How will Digital Asset Grid, Identity & VRM transform real estate?

As some innovators build new business models based on the believe that “personal data is the new oil,” the real estate industry seems to be stuck in a family fight about who controls the distribution of information about MLS listings.  Some, including a blogger who wrote about syndication this morning, have proposed—at least theoretically — solutions which range from one MLS to an open MLS.  What do we think of those proposals?

Why not let homebuyers and sellers control their own digital identity, including information related to their property and home search?  If real estate consumers owned and managed their own data, how would they benefit?  Some idea starters Real Estate Cafe proposed more than two year ago are on ProjectVRM:

http://bit.ly/MyREdata

Others will emerge as the personal data eco-system expands and becomes inevitable.  In fact, some are calling the newly announced “Digital Asset Grid” an industry transforming opportunity that only comes around every decade or two, see 7:30 minute mark on http://vimeo.com/52116417

Homebuyers and sellers, lenders and real estate agents, data providers and software developers, consumer advocates and industry regulators —  Would anyone like to participate in a conversation about how the Digital Asset Grid, in combination with internet identity and VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), will change the way homebuyers and sellers access and share data; interact with lenders, buyer and seller agents; and get compensated?

If so, we can use our reVRM Minifesto — http://bit.ly/reVRM-Minifesto — as a starting place or the question on Twitter thread at the start of this post.

This is an international discussion, so let’s meet in a variety of places, online and off, at local meetings with consumers and industry conventions with professionals.  If you’d like to talk privately or in a group at the National Association of Realtors’ annual convention next week in Orlando, please let me know immediately at realestatecafe [at] gmail.com. Significantly, they’re already RE/Thinking the Future of Real Estate:  http://rethinkfuture.com

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Real Estate…a National Pandemic?

Barron’s
       
cover
        article “The Big Glut-Trouble in Paradise” didn’t help
        rattled nerves when it outlined that prices and sales have already
        slumped by up to 40% in some areas,
and that second home sales now
        made up 40% of the U.S. market. The article also told how while 10,000
        condominium units were built over the past ten years in Miami-Dade
        County, 50,000 units are currently under construction or soon to
        commence with another 50,000 currently in the planning stages.

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1st Annual Real Estate Fleece Buster Awards

Honor former Senator William Proxmire (confirm name) famed for his Golden Fleece awards, but calling for nominations for the first annual Real Estate Fleece Busters Award for truly acting in the public interest in their efforts to enhance competition in the real estate industry (link to the Washington Post article.).

Honorary Nomination:  Fr. Robert McEwen (sp?) first president of the Consumer Federation of America.

Others:

1.  DOJ

2.  FTC

3.  Inman News

4.  Wall Street Journal

5.  Founders of Future of Real Estate

6.  Flat fee service vendors, particularly those who are the leading listing agents in their respective markets

7.  Attorney generals monitoring real estate fraud

8.  Everyone who submitted comments to the DOJ / FTC public comment process.

9.  Retiring chair of House Financial Service Committee

10.  Technology innovators who continually develop new business models designed to save real estate consumers time and money.

11.  Authors of Freaknomics

Emeritus:  Alan Greenspan, who first proposed that banks be allowed to provide real estate brokerage services

You get what you pay for…

Rona, maybe it’s not a question of what qualities sellers are looking for, but a question about how they are compensating their listing agent.

How motivated would the average person be to work on their own jobs if they had not been paid in 203 days, 251 days, or 716 days — the listing periods mentioned for three of the four condos described above?

Maybe the deteriorating customer service you describe will begin a discussion about how to compensation agents — whether buyer agent, seller agent, or  non-agents — to best serve their respective clients. 

More than a decade ago, the former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors predicted that:

"The next major revolution in real estate will be fee-based services replacing the blanket commission pricing that has dominated the industry for so long."

Do you think consumers would get better service if they compensated their agent by the hour, instead of commissions paid at the closing table?  (Before you answer  that question, consider this fact:  there were nearly 30,00 expired and canceled listing in the last three months of 2008 alone, which means that a lot of listing agents effectively volunteered to work on overprice listings.)

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