Today we’re talking about the technology shift in real estate.
Featuring:
Bob Nelson, Eugene real estate investment broker
Marcia Edwards, Eugene residential real estate broker
Marcia Edwards: We want to talk really directly about the service models that realtors provide currently. There is a shift going on. I call it disruptive innovation because we’ve seen it in other industries in regards to how technology is impacting each industry one at a time and I think it’s the realtors turn to see it shift.
Bob Nelson: Well, and it’s interesting, we’ve seen the process come down the pike as a beta test until they got their algorithms tuned in to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Zillow. Zillow has been able to be a resource to an individual. If you put in your dial up Zillow, like pillow with a z, .com and you put in your address and they will give you a, and I hate to use the term appraisal, but it is a computer generated appraisal based upon the physical characteristics of the property that has been captured from public databases, the county assessor, et cetera. And as they fine tune that to what they think it should be and what things like itself are, they can, should I say manipulate that algorithm to a point that it has a fairly decent degree of accuracy. They’re still off by probably I’d say 12% off of my personal residence. I mean I watch it when they send that stuff out. It’s interesting now that they’ve got that model, they want to go into the real estate brokerage business.
Marcia Edwards: Well that’s the expectation anyway. So Zillow is trying to attract the buyers. Buyers and sellers are a little frustrated with realtors because I don’t think our model has shifted at the pace in technology opportunity and access to data.
Bob Nelson: I would agree with that, yep.
Marcia Edwards: Zillow has an opportunity and they’re taking that opportunity because there’s a demand from consumers that is not being met, frankly, by the industry itself. The Zillow database is drawn from the realtor database, and a lot of realtors opt in and actually put more data into the Zillow source to make sure that that information is accurate for their sellers. So it’s something that is been being fed by the industry and outside of the industry. It’s something to be reckoned with as realtors. It’s time for us to improve our service model to meet you consumers where they’re at.
Join Eugene, Oregon, real estate experts: Bob Nelson, Real Estate Investment Broker with Pacwest Real Estate Investments, and Marcia Edwards, Residential Real Estate Broker with Windermere Real Estate, daily at 5:30 on KPNW for the “Real Estate Today” radio show.
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