It’s time to address the elephant in the room: an epic battle for buyers and sellers is underway.
As a leading tech provider, we’ve been quiet about the real estate wars so far. But with disruptors seeking to supplant or replace agents and put the professionals we support further on the ropes, we must join in.
Now, I may be a simple salesperson by trade, but I wouldn’t be the CRO of a multi-million-dollar company if I didn’t have some decent forecasting skills.
And when I look ahead to the future of real estate, beyond the controversies between competing business models, beyond the hundreds of millions of dollars being thrown around, agents and brokers are still at the center of the transaction.
Here’s why.
We know consumers demand a modern experience
From Netflix to Amazon, consumers are accustomed to speed, convenience, visibility, and control in everything they do. With the pandemic accelerating our reliance on digital technology, they now expect it when buying and selling a home, too
So, we know real estate must be better
Disruptors are right about one thing: Real estate needs to catch up to how things are done everywhere else. It needs to be easier to buy and sell homes.
However! We also know that consumers still want professionals
Despite everything, 94% of consumers used real estate professionals last year. The pandemic may have proven that people need a better way to buy and sell homes, but it also proved that they don’t want a different way.
Not yet anyway.
To win buyers and sellers, real estate must level up—and fast
Disruptors aren’t going to disappear.
To compete, agents need to reward the confidence that consumers have placed in them by embracing new technology and elevating the buyer and seller experience in 2021.
It’s not enough for agents to do this alone. Change needs to be driven by brokers and MLSs/associations to reach true scale. Collectively, these organizations can empower more agents and reach more consumers than anyone else (especially when they partner with the tech industry!).
The power to make change is already in your hands
And here’s why I’m so bullish on agents and brokers. Everything you need to affect change is already available.
- MLS data can create better CMAs that equip agents with unrivaled market intelligence and digital content.
- Connected, end-to-end software can provide a complete—and completely digital—transaction, so agents can guide consumers through the deal in the way that only a professional can.
- AI, machine learning, and data science can be seamlessly incorporated into recruiting and reporting, so brokers can supplement their HI (human intelligence) with AI, modernize their business, and improve their sales force along the way. After all, if competing means empowering your agents vs. things like historically low inventory, then you also need the right agents to empower.
The thing disruptors have wrong is that changing real estate isn’t about turning it into an easy button. That’s an insult to the professionals who earn their living in this industry.
Changing real estate is about upgrading things that already exist, connecting them through technology, and putting them in the hands of the true professionals, so they can do what they already do, but better.
It’s about evolving, yes, but it’s also about keeping people at the heart of the industry. Buying or selling a home isn’t something you can replace with a button; at its core, real estate is about people guiding, helping, and supporting other people in one of the most important decisions in their lives.
That’s what we believe at Lone Wolf.
Because in the battle for buyers and sellers, we’re on your side.
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Lone Wolf is on your side. From CMA, digital forms, and eSignature to back office, recruiting, and business insights, we’re here to help you evolve your entire real estate, business. So that you’re empowered to do what do you best and win the business of buyers and sellers. Click here to find out more about our latest groundbreaking innovation for brokers, Recruit.