PAULA'S SOUTHAMPTON BLOG

DISRUPT THE DISRUPTOR...

This is the second post in as many days about the things we NEED to do in real estate, given the state of affairs. Please know that we CAN take back our reputations and our professional status from those who want to destroy us!

A Disruptor comes along when complacency sets in--There is an obvious missing link in the eyes of the Disruptor and that is the clue that He watches for in an industry that is ripe for the Disruption that takes place...nothing is the same after that.

To understand the impact of the Disruption that has taken place in real estate, one must take a look at marketing...That is where the biggest clue can be found for the past 10 years.

Agents blame the weakness of print ads on the downtrend in newspapers. Yet, where did the downturn in news print come from? If you guessed the reading public you would be right on the mark! The same thing with the downturn of advertising and marketing results...

The buying public has literally turned their back on the whole idea of picking up a magazine or a newspaper. Their reading is now done on the Internet and they could care less what happens in the wake of that change of habit. That begets the loss of the one certain form of marketing: the splashy ad designed to appeal to the senses, to entice the person with money to part with it!

All the big money spent on print advertising in the past has gone nowhere! Agents have stopped spending their hard earned dollars on print ads because they don't "pull" anymore.

The buying and selling public has turned their backs on real estate agents, literally. They could care less because they have found a new way to buy and sell their own homes!!

But the real loss is to the buying and selling public!!

The Disruptor that I speak of is a wide range of listing platforms, all owned by a single company by the name of Zillow...

Between creating websites for owners and buyers to use directly and removing the listing agent (the real estate agent as the professional best able to help to buy or sell their homes) from their own listings, Zillow has created the "Unqualified Agent" by featuring them right on the listings they scraped off legitimate real estate sites!

They then charged this "rogue" agent up the wazoo for the right to be in front, suggesting they would be the winner in the race to be the one who gets the first phone call.

Meanwhile the public, in  a state of confusion as to who the real listing agent is, is given the false idea that they were working with the expert on the property. This leads to a distrust and disrespect of ALL real estate agents as the public figures out they are being bamboozled...by whom they are not sure but it sure looks like it is the unqualified agent whom they just met at a house they saw on line and who knows NOTHING about the house they want to buy!

See what I mean by DISRUPTION?

The disruption came upon the industry just as we were beginning to see the largest home ownership in the entire history of the US.

Zillow could not have done a better job in ruining our reputations as agents if they tried--oh wait, they planned this all along! Put inexperienced and newer agents who are willing to pay big bucks to get loads of leads on the listings they have scraped off our sites and give the public a sense that NONE of us know what we are doing! Worthless bunch we are because of the few who pay to show properties they know NOTHING about!!!  Oh, the Irony of it all!!

This was no mistake on the part of these giant websites---after all everybody wants a piece of the real estate pie, no? They figured it out and ran with the concept of taking the content right off the websites and creating a chaos that resembles a shattered industry that is incapable of seeing the truth about itself!

Now it's our turn to Disrupt!!

I for one have had enough and I will make every effort to get that message out to others in this industry...

I have complied a list of the most important things we can do to save our businesses and to Disrupt the Disruptors. See below:

• STOP paying for your leads on the websites that are cleaning you out!! Do your own videos and put them on Instagram and Facebook. Maybe even try doing a webinar to the public, informing them of things such as what to do to prepare your home for sale.
• Pick an area that you want to focus your entire attention on as your niche--Make it as big as you want but make sure it is not too big to handle as an expert--because that is what you need to be.
• Begin today to become a local expert--not just another local agent but someone who is fully informed of all that goes on in your niche area, from the baseball team to the schools to the playgrounds and the walking trails tucked away from public view.
• Make sure to know intimately, ALL the details of disclosure, County/Town/City real estate laws and codes and everything you can find out about the taxes involved in a transaction--Use this information when you pitch a listing or when you are first working with a customer. This is to make them aware of  your knowledge and the fact that you are there to help in more finite ways than your competition.
• Become a "pillar" of your community by participating in as many local programs and activities as you can. Become an informed museum goer--know the offerings and the exhibits by heart.
• Gather your wits about you before you meet with a client or a buyer; be your best self because we have a lot of repair to do in this profession after the Disruption of the past 10 years.