Real Estate Data Providers Can Give Your Website Tools It Needs To Compete In 2019. What It Takes To Innovate.
Real estate data providers can help brokers and agents looking to innovate and take their company to the next level in becoming a true resource for home buyers and shoppers.
The challenge for most companies however, is are they open to change?
In this day and age, CEOs and managers are reaching out for help in fast-rising numbers. They’re not generating the revenue, forecasts are fuzzy, their people are leaving – what is going on?
In 2009, researcher Steve McKee published a study where he found 41.2% of nearly 5,700 companies stalled in the previous decade.
In any industry, stagnation is subject to happen for one well-known reason: resistance to change.
The real estate business is no different.
When you take an industry like this, which has changed little over the past decades, and attempt to keep doing business the same old ways, it’s no surprise that some firms are starting to struggle.
Let’s talk about our natural resistance to change, and how we can turn it around to our advantage in the real estate business.
According to a recent article in Forbes, stalled growth in industry leaders is popping up more and more frequently since the 2008 recession.
Leaders are failing to take the bull by the horns and adapt, all the while wishing and hoping for the old ways of business to come back into style again. (Think Sears, Toy R Us, Sports Authority, etc.).
They are fearful of taking the risks inherent in trying new methods and ideas. And as human beings, they are driven by one of our most powerful, primal, wired instincts: force of habit.
Science proves it: it’s our fault
It’s not that we’re lazy, or stupid.
It’s that, as humans, our brains are wired to work a certain way. Our brains actually hate change to the point of pain, because the prefrontal cortex works hard to navigate unfamiliar information.
Since 25% of our body’s energy goes toward brain function, it’s no wonder that we can start feeling tired and “shut down” when attempting to study something new or develop a new habit.
The brain is so powerful that it creates a “roadmap” of your habits. This allows you to move more efficiently and quickly through tasks without having to stop and think about what you are doing.
Hijacking this map to see something through a fresh perspective, or deviate from the norm is difficult unless we consciously choose to do so.
How to change your brain’s roadmap
Is it even possible to change that mental map, training yourself to open up to innovation and risk taking?
Science says yes. Once you have made the conscious choice to change, you must now act accordingly.
We also know that, while you can listen to gurus and read self-help books all you want, the only true way to change is through experiential learning.
There are some simple strategies you can use to get started.
According to the Forbes article they are:
- Get out of the office and explore what’s out there
- Plan to be a company that constantly seeks to innovate
You must see things with your eyes, touch things with your hands, and feel things with your heart – that’s how you can make the greatest impact on your brain’s ingrained roadways.
There are plenty of real estate technology companies out there with exciting new products.
Have you talked to them? Tried out their platforms? Asked for demonstrations?
Do you have time scheduled to stay abreast of new technologies that are emerging?
Innovation in your industry
All CEOs and managers like to think that they are “innovative” within their firms.
Are they really?
What are you doing in real life to bring about innovation in the real estate industry?
Are you utilizing the power of technology to set yourself apart?
Did you know that by using local real estate data tools on your website, you are already head and shoulders above the competition that is stuck in the past?
If Suzy down the street is still relying on postcards and gift baskets to drum up business, while your potential clients can have their need for information satisfied in a couple clicks on your website, in five years we will see who is still around, and thriving.
Real estate data providers do all the heavy lifting
Technology plays a starring role in the future in general, including in the real estate industry.
Fortunately, in this day and age, brokers and agents don’t have to go out and find sources of local data for themselves.
They also don’t have to find a way to integrate that local data on their website.
And this is very important, they don’t have to find a local programmer to custom code a website to provide new features. Those projects can be time-consuming, frequently over budget and a nightmare to manage.
Today, there are real estate data providers such as Home Junction that do all that work for agents.
They have the technology to gather hyper-local data such as school information, recent home sales, pricing trends, boundaries, demographics and other key information that home shoppers want to see.
Not only do they gather the data. These real estate data providers also have developers to write the coding that makes it super-easy for a broker or agent to disseminate that data wherever they want on their websites.
A real estate company can use a Real Estate Data API or simply a plug-in (a few snippets of code) to instantly add any type of data to their pages.
Why let a potential client do all the legwork of determining the best school districts, the pricing trends in their neighborhood, sales comparisons between desirable neighborhoods, and neighborhood demographics on their own? (Hint: they really don’t want to do all this work).
Or why let them go to a national real estate portal to find this information? (And let them be someone else’s lead). Or let a local agent with this data start gaining more market share as THE hyper-local resource?
Working with a real estate data provider, you can quickly add your own data and home estimator tools that give you the power to disseminate this information through your website, your blog, your newsletter, your social media channels, and give the people what they want.
The takeaway?
Don’t allow yourself to fall into the brain traps that keep you comfortable, safe – and never growing or thriving.
Don’t make excuses like “I’m too old to learn technology.”
The great advantage today, is that you don’t need to.
There are real estate data providers out there today with a full suite of programs you can use to upgrade your website.
Today, innovation is one way to become successful (and survive) whether in the real estate industry or any other.
You can harness the power of technology to stay on top of the wave and keep up with the times (and competition).
The big question you need to ask yourself is: are you willing to innovate?