Realty World Northern California & Nevada

In the wake of attending the Inman Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this month, I have digested the wealth of discussions concerning the latest technologies, and the future expectation of the real estate industry.

The overall theme of the event focus was based on innovation, hyper-localism, and market recovery. With the newest buzz being placed on the infamous Developers Challenge boasting “geo-mapping” tools for mobile devices, one click data to video, and dynamic call routing provided by new comers like RealtyVoyager.com, and Stupeflix.com. They are never short of originality in naming their companies that’s for certain.

The common theme in every session I attended was certainly focused around the ability of an agent to leverage their knowledge within the community using all of these “viral” tools, and social media platforms to position the agent as the utmost local real estate expert. Encouraging today’s agents to focus their marketing efforts on the communities in which they live and work every day, as opposed to trying to capture a much larger audience.  With the advancement of the internet and the mass popularity of social media, there is still one thing that will always prevail…personal touch, professionalism, and knowing your community. There is no substitute for the personal interface you can have with clients to win their future business, and the referrals that will follow. Mastering the advantages of online marketing and social media is definitely a must in today’s market place. However, is entirely meant to compliment your best practices as a real estate professional.

There is a digital cornucopia of cool web tools, and widgets to convey an instant sense of credibility to your audience through your web presence. Although you must be able to put your media where your mouth is and provide the excellent customer service that you advertise through all of this great technology. The internet continues to provide a phenomenal vehicle to drive your message home,  and be the expert consumers all hope you are when you meet face to face.

It was the talk of Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2009. For some, the words “Developers, Developers, Developers” seems like a broken record. For others, it brings back memories of a viral video of Steve Ballmer. For most at Connect, it meant the 48 hour developer challenge. What will two teams made up of a handful of young, creative, and sleep deprived developers come up with in such a short time?

It was an interesting idea and a great challenge – develop an innovative and robust application of any sort is not an easy task, and to do it in just 48 hours seemed next to impossible. Admittedly, I set my expectations low. As someone from this field I have spent countless nights burning the candle at both ends and did not envy their position.

Alas the day arrives and the developer challenge is unveiled and two teams reveal their progress. The first group went the route of creating a customizable IDX solution embodying SoCal MLS data, Onboard Informatics neighborhood amenities data, and Zillow API data. All done within a 48-hour developer challenge? Early into the panelist discussions the team admits they spent many hours planning and working on frameworks prior to the event in “preparation” for the developer challenge and the actual code written during the challenge was for the visual side or “front end” of the webpage.

The second team put together an analytics engine utilizing the SoCal MLS data. Useful and insightful analysis and statistics such as the number of listings per year of an agent, or the average number of closings per year (buy side and list side ratios), average DOM, TFT to sold ratios, etc. were brought together. This team also admitted during the panel discussion they had spent many hours planning and preparing frameworks in preparation for the challenge.

All in all, I thought the developer challenge was a new and great idea for Connect. However, I can’t help but be left with a sour taste in my mouth with the way it was presented to the audience that these types of projects can be accomplished within 48 hours, as the technical level of the audience made it hard for the majority to understand that these types of technological creations are the result of weeks of work. It’s great to see Inman presenting technology solutions to the industry in a fun and compelling way – hopefully next year we’ll hear a bit more about the work that goes on behind the scenes to make these things possible.

Tei Baishiki
Chief Technology Officer
tei.baishiki@rwnc.net