Saturday, March 26, 2005
Internet Real Estate: It’s still dawn
In the late 1990’s, many real estate agents were highly concerned about the effect the internet would have on their income stream.
So far in the 2000’s, many of the benchmark statistics have shown a negligible impact on traditional real estate - the number of people using Realtors has changed relatively little. This has relaxed many real estate agents, giving them a false sense of security.
This article from Inman (http://www.inman.com/inmannews.aspx?ID=45429) illustrates that the numbers are still changing - rapidly - and the internet’s effect on real estate is just dawning.
Example:
“Newspapers are fighting to retain their preeminence in the classified arena; the media giants lost 2 percent of real estate advertising market share between 2003 and 2004…”
A significant portion of this loss includes real estate agents. As this trend continues and people see that realtors are more and more using advertising websites and services readily available to the public, the mystique around real estate sales will continue to dwindle. The more visible this trend gets, the more consumers will decide to try selling without an agent.
Realtors may have relaxed too quickly. The truth is that it has taken several years of experimentation and testing for companies to figure out the best way to use the internet for real estate and still make a profit. Many companies have figured it out, and we’re just now beginning to see the true effect of the internet on real estate as an industry.
~Robert Creek
Tags: real estate, realestate
