Viewpoints: How Can Brokers Best Confront Competition from Alternative Real Estate Models?

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Viewpoints: How can brokers best confront competition from alternative real estate models?

A hot real estate market means more players looking for a piece of the pie. This month, we ask industry pros how traditional real estate companies can stay ahead of the new competition.

Steve Burnett

CMO

American Home Shield

www.ahswarranty.com

Today, the increasing presence of Web-based and do-it-yourself companies have added more players to the already crowded real estate industry and upped the competitive ante.

While competition isn?t new, the form it takes sometimes can be?today, alternative real estate models present a unique competitive challenge. When it comes to differentiating themselves, traditional broker-agent establishments must focus on turning the alternative sources into positives for their own businesses. More importantly, they must highlight their own strength: people.

For brokers, the competition to keep high-producing agents can be staunch. Retaining top talent can be difficult. That?s why brokers need to create an environment that breeds success, in which agents know they?re in a position to build lucrative careers. Brokers must empower agents with the tools they need to be their best. One example is partnering with industry leaders, such as American Home Shield in the home warranty industry.

Real estate is still a face-to-face business. Although the World Wide Web provides an alternative, consumers still prefer to purchase big-ticket items with the help of an industry professional. Savvy real estate professionals know that industry partners such as American Home Shield can help them maintain contact with former clients, keep existing clients satisfied and expand their contact network.

Nothing frustrates a new homeowner?or jeopardizes a healthy client relationship?more than a failed home system or appliance just after the closing date. Fair or not, homeowners often blame their real estate agent in such situations. If the agent has included a home warranty in the transaction, the repair or replacement can be made quickly for the minimal cost of a service call?keeping the client happy and the relationship intact.

In addition to protecting the home, home warranties provide a natural contact opportunity with clients. Since most home warranty agreements provide coverage for one year, agents have an opportunity to reconnect with old clients when it?s time to renew their warranties. These conversations help keep the agent?s name top of mind with clients, and may produce unexpected leads. American Home Shield home warranties can help brokers to empower their agents, and in turn beat the competition.

Payam Zamani

President & CEO

Reply!, Inc.

www.reply.com

Changing the status quo is traditionally fraught with peril in almost any industry or undertaking, but no more so than when evolutionary change is mistaken for revolutionary change. One is a natural occurrence where time and new knowledge combine to slowly transform the old way of doing things into the newer and hopefully better way of doing things.

Revolutions however happen with relative suddenness, the winners embracing change and the losers being swept away by the same.

In the late ?90s the Internet became almost a euphemism for revolutionary change. So much so that it was deemed necessary to capitalize the ?i? because it was so revolutionary. Even ?the television? didn?t get recognized as ?The Television.? The thought of the day in the real estate industry has recently been about confronting the change that the Internet is driving. This has the effect of evoking a call to action to prevent a negative situation from occurring, such as new business models supplanting the incumbents from their established roles.

But as recent past experience with revolutions has shown, emerging alternative Internet business models will not be replacements for brokers. With a little more time and clarity, the changes that are occurring will begin to be seen as simply new opportunities for doing more business with greater efficiency and a natural evolution of ?how we?ve always done it.? Change always brings uncertainty, but change also brings tremendous opportunities for those companies and individuals who are able to embrace it and take advantage of the opportunities that it creates.