what mysteries does the tech future hold?

Been several days. Had some challenges with lack of sleep--glad I never had children, but getting up in the night to care for 89 year old mother is probably much the same. Sleep deprivation is an adventure best not explored.

A few quick thoughts on where this blog is and where it will go next. Ironically Inman Connect NY is underway. Good topics for this one with RPR and various MLS efforts, not to mention Googlesque strategies to ponder.

The previous posts wrap around a central theme that technology isn't enough to create the "art" of outstanding real estate service. It can assist in delivering what the Buyer (and in kind, the Seller) wants and needs, but it can't go the whole way. That's a good thing or real estate would suffer the consequences of disintermediation as other service businesses have.

The technology purveyors and the technophiles continue to lead the cheering section for more tech as the answer to all things real estate (and so do the trade organizations--a perverse position-- considering disintermediation and its potential impact on their members), but the public isn't buying it. Few Buyers are technophiles--particularly when it comes to choosing a dwelling. It's that primal thing again.

As mentioned before, there is MUCH money to be made selling tech to the real estate industry--whether or not it's necessary or even desireable. Because of that money, tech won't go away. It will continue to grow in odd ways that are largely disconnected from the actual needs of the industry or the public.

Why? Because tech evolution is charted by technophiles. Many of whom don't really have a background in real homes and real people making decisions about real homes.

Instead of attempting to observe, learn and distill the little subtleties that create great real estate agents and incorporate elements of those skills into a new generation of tech-related products, the technology firms look around at their contemporaries and strive to deliver tech just a little better than their closest competitors. The problem is that the real consumers of tech have become the techies, not the Buyers and not the Sellers.

Never forget that the very best agents actually need very little technology to achieve dazzling service. In my 18 years of managing offices, training agents and dealing with problems, I noted very little correlation between tech ability and sales ability. In fact, my best and most productive and most trouble free agents had great interpersonal skills and relatively little tech knowledge. I usually supplied the tech, if needed. Conversely, agents who were big on technology seldom delivered a level of personal service that actually impressed, or even surprised, Buyers and Sellers.

To reiterate, the number one goal for most Buyers is to find and acquire, the RIGHT house, one that FEELS special above all others. The agent that can pull that RIGHT house out of the inventory again and again does so with the same kind of intuition that the Buyers use in reaching a final decision. Tech can help, but in it's present state of development it can't go the whole distance. The data containers don't have the contents and the filters aren't sufficiently selective.

Photos that are done with care MAY capture more of that intangible FEEL than traditional alpha numeric data. That's the next major quantum leap in real estate information systems. Displaying the art of the house that's behind the feel Buyers get when they see the real thing.

The RPR approach is just loading more data into the mix, but not getting us any closer to the tipping point of decision making. Agents and potentially the public (via RPR reports) will spend more time on information that won't play a pivotal role in the final choice. What's the harm in that? There are limits on time and intellectual resources for agents and the public. Those resources should be allocated to addressing information what will factor into the ultimate decision to buy.

25 years ago much more of an agent's time and more of the public's time was spent in actual houses where the rubber meets the road. Tech has produced a virtual real estate world that accounts for large corporate profits, but may not encourage wise decisions by the members of the public who end up paying for services that may actually hinder achieving their intended goal.