This REM (Real Estate Magazine) article, a conversation with Gary Hockey, the president and CEO of Cold Well Banker Canada has some good insight into the open data / realtor value issue.
REM:With listing information so easily accessible over the Internet, how do we move consumers past the perception that the value lies in the information itself, and not the Realtor?
Hockey: Technology has moved us from being keepers of the information to being the interpreters of the information.
Our customers often have the information before we even get to sit down and meet with them – they sometimes know more about some properties than we do, as salespeople. For agents, it’s a bit of a dilemma. If you don’t put your information out there, you’re a ‘secret’ agent; if you do put it out there, it’s easy to sense that you’re giving it away and you’re not in control. You have to step back and say, “Whenever I get a point of contact, that’s when I’ve got to deliver.â€
It’s a sad commentary on our industry that 50 per cent of Internet leads still go unanswered – that’s a North American, industry-wide statistic. You can sympathize to a degree, because agents do get burned – they supply all this information and then the customer goes off elsewhere. But in my view that’s because agents are missing the intermediate step – having a good, constructive dialogue with that customer.
The average customer still doesn’t understand what a real estate professional does. They don’t understand what a complex job we perform. If agents learn better how to manage their customer by providing the information and explaining what’s going to take place in the process, they’ll be a lot further ahead.
Hockey’s response is right on the money. It is a two sided solution, both realtors and consumers need to be informed on the real value of online listing data and realtors.
The realtors who are able to differentiate themselves by adding value beyond listing data will be the ones that are successful. There are things that a listing does not tell you. What is the neighborhood like, what is the crime like in the area, is it safe for children, what are the people like, which schools are close by, what ammenities are close by, how are the restaurants? I can go on and on about added value.
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First off, I’ll state my bias: I really hope realtors go the way of travel agents. In other words, useful if you need something special, not necessary if you are going ahead with something straight forward.
I would argue that unless you are new to the town, you probably know the area of town as well as the agent once you have driven around and asked a few acquantances.
Next, why shouldn’t some real estate website list crime statistics and school rankings (ie % that passed standardized testing like in Ontario) for each area? Why not have something built on top of Google Maps that lists community centres, grocery stores, or whatever criteria you select in a X kilometre radius? In addition to such web-enabled tools, walking around at different times during the week would give you a better grasp of the neighbourhood than some biased realtor in whose interest it is to overlook the negatives.
For a simple single family home, the valuation expert that the mortgage company sends out plus a decent home inspector and a lawyer is all you really need. The realtor is superfluous if the necessary information is widely available.