2007 REALTOR® Technology Survey

While at the Inman Conference today, I met up with Mark Lesswing, NAR senior vice president and chief technology officer.  Fantastic gentleman who moderated numerous sessions at Inman.  He let me know that 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey was hot-off-the-press today. 

As the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER certification evolved from research and findings, many of which came from the Center for Realtor Technology (CRT) surveys, studies and whitepapers, we wanted to see where technology adoption stands with today's agents and brokers.   We concluded that technology adoption and implementation remains well-behind-the-times; that through technology awareness and adoption training with the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER (REW) Certification, these less-than-optimal findings can improve.
 

MLS-CMA
"Ninety-four percent include a CMA as part of their listing presentation. The majority is satisfied overall with the CMA program furnished by their MLS; still about 35 percent were either somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. The ability to personalize design was the number one area that was deemed 'needing to be improved the most.'" 

• Take-away 1 - Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) is still an agent/brokers' own design, hand-crafted through their own special recipe to produce a personalized, well-branded CMA, where the MLS (along with supplemental data from county / public information sources) just provides data/maps/etc.

• Take-away 2 - Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) or Property Report is crafted using a 3rd-party tool, like AgentAVM.com or RETS-compliant eNeighborhoods.com for example, where data is "pulled" from the MLS to craft a professional CMA-document.

• Take-away 3 - As far back as I've looked, the #1 issue with the MLS-CMA tool (having "the ability to personalize" CMAs) is at least 4 years in the running.  Either vendors of MLS solutions are not listening to their end-users, or take-aways 1 & 2 above are driving factors for not "enhancing" the MLS-CMA tool, as agents/brokers have other prescribed methods.
   

Agent Websites
"Approximately two-thirds, of respondents have their own real estate agent business Web site." 

• Take-away 1 - 1/3 of all agents do not have a website...there is still more do be done to further awareness and adoption as with the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER certification.  Moreover, this 1/3 is likely to not have a personalized "business" email that is an extension of their website, their web presence, their marketing. This means that agents who utilize free email addresses such as johndoe1234@hotmail.com immediately lose a sense of "branding"  as discussed within our "Agent Website Course".  Consider referral business where emails originated from agent are forwarded.  Given Me@GregDugan.com, the email directly implies a web presence for my business and that of my listings at www.GregDugan.com.
   

Automated Transaction Management
"Twenty-three percent of respondents use a transaction management system...Sixty-nine percent of those respondents who are not currently participating in an automated transaction management system are interested or very interested in participating."

• Take-away 1 - Adoption rate remains low.  However, implementation of an online transaction management system as a consumer-facing solution, lends itself to agents/brokers immediately differentiating themselves given adoption, as others do not offer this convenience to consumers and peer real estate professionals.
   
• Take-away 2 - Interest remains high.  National Institute of Webographers speaks to the 69% of interested or highly interested.  It is now time for agents and brokers to engage training on the value-proposition of Transaction Mgmt, strategies on adoption and implementation, and the ability to play with live applications while a candidate within the REW Certification.

In conclusion, amongst other findings in the survey, it reaffirms that the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER (REW) certification is the solution to less-than-optimal (almost dismal) findings within the 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey. REW creates a heightened sense of awareness to today's technologies that increase the agent/broker's reach with a full-service web presence for Internet-savvy consumers, while further marketing their brand image.  Simply stated, differentiation through REW certification, also means differentiating yourself with implementation of technologies; as your peers in this survey may elect to stay behind the times.