This "office of the future" thing is starting to catch fire

First it was NRT's Manhattan Beach Project. That was circa 2005, a year following a presentation Brian and I gave the folks at NRT about the paperless office. 

Then it was Intero's Andare office on Santana Row, which has been getting considerable attention these days.

Last week Inman featured a guest perspective by Matt Dollinger from @properties [disclosure: @properties is a 1000watt Consulting client] that took the notion of a future real estate office to some far-reaching lengths. Given the absolutely stunning nature of their facilities, I can certainly see where he was coming from.

Today Coldwell Banker announced their own take on the office of the future, which offers several of the ideas and appointments taken from the participants at a workshop we moderated with Sherry Chris last summer at Real Estate Connect.   

Just now I was sent a link that introduced me to the Dunes Properties website, which includes a microsite built around their office of future.

Man is this hot!

Here's what I like:

The website itself is super clean. It has a Web 2.0 feel to it which I found to be quite elegant and appropriate for real estate. I love the simple navigation that excludes all those typical things most brokerage websites offer that nowadays seem so pointless, such as" Buyer Tips," "Free Reports," etc.

I was excited to find a "Contact Me" page that actually offers a phone number, which strangely enough is not all that common. Many brokerage sites don't publish a phone number anywhere on their site.

Oddly, the site is missing a direct link to search. If you click around long enough you'll find it, but I wonder how many users will put in as much effort as I did searching for it.

Nevertheless, the payoff on this site is the microsite, a "studio tour." What a great idea. And talk about environmental branding -- holy cannoli!

I've quickly logged a host of suggestions that would make this microsite much better, such as including some video, live chat, links to PR, a blog and quite possibly a live cam - things that could bring this place to life. 

But here's my bottom line: If I lived in Charleston or decided to move there and needed to source out a brokerage, I'd go with Dunes. This facility creates that much of a wow factor for me. Considering I recently hired an agent to work with me in Austin due to her quick trigger on Twitter, and how nicely this has worked out for us, I trust my gut on this one.

While this website itself might not make our Top 10, and while there are many things I would do to improve the site, this post is more about what some brokerages are doing today to create difference, to spread the seeds of their brand, create impact and build something that brings them into the here and now. And poise themselves for the future.

I know there is considerable focus on the virtual office. But there is still something precious about a terrestrial facility -- if it is done right.I have a feeling we are going to seeing more and more of these as time goes on.

- Davison
Twitter: 100wattmarc

Flikr, Skittles, Oodle and other cool developments

Photo sharing site Flikr now allows free users to upload video. As I noted in my "Seeing online real estate" post a couple weeks ago, Flikr is one of many services that will drive a much more visual online real estate experience in the near future. Brokers and online real estate sites of all kinds can easily display location-related images and video via the Flikr API.

Skittles - those chewy little candies - are now being marketed online in manner that is ultra-aggressive in its approach to social media. In fact the boundary between the brand and the "conversation" has been obliterated. Take a look and think about how this sort of thing might be applied to real estate marketing. Risky but not without rewards if executed properly, in my opinion. [via searchblog].

Walkscore, the site that measures the "walkability" of places, including homes, has cut two significant deals in the past couple weeks. Both Zillow and Estately have integrated the Walkscore API. Users on these sites can now view the proximity of listings to various amenities. Walkscore is a non-profit and there's a strong normative dimension to the service (We should use cars less) but it's a compelling (and free) addition to most real estate sites. 

Oodle, the classifieds site, is quietly kicking ass (Yes, I think you can kick ass quietly). They went live today as the classifieds engine on facebook. This follows upon a deal announced last week with AOL and a partnership with Wal-Mart.com inked last year. Their traffic is skyrocketing. And they have a strong real estate category. As the real estate listings aggregators approach parity in terms of volume, I wonder if they will find themselves challenged by a player like Oodle, which can develop content and traffic mass of an entirely different order.

Brokers: Jump on the neighborhood conversation now or surrender it to a media company. That's the message to be taken from the New York Times' announcement that it is entering into the neighborhood blog arena.

-- Brian Boero

The real estate office of the future is here

I envisioned this a while back. Intero Real Estate has brought it to life in the South Bay Area.

Read about it in this post, "Rethink your real estate space" on FOREM.  

Here's a glimpse of what it looks like. Pictures courtesy of Ash Munshi, CEO of Terabitz.  

 

 

Nice going!

- Davison

Twitter: 1000wattmarc

"Seeing" the future of online real estate

A couple weeks ago, Frontdoor.com released its City Guides product [Disclosure: Frontdoor.com is a 1000watt Consulting client]. This is worth noting for several reasons. The user experience is first rate; the balance between content and design, data and vibe is pitch perfect; it supports the decision to live a life somewhere, not just to buy a house.

Their implementation of real estate-relevant APIs is well done. They've done a great job organizing Yelp reviews in each city, and display local events through eventful.

A slice of life

But it's their use of Flickr that got me thinking.

Flikr has been around for a long time. It has been plugged into thousands of websites and blogs. But the volume of geotagged photos it holds is now to a point where users can get a good visual sense for most any place. Frontdoor.com is taking advantage of this.

Check out Fairfield, CA

Or Athens, Georgia.

Or how about this: My wife is from Marshall, MN, a small town way out in corn country. Flikr brings it to life. This image illustrates why my wife now lives in California. 

You get a slice of life from each of these places, usually seen through the eyes of people who live there. I may know that Athens is a college town, but now I can actually see what a University of Georgia college student looks like these days. I can look at a map of Marshall mashed up with points of interest, but this gets me deeper. 

These photos pull you back from the tight focus on the home and touch on the blurry edges of decision making. And this, I think, presents really interesting possibilities for online real estate.

I am not certain what those possibilities will amount to. But the confluence of visual search, location awareness, Street View, online video, and massive stores of goetagged photos will get us closer to "virtual real estate" than we could have imagined even five years ago.

Something else to consider: There are hundreds of millions of photos sitting within MLS systems across the country. Most brokers have thousands of images they're not using. We focus so much on listings data; is there hidden value in the images?

-- Brian Boero

Show me the market!

You may have noticed I am a big advocate of putting real estate market information into the hands of consumers.

During most of the boom years, buyers and sellers made life-changing decisions based on thin slices of information. A few comps fished from the MLS. County-level market trends. And, too often, uninformed or skewed interpretations from their agent.

Sure, there were the monthly numbers from NAR. Or the Case-Shiller Index. But they lagged badly. "Recent" sales data on the web were not recent enough.

Zillow and Trulia improved the situation and should be commended for it. They served up tons of market metrics and nailed the user experience. But they were based on some of the same old data, or used fresher data that represented but a fraction of the total available in a given market.

This lead to my bullishness for the MLS: For they have fresh data, all of it. The problem is that MLSs and the brokers they support generally have no idea how to shape that data into something usable.

That is now changing.

Here are some examples:

The Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS, in partnership with Northstar MLS, recently launched a suite of market reports that are very well done. A detailed summary for their entire region is produced each week; numbers for 100 area communities are published monthly. The visualization of the data is excellent and intelligent commentary is paired with the hard numbers. MAAR even created a blog -- "The Skinny" -- through which they publish and comment on the data.

Jeff Allen, Research Manager at MAAR, tells me the information is being gobbled up by consumers and professionals alike.

There are obvious limitations here (that reports are only available via PDF is the most problematic), but they intend to address them in the coming months.

I have discussed Redfin's use of IDX to create market metrics before. They have done an amazing job. But Estately appears to have made some nice moves in this area as well. They offer neighborhood level market pages that present at-a-glance views of the price median, inventory and days on market. This, again, is based on their use of IDX. 

Top Producer made an early move with their Market Snapshot product. While it's a vastly superior option for agents looking to move beyond marketing with recipes and saccharine proclamations of home ownership dreams come true, it suffers, in my opinion, from some data visualization issues.

I understand MLS data aren't perfect. And, yes, brokers in some markets still play hard-to-get with their listings. But the bottom line is clear: The MLS is the fountainhead of possibility for delivering consumers current, reliable, hyperlocal real estate market information. Brokers, associations and technology companies are starting to tap into it.

And that's exciting.

-- Brian Boero

A little broker website sucess story (and desperate wake-up call for big brokers)

We’ve received a ton of great feedback on the “Top Ten Real Estate Brokerage Websites in America” report we published with Real Trends back in October. Brokers big and small have come out of the woodwork to share their stories and seek our help.

Jonathan Kaufman’s story is one of the best. Here’s an excerpt from an email he sent us last week:

"I launched my own real estate brokerage in August 2008 because I know the industry is changing and I didn’t want to be under the umbrella of my old brokerage.  Although I don’t know the model of the future, I know that I need to get out there and try new things…something I couldn’t do in my old situation.  I figured it was much more of a risk to stay where I was versus breaking off on my own.  So, I took the plunge.

As a start, I wanted a top-of-the-line web presence – something that spotlighted my real estate beliefs, something that set me apart, and something that would allow me to connect with the type of buyers and sellers that I wanted to work with.  I spent countless hours researching other brokerage web sites and read your ‘Top Ten’ report in late October.  It was a wealth of information and made me think about a lot of aspects of my site (and business).  Along with my web designers, we picked the report apart and took a lot of great ideas from it."

Take a look at the results here.

What’s he’s done is killer. There are some things I might change, but I’m not going to quibble here. The point is Jonathan created something excellent. It’s worth serious study.

Jonathan’s site is better in terms of design, usability and brand coherence than almost all big broker sites. Indeed, some of the major brands could benefit from going to school on it.

So congratulations to Jonathan.

But this is about more than a website. Think again about what Jonathan says above:

“… I know the industry is changing and I didn’t want to be under the umbrella of my old brokerage.  Although I don’t know the model of the future, I know that I need to get out there and try new things…something I couldn’t do in my old situation.“

Big brokers, pay attention: There are thousands of Jonathans out there right now. They’re smart, skilled, and confident. They have no need for the mother’s milk of a desk, of shockingly remedial “training”, of the legal backstopping required by the average recruit.

They are businesspeople. And they are leaving.

Kris did. Jay did. And so did Jonathan.

Brokerage companies are in for a serious brain drain unless they can use their assets in a manner that supports, rather than inhibits, these stars.

What are those assets? Well, at the top of the list – hopefully – is a brand. Not just a recognizable icon, but a marker imbued with some sort of meaning. Most real estate brands have been suffered the whips and scorns of thousand agent glamour shots, but for many companies, there’s something there worth saving.  Save it. How this is done is a long, always complicated process we’re working on with several clients right now.

The other lies in scale. Theoretically. The average big brokerage, being big, has people and resources the average agent or solo broker does not. The problem is that in many cases, it’s the wrong people using resources the wrong way. The typical brokerage marketing department has little to offer the Jonathans of the world, but it could. Doing so involves cutting the cord on lots of non-productive initiatives and creating a strategy (as opposed to halting, half-baked forays) for delivering new value to agents and consumers.

But I digress. And Jonathan’s broker has lost his opportunity anyway.

 -- Brian Boero

Brokers caught between a rock and a virtual hard place

It began innocently enough. A broker sent me a link hoping to get my thoughts on his new website. When Brian or I get these requests we'll scan the site quickly and, if time permits, respond with some quick observations. Sometimes we're drawn to do more. Especially when the broker's good intentions are nowhere to be found in the results. 

Between a rock and a hard place

Meet Eirik Olsen. He's a broker in the Pacific Northwest caught between the rock of excitement surrounding the launch of his new website and a hard place of concern he now feels as he comes to terms with what he actually has.

We are all too familiar with Eirik's dilemma. As a broker he was handcuffed to a Website product that cost too much and provided too little. And a vendor that bound him to a ball-and-chain contract trusting that their system was so deeply woven into his business he could never leave. 

This problem afflicts many brokers. And most choose to hang onto a dysfunctional vendor relationship because they are fearful of what happens if they move on -- of the possibility that they can't do any better.

Eirik gambled and moved on. He contracted a new vendor. And all seemed fine until he went live. And began to seek opinion outside his corporate cockpit.

I called Eirik after looking at his website. We covered a lot of ground. At the conclusion of our call he voiced concern for all brokers caught in his position. Out of sincere desire that others learn from his mistakes, Eirik volunteered to let us publish a high-level assessment of his new site here. The list of issues below is not exhaustive, but will hopefully help some of you thinking about making a move.

Browser compatibility

This is Eirik's website. For those of you viewing this on a PC, you will miss the very first impression I had viewing it in Safari. It looked like this:

Making a site compatible with Safari isn't rocket science. And Eirik is based in one of the most tech-savvy cities in the country: Seattle. Ouch.

Brand

Eirik's online brand is Green Real Estate Center, a moniker that alludes to environmental education within the context of real estate. I expected the site to contain content about energy efficiency and environmentally friendly materials for the home. I imagined the site would also list green homes for sale and provide lifestyle information.

Those impressions dissipated seconds after I scanned the homepage and found no evidence of any such information. I explained how this creates confusion for the user and leads to distrust caused by discordant branding.       

Other site copy states that this center serves to protect consumers. Yet no where on this site could we find content to support that claim. Unsupported claims are a bad idea in real estate these days.

The RE/MAX branding at the top of the page added to the confusion since RE/MAX has not, to our knowledge, ever branded itself as being environmentally friendly. With the absence of any text stating a unique value proposition that would help explain what Green Real Estate really is, we were left on our own to weed through jargon that seems to do everything but explain what Green Real Estate Center really is.

Search 

How is it that three years since Trulia taught real estate how search should be done, this sort of thing still exists?

The instructional screen that hovers over the default map-based search was disconcerting. Why does search require a tutorial? Adding to the confusion were mysterious terms such as  "Focus Map" or verbiage that reads "Select the Draw Zoom tool, then click and drag to create a rectangle within to focus the map. Why is the map out of focus to begin with?

This search defaults to a map even though most online real estate sites have abandoned the practice for a simpler list display. Here'swhy: Type Seattle into the one search field and hit go. Numerous little house icons appear. The user is required to hover over each one to view the image of the home.

It's not a good idea to play hard to get with the user.

Eirik's search solution has a significant anomaly: No refiners. Other than price there were no fields for beds, baths or square footage.

More ouch. 

Other content

Agent Roster. We found little use for the agent roster other than perhaps viewing photos of 50 people we don't know or particularly care about. The agents all have the option of publishing details about themselves. About half the agents chose not too.

The shining star in this group was George Caudill, whose page should be a beacon for all the other agents. 

Contact Us. Here the user is presented with form, but is given no idea who it goes to or when they might expect a response. To the right of the form is a video from Eirik offering a commitment to full service that is with you every step of the way. The irony was hard to miss. 

Video. I love video. I love it when CEO's make a video and stand behind their brand. But as I pointed out to Eirik, throwing out terms like full service and client protection is great -- provided you explain them in detail and articulate them in terms of benefits to the viewer. His intentions were pure, but very little of what he described sounded special or different than any other broker's commitment. 

Forward! 

Eirik knows how to run a successful brokerage, but something got lost in translation on the web.

But he can fix that. Eirik is going back to square one with his IDX provider. He'll source a few alternative vendors he had not been aware of. He'll reformulate the site content and think through how his company is positioned on the site.

He'll get it right.

Thanks to Eirik for sharing!

-- Marc Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Don't be the "Slow Store"

"Honey, I have to run up to the Slow Store."

I utter these dreaded words about once a month when I am forced to go to my neighborhood "mail and fax" place. I had to do this last Friday to return a contract that had been mailed to me.

I call this establishment the Slow Store, because, well, everything about the place is painfully slow. Nothing there -- the people, the equipment or the transaction -- moves at my speed (which, at 37, is not really all that fast).

Have to send a FedEx? There's nothing quick about it. The clerk will write out a carbon copy sales receipt, but only after checking a laminated rate card and calculating the total cost on an adding machine. Forced to fax something? Get ready for business at the speed of syrup.

This would be charmingly antique -- like visiting one of those historical theme parks where people in period costume churn butter or make horseshoes -- were it not the case that I go here to get something done.

And it costs me money. Last Friday it was $17 for faxing 16 pages.

As I stood watching the clerk watch my contract inch through the fax machine, ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" pumped just a little bit too loudly through invisible speakers. It was the perfect bit of strangeness. I snapped the photo to the left during my wait.

I hate going to the Slow Store. But every so often I have to go there, despite the fact that:

The Slow Store's very existence is an anachronism sustained by the occasional tight spot.

It is the antithesis of customer-focused organization. The experience is driven by its needs, not mine.

It clings to old tools and price models.

It survives on the patronage of generations that know no better way.

I leave pissed every time. 

You see where I am going with this. What does the average human being experience when they walk into a real estate office (or hit a real estate brokerage website)? My guess is something not unlike my Slow Store episodes. They are sucked through a wormhole and emerge within a strange world of accordion files, fax machines and bad coffee.

They are slowed down, Steve Austin-style, by weird restrictions that make no sense. They are beset by fees that often seem as patently ridiculous as $17 for 16 pages.

And this survives, for now, barely, on the shaky ground of No Better Way. 

Don't be the Slow Store; be the Better Way

You can't make transactions happen right now. You can't market out of this thing we are in. But you can dazzle the customers you do get right now. Chances are you have the time. Craft an experience built around their needs, not yours. Eliminate artificial restrictions and pain points in the transaction. Go above and beyond.

These are just exhortations. I know that. Blanket prescriptions don't work here. What flies in one market or brokerage is inappropriate in another. But you know the boundaries. We make it our business to help you work within them.

The bottom line: If you are open to it, now is a great time to create true loyalty, to engender the cheapest, most effective advertising you could ever ask for: Word of mouth.

The people at my Slow Store seem nice. But their days are numbered. I wish for their sake they'd speed up.    

-- Brian Boero

Barber poles and real estate

What comes to mind when you see a barber pole?

An old geezer running a blade across a leather strap.
A hot towel, thick foam and a close shave.
Clubman.
Checkerboard floors.
A great place to whack a Mafia Don.

The local barbershop was Americana, right up there with the greasy spoon coffee shop and the Rexall drug store -- endeared by all who frequented them.

But over the decades, the love waned. As new competitors grew into the marketplace, these establishments remained still in their own murky waters of services, anchored to old ways and failing to navigate their brands to the new currents of change.

Over time, despite the full array of services they offered, they drifted from the fabric of our culture, replaced by TRESemme, Paul Mitchell, Fantastic Sams, CVS and Starbucks -- "interlopers."

The older institutions suffered at the hands of their own neglect, compounded by their inability to convey the value they offered, the full services they provided and the personal attention they gave. They believed that being moored to an historic tradition is good enough to insure their place in the future. Or perhaps they believed in nothing and let fear of some unknown guide their complacency.

Barber Poles in Real Estate

There's tons of them spinning around Main Street. Red and blue ribbons of full-service, high-end value, and personal attention all buried under the sands of gloriously ineffective marketing.

Today's broker -- you might be a barbershop. You cut hair better than anyone. You service the customer better than anyone. And what you deliver is uncommon. But you've created ambiguity around yourselves, the skills you posses and the benefits derived from them. And that continues to ring the warning signal. Look how easy it was for Zillow to make the marketplace believe its home-value estimates were more accurate than yours. They marketed your intelligence right under the rug.  

A real estate TRESemme is coming

Believe it. And react as if they have already leased a storefront in your town. In some cases, this is already happening.

Believe that as things get tougher, as money gets tighter, people need what you have but will never find it if you and your agents are sharpening your scissors behind closed doors.

Believe that so much has changed in real estate and in the way consumers interact with it that your message, your brand, your entire marketing campaign is likely dangerously antique.

Believe that starting to change those things today is the only way you'll survive over the course of time.

What Davison Realty Group would do

I'd craft a new credo today. Davison Realty: "Preserving and improving the process of residential real estate."

I would then measure every single thing my firm does, every action my agents take, every bit of copy I write, every piece of technology I own and measure it against the yardstick of that statement, make sure it rings true and build brand value around it by market it with precision and skill as if my life depended on it. 

I'd begin with my Web site. If it does not make finding homes or finding the right agent really easy, I would administer changes immediately and not wait another day. Otherwise, my credo is rendered false and my brand has no meaning.

I would take a hard look at my backend system. Does it have lead management? Does it have lead routing? Does it offer my agents the ability to run comparative market analyses on the fly? Does it allow me to distribute incoming inquiries to my agents via text messages and supply them with the tools to respond immediately and properly rather than with canned nonsense?

I'd take a hard look at my physical space. I would evaluate whether my lease, my expense, my machines, and my cubicles inhibit my ability to fulfill my credo or serve my agents who have no particular credo at all. And if not, I would administer changes immediately. Otherwise, my credo is rendered false and my brand will continue to have no meaning.

I'd take a hard look at my agents. I'd find the ones with no credo or the ones who have a credo yet apply no effort to support it -- like the agent who "goes the extra mile" yet hardly lifts a finger to learn about new technology. I would do whatever is in my power to retrain them. Expose them to agents who are thriving because they live, breath and die by their credo, which just so happens to be aligned with mine. If that fails, they need to be let go. Otherwise, my credo is meaningless and my brand will continue to have no meaning.

I'd take a hard look at my marketing department and the copy they have been pumping out. Have their words conveyed my intentions? Have they oversold them or have they failed to touch upon them? Are they written in language that resonates with my market or has it spoken at them? If the copy has failed, I must administer change immediately and align every word with my intention and distribute those words out to new places -- in new ways -- and do everything to render my credo as truthful. And convey meaning.

Lastly, I will perform a complete investigation of my services. If I have to, I will hire a firm to conduct a study. And perform surveys. And determine if what we offer is understood and experienced by those who have used us in the past or those who may require services in the future. I would do everything I can to discover what people want today from a real estate brokerage. Do they still need the hot lather and shave or do they view that as old fashioned and unimportant? I would consider that info to be my holy brand grail and serve as the basic building blocks of what will become tomorrow and secure my position.

This is what I do right now. Today. Otherwise, all that I am would be defined by a credo that would read: Davison Realty, we are the roulette wheel of services and skills. Come, bring your money. Good Luck!

And while that may be acceptable to many barber pole brands that surround me, it's just not good enough for me going forward.

-Davison

Twitter: 1000wattmarc

The truth serves. It will prevail. And it will inspire

One can follow Twitter to size up the positive sentiment blanketing the United States right now. Obama told it like it is: Times are tough. They are going to get tougher. We are surrounded by hardship. And have been lead there by greed, foolishness and irresponsibility.

And the crowd applauded.

That's new. We are tired of the whitewashing, the shoveling of the shit under the proverbial rug.

We are ready to hear the truth. We don't view it as negative, or bad. It serves to lift the veil of confusion and frustration we feel.

The truth will serve. It will prevail. It inspires. And I am convinced it will set you free.

Real estate marketing departments, pay heed. And ask yourselves these question:

Is the voice with which my company speaks believable?

Bad news is not necessarily negative. You customer is ready for it. They might actually be attracted to it. And seek you out to provide the necessary decision support, guidance, and service to help them through it.

This morning, history was made. Obama dished out a little truth. We took it. Gladly.

Brokers, you can do this.

Yes you can.

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc