|
The ability to conduct business electronically is rapidly becoming a real estate industry survival skill required not only to develop new markets but simply to remain competitive. In fact, strategically utilizing new and emerging technology is such a dynamic endeavor that some believe you're already behind if you're still reading about it instead of doing it. The interactive capabilities of electronic commerce, or "e-commerce," provide the ability to share information with existing and prospective business partners in minutes, rather than hours or days. Benefits include greater efficiencies, improved customer relations, reduction in costs and increased competitiveness. E-COMMERCE
In the U.S. today, over 50 percent of all companies are engaged in electronic commerce by exchanging data electronically. The operative word is electronic commerce, not electronic transactions—an important distinction in the transaction-oriented business of real estate. Commerce refers to a larger process that includes customer relationships, distribution of information, buyers finding sellers, risk-taking, negotiation and on-going support. The unavoidable analogy for applying e-commerce to the real estate industry is the acclimation of the telecopier or facsimile machine into a business environment. The dynamics and economics that ultimately drove the use of the fax machine are at work with e-commerce. But creatively and strategically applying the new e-commerce technology is far more complex than plugging in a fax machine, and it can be significantly more expensive. The real estate industry has invested heavily in technology related to the Internet. With over 10 million Internet destinations, no other industry can top the number of real estate sites. From global to local, there are sites for every component of the real estate capital markets. INTERNET The Internet is an immense resource. Searching for real estate-related sites and information can be a daunting task. For example, entering the two words "real estate" at a popular search engine (a program that receives a search request, compares it to entries in an index and returns results) site returned over 1.5 million documents. With so many sites offered by so many property companies, trade organizations and publications, how can an individual or organization use the Internet to obtain real estate information? National corporate "players" in the real estate industry think the answer lies with listing and/or lender sites such as Microsoft’s HomeAdvisor (www.homeadvisor.com) or Intuit’s QuickenMortgage www.quickenmortgage.com. It wasn’t that long ago that real estate agents experienced high anxiety when listings moved to the Internet. Today, the National Association of REALTORS® (http://nar.realtor.com) owns a piece of RealSelect, Inc., which owns REALTOR.COM™ (www.realtor.com), which includes listings from local REALTOR® Multiple Listing Services, local Association of REALTORS®, national and regional brokers and individual REALTORS®, most of which have their own individual Web sites and belong to NAR. Global Real estate is a global enterprise and property organizations throughout the world are on the Internet. From Aruba to Zambia, all manner and form of real estate is represented, most in multiple language versions. For example, The International Real Estate Digest (http://www.ired.com) features a diverse directory of links to international sources of information. Their site boasts links to real estate listings in over 115 countries. Domestic There are thousands of domestic Web sites with free and fee-based services for all aspects of the real estate investment industry. Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center (http://recenter.tamu.edu) includes a Homebuyer’s E-Guide in addition to a wealth of national real estate information. Know The Neighborhood (www.knowtheneighborhood.com) provides real estate professionals with comprehensive information on every U.S. neighborhood. Parent company Lysias, Inc. has formed strategic alliances with the parent companies of Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, RE/MAX and Better Homes and Gardens. Real estate information is often available for free from companies that serve real estate professionals. For example, Stewart Title’s (www.stewart.com) new and improved Web site that debuted in early January provides free real estate news, links, closing checklist, REALTOR® search, title agent search, calculators, daily mortgage rates, buyer’s guide and seller’s guide. Local It seems as though information technology in the real estate industry is most feature-rich at local sites where public record access, in-depth databases and market expertise converge. In Texas for example, Landata RE-Source (http://texas.landata.com) offers free and fee-based real estate information for consumers and businesses. From county clerk’s records to lead prospector, the site is an invaluable resource for Texas real estate professionals. CONCLUSION The Internet is changing the way property moves. Marketing property on the Web is creating real estate transactions and the need for related services. It’s a dynamic enterprise that promises to permanently change the real estate industry. But these new real estate technologies will not replace brokers and agents, reduce the membership of trade organizations or eliminate the need for real estate publications. In the relatively limited applications that exist, it has allowed users to develop, strengthen and nurture relationships -- but at what cost? E-commerce stakes are high--the financial requirements (hiring personnel with new skills, training and integrating existing personnel and maintaining hardware/software) are formidable, and keeping pace with an emerging technology is virtually impossible. These are not trivial challenges. E-commerce and the Internet are still much like the Wild West. There are few rules and those that do exist are nearly impossible to enforce. The real estate professionals that stand to enjoy the greatest rewards are the pioneers who are willing to draft, sustain and enforce the emerging rules. It is a frontier where the large deep pockets do not necessarily have a distinct advantage over spirited entrepreneurs. Effective use of technology within the real estate industry is all about establishing connections between people: lenders talking with borrowers, advisors counseling clients and buyers finding sellers. Establishing vital new pathways of disclosure, analysis, fulfillment, discourse, instruction and trust can only benefit the industry.
|
