Since I wrote about Google Base the other day, and the subsequent comment, the more I think about this, the more I think that this may be a watershed moment for the real estate industry.
There are a lot of search engines out there, and a few that specifically do local search, i.e. yahoo, google, amazon (archived: 2021).
How can Realtors differentiate themselves?
– By leveraging existing and emerging technologies and adapting our businesses appropriately. There is no clear way or method of how to do this – the answer changes every day.
– We use our knowledge every day; becoming an expert is a time-consuming task. Anybody can quickly learn enough to be dangerous.
This is a similar situation to that faced by other professionals: financial advisers, lawyers – all the data is available in the public domain, but not everyone uses it every day. Professionals’ value is in how they use the information.
If I wanted to buy my own stocks, manage my IRAs, money markets, etc. I could; there will always be a market for those who want to invest their time in the most efficient manner for them. I could defend myself in court by doing the appropriate research, starting at most likely google and nolo.com, but my time is better used elsewhere. Heck, I could probably figure out how to pull my own wisdom teeth, but I’d rather not!
Anything that raises Wal-Mart’s hackles (archived: 2005) will certainly affect the little guy … and the big guy.
It will also force Wal-Mart, and Walmart.com, to figure out how to keep customers happy beyond low prices and product selection. Wal-Mart might have the leanest and smartest (RFID) supply chain in the works for gaining efficiencies, but Google is building a scalable, massively parallelized, distributed infrastructure for serving billions of users and delivering increasingly targeted content and services on any device. Do you go to Wal-Mart or Google (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) first and last in the product purchase cycle? Good story at the WP as well.
Make no mistake – the market is evolving, more rapidly than ever before. Staying ahead of the evolutionary curve is the challenge.
Interested in Learning More?
Jim Duncan has been helping buyers and sellers in Charlottesville’s neighborhoods for 25 years. Get local insight born of experience.
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