technology, rather than just another pretty website. Read the rest of this entry »
