If you have traveled abroad, you have undoubtedly experienced the discomfort of communicating in a foreign language. I can tell you that in hotel speak, a salon is not a suite. The language barrier can create all kinds of misunderstandings. Where I see this happening frequently in real estate is the amount of geek speak that is in the board room.
I look at technology products every day. I do not want to lay any hate on any particular company. But, I have observed a number of company brands who offer real estate technology that have not differentiated the company name from the product name. For clarity, Apple is a company brand, iPhone is a product, and X is a product version. Kleenex is an example of a company brand name and product name that are the same.
It’s only been a week since GDPR has become a law and we need to start this week’s discussion with a simple question. How many of you thought the GDPR was only about privacy policy change emails and subscription notifications we have received over the last few weeks? Well, that was just the beginning.
It was exciting to be invited to interview to become part of the Forbes Real Estate Council last year. The biggest attraction for me was the opportunity to be published on Forbes.com. Forbes, for me, is the gold standard when it comes to business publishing.
The Hilton Head MLS is small, but mighty. They take their job of serving the brokers in their community very seriously.
It was a great week at NAR Midyear to re-connect with fellow colleagues, have sonorous discussions about the industry, and – of course – chitchat about the current controversial brew-ha-ha that seems to occur around these types of events. Over the last month – especially last week – I had the pleasure of talking to many real estate technology companies who provide products and services to brokers and agents. When the discussion would lead to back office architecture, the discussion was segmented into two groups.
Imagine a world where every real estate agent, broker and franchise in the nation promoted their real estate mobile app to consumers. The app is white-label branded to the agent, broker, and franchise offering direct access to every MLS listing without any competitive ads. That is the way it would need to work. Guess what, we have it. You have it. Our industry has it. Today.
Milestones. Every career has these extra special events. So what qualifies something for milestone status? I think it's when all you have to do is mention what you did and the immediate reaction from others is: "Wow." Lifelong Realtor Ben Caballero's career is filled with milestones.
Tech enablers. That’s what I will be looking for at the REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo, May 14-19 in Washington DC this week, best known as NAR Midyear. I’ll head down to the trade show floor and spend the rest of my time shuttling between the Marriott and the Omni lobbies talking to influencers and tech leaders.
When I was a young kid traveling in the car with my family, I would always see these signs “Truckers Welcome”. I didn’t understand why there was this special invitation to truckers. Wouldn’t everyone be welcome? As I grew older, I quickly realized the sign was to inform truckers there was ample parking space for their large rigs. Truckers had a big use case! As a trucker, if I wanted to visit a diner for a nice sit-down warm meal, I must have space large enough to safely park my rig. Diners caught on fast to this requirement and realized they could enjoy the revenue by creating a space for them to park. Once the parking problem was solved, they needed a method to entice truckers to use their parking and stop for a meal. Therefore, the signs!
Homes.com has been running in 4th position in the portal race, tucked in behind Zillow, Realtor, and Trulia. I thought that their old site was fine, but their new site adds in Artificial Intelligence in ways that make the consumer experience fantastic. In a world of sameness, Homes has changed the game.
It’s real estate tech’s best sleeper story of super success. Tech Helpline, created and owned by Florida Realtors, is the real estate industry’s number one tech support service. By a county mile. I will bet you can’t even name who is ranked number two. Or three, or four, or any of their direct competitors for that matter. I can’t, and I am a consultant for them. Where else in real estate tech or proptech can you make that claim? Where does a real estate related tech firm dominates a category so profoundly? Tech Helpline is currently available to nearly half [...]
