Interesting stuffReal Estate Related July 20, 2010

Things I learned from the Inman Connect in San Fransisco.

July 13th to the 15th I attended Inamn Connect in San Fransisco. I had a great time seeing a lot of new things. Also some not so new things, and then some things that didn’t impress me at all. The 3 things I came away with were..

1. The Real Estate Industry as a whole needs to work on our Customer Services. Today the customer demands a lot.  Not that they haven’t in the past but their attention is being pulled in many different ways, and their options are many.  As Brokers we live in an independent contractor world so keeping customer services consistent can be a challenge at times.

Brokers I would take a close look at your client surveys and even a closer look at your agent’s as to what level of customer services they perceive they are providing and compare it to what the customer’s feels they are getting. Also what is the customer services level your agents feel they get from you. Yes I’m in the hot seat as well, what level of customer services do owners feel they get from their franchiser? We all need to make sure we are exceeding expectations.

2.Local, Local, Local! The information we are providing today to our customers needs to be hyper local, and packed with great content. The days of a static listing search websites  are becoming a thing of the past. Social Networking and Twitter are taking front staged backed by a content rich very local company blog. Here is good example of an office doing just that. Whidbey Island Windermere

3. Mobile! Mobile! Mobile! and yes Geo location. Sites like foursquare, pegshot, Fwix, and others are really pushing the Global position concept. I-Pad is popular, and according to a Morgan Stanley report smart phone sales will surpass PC’s and laptops by 2012.

It was great to listen to speakers from inside and outside our industry, not sure why we keep having Craig Newmark talk. He is a bright guy and very interesting but every year he pretty much says the same thing. Would be nice to get some fresh perspectives next year. Love what you do Craig but it’s time for new material.

Great stuff from Microsoft Live Labs. Pivot, Seadragon, and Photsynth. Lots of new vendors with some very interesting concepts. Peep.ly is something worth taking a look at. If you attended please share what you got out of it.