The following Blog post Jump Start the Housing Industry by Mandating Blackberry Usage by Matthew Ferrara & Co is something I have been talking about for long time. Yeah, I am more of a techie than most, but these tech tools are being used by the public and they are being used more by the public than by my colleagues in real estate related activities.
1. Latops are mandatory tools in this business and not just any laptop will do. I’m talking about small & light notebook style laptops not the boat anchor media center laptops rookie computer users purchase for their first laptop. This has been a mandatory tool for several years now.
2. A PDA cell phone is mandatory. At minimum a Blackberry. The iphone is moving in on our industry and will take over with the RE.net crowd when the next upgraded release hits the streets (which is soon). In the Southern California Area the Palm Treo is still a stong tool as the Supra ibox keysafe system works only with pda phones that have infrared capabilities. However even with the the lack of infrared capability on the Blackberry and iphone, both these phone features make some compelling trade offs. Still the iphone is light years a head of the Blackberry and is the front runner the RE.net crowd if you are willing to drop the Supra ibox compatability issue.
3. This entry should really be a subset of number two. Text messaging, picture, video capture and email needs to actually be used on these PDA phones. Youtube, Flickr and other services make it too easy to upload photos and video on the fly.
4. Paperless online transaction management systems and skills. This still takes some computer skill, like feeding the documents in the scanner and scanning them into a PDF file and then uploading those files to software designed to securely monitor and give access to those documents. This will be the mandatory system in just a few years Arizona is taking the lead on this one; it should be now, but Realtors have always lagged. All the consumer printer manufacturers still make all-in-one printers with a fax machine probably because there are so many Realtors that refuse to scan-to-email. I have not even touched on electronic signature packages which will make tablet PCs obsolete.
The four areas I touched on above are not James Bond type systems. Everything above can be purchased for very reasonable prices. The cost to be a Realtor is a fraction of what it would cost to open a franchise or start up any other business, so the cost is very a poor excuse. The costs for a PDA phone, Laptop and software it is still under $2,500.00. Has anyone checked to see what it costs to open a Subway Sandwich franchise lately?
When I look through the listing data on the Simi Valley – Moorpark Multiple Listing Service or when I call other agents to show their property or get feedback when they show my listings, it is painfully evident that I have the easy upper-hand in this business. My future is bright!
I found your blog on MSN Search. Nice writing. I will check back to read more.
Eric Hundin
Eric,
Thank you and a equal return to you:
Have a great night!
-Ted
Ricardo,
Not sure if I’d hold the loan broker community to this standard as strictly. For Real Estate, we can carry pictures and video of our listings on our phones.
-Ted
Ted,
You’re making me feel bad for not having a blackberry! It’s the one gadget that I haven’t gone around to getting; though that will change shortly.
I certainly agree that the better connected your are with technology now-a-days, the better efficiency your create for yourself in connecting with people (people = new connections = new business).