STRATEGY
REALTORS
Big TechWill Disrupt the Real Estate Business HOW REALTORS CAN BECOME PART OF THE DISRUPTION
by Craig Sewing
elieve it or not, there was actu- ally a time in which people who wanted to buy or sell a home needed to know a Realtor—or at least know someone who did. There was no internet, and besides the real estate section of the newspaper, there was no place where you could go to find a list of homes for sale unless you walked into a real estate office. Obviously fewer and fewer agents remember such a time. For decades now, home listings have been available online, and buyers and sellers are more likely to find an agent through the internet than anywhere else. They can also get
free home value estimates and access online brokerages and home listing sites that will pay cash for their home. It’s no secret that Realtors will continue to face a never-ending wave of new business models. But in truth, the battle for the real estate consumer is just beginning. EYEINGAMULTITRILLION- DOLLAR COMPETITOR Agents not only need to worry about companies like Redfin, Zillow, and OpenDoor that are gobbling up real estate but also the multitrillion-
dollar big-tech industry because that is on the way. Just as Uber became the nation’s largest taxi company and Airbnb became the largest hospitality pro- vider, there will be a technology firm that becomes the nation’s largest real estate company. It’s also very likely that new big-tech competi- tors will go after all the typical six percent commission. They are still going to need real estate agents, but because they are able to get to the consumer first, they’ll give agents two-thirds of what they would usu- ally earn and keep the remaining 33 percent for themselves.
66 | think realty magazine :: october 2021
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