I've been kicking around this real estate industry for almost four decades! I've seen changes over the years which have been for the better and for for the worse.
The best thing to happen to the real estate profession, in my opinion, is the Internet.
We have suddenly come out of the Dark Ages and into the Brave New World, and just in time.
I was fortunate to have been involved in industrial real estate when this country had a thriving manufacturing base. Being based in New England I was a witness to those mighty red brick mills that were the incubator and home of the American industrial revolution in action. I was witness to it's great last act.
Today the textile cotton and woolen mills are long gone, first to the south, and now to China and other countries. Today the shoe shops are history and imports flood our stores at the Malls.
Today, with "globalization," those mill building been either demolished or converted into residential condos! While this may not be true progress,it is change!
Over the past many years I have taken a great number of professional real estate courses. Recently so taught real estate. Recently I have spoken with a number of "real estate agents and brokers," and with real estate lawyers, civil engineers and mortgage brokers.
The focus of these individuals today is not about the" quality or integrity of their work," but is only about "profit!"
What I have discovered, of late, is that fewer and fewer " real estate practitioners" have any grasp or concepts of the "essentials of real estate fundamentals." They sadly lack real estate in-depth knowledge.
They know the latest and slickest techniques of "sales and marketing" but lack real estate know-how when it comes to such subjects as; land use controls, valuation and property taxes, etc.
The brokerage business needs technical savvy professionals who obtain their knowledge the old fashion way: via solid education and on going mentoring.
The brokerage industry appears to be more concerned with the "churn" of it's practitioners rather than with their education and in-depth training. This "churn" appears to me to be a sublte method of marketing in that each "new" agent will bring at least 1.5 sales ( via relative or extended family) to a brokerage establishment.
The one change the entire real estate industry must have now and in the future, in order to survive at all, is that of higher professional standards for all of it's practitioners.
This is for the benefit of the consumers.
In my opinion practioners should spend less time and money on spin and mindless marketing and more on education and training.
Yes, the Internet has thrown a light on the entire industry.
The rise of the "discount brokers" and the consumer demand for better service was not caused by the Internet but was rather caused by the 1950 real estate brokerage model!
Bill McInerney
Future Blogs:
Changes in Commercial Restate Brokerage
Comments on the April 2007 Report by the US Department of Justice:" Competition in the real estate brokerage industry.
No comments:
Post a Comment