The New Rules of Real Estate: Has the ‘Uber’ moment arrived?

The New Rules of Real Estate: Has the ‘Uber’ moment arrived?

“I won’t be giving anyone Dad’s bank details. I’ll go to the bank, get a cheque or cash, any go their office and pay them.”

“Why? That is almost a whole morning or afternoon lost every month when you can set it up automatically.”

“No, I’ll stick to the old-fashioned way.”

So once a month, my sister, fights for parking, trudges into the bank, pulls out my Dad’s ‘Bank Book’ asks for the appropriate amount in a cheque or cash, waits for the teller to do his/her stuff, walks back to the car, fights traffic for the eight mile, almost thirty minute urban crawl to my dad’s nursing home, waits for the administration manager to see her, hands over the money for his monthly ‘top up’ fee, waits for a receipt, then goes and sees dad for ten minutes because she doesn’t have ‘much time’ left and heads back into the fray.

I gave up ages ago trying to show her the ‘set and forget’ time saving method of doing business with internet banking, but she believes hackers are just waiting to pounce, not only on dad’s meagre bank account but also her email address which has three emails in the inbox – two are tests from me and the other, a shared recipe from one of her girlfriends.

I can see Anonymous headquarters mobilising to hack and steal that lone recipe. But a good lemon meringue pie is to die for!

The other 99{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff} of us are embracing and working with the technological innovations that enhance and simplify our lives. Innovation and change are having a huge effect on the way we live, work and interact with our fellow humans.

The pace of change is, to some, frightening; to others, it represents huge opportunities. Long established industries are being challenged like never before. New players, who have harnessed the power and connectivity of the internet, have changed how we think, search and connect in just a few short years. By leveraging this connectivity services and products that we paid small King’s Ransoms for are now much cheaper and easily accessible.

AirB n B – Accommodation
Amazon – Books – now almost anything
Xero – Accounting
Uber – Urban Transport
Booking.com – Holiday Accommodation
Google – The ‘Search for Anything’ platform of them all.

These are only a handful of the innovators and ‘disruptors’ that are now becoming or have become household names.

When I ask my young adult kids how they are getting home from a night out, the response is, “We’ll get an Uber.” Only three years ago, it was, “Hopefully we can get a cab.”

Ok, so what about Real Estate?

In Australia, the Uber moment is here, yet only 5{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff} of Australian Home Owners are taking control and selling their own home without paying a substantial commission.

Why?

Sadly, we are still a conservative bunch and not good a breaking habits.

When you compare the Sell Your Own Home market in the U.S. represents about 20-25{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff} of property sales, Canada, 30{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff}+, U.K. 20{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff} and even New Zealand 10-12{5be8b5650852dcf96a34828ba5a88d9285f6c7439f02c8133f6b05e7d943eaff}; what are we doing? Is there a law against selling your own home? No, there is not.

The issue in Australia is that we have a well-entrenched, well-armed traditional Real Estate industry that has, for decades, repeated the same mantra that has been followed ‘zombie-like’ by hundreds of thousands of Australian home owners year after year – YOU MUST HIRE AN AGENT TO SELL YOUR PROPERTY, ITS TOO RISKY TO TRY IT YOURSELF.

To that I call BULLSHIT!

The power, leverage and connectivity of the internet allows any home owner to get the job done themselves and avoid the fees that go with using the traditional method. Just like Cabs or Ubers for short trips, people now have a choice when it comes to selling their home – traditional full commission or supported low fee.

The time and money saving alternatives in almost any industry you can imagine are here or coming…and fast, including Real Estate sales!

That reminds me, I must see how my sister is going. She mentioned she might sell her home soon. I’ll see how her search in the Yellow Pages for an Agent is coming along.

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Craig - Agent in a Box

Sharing 18 years of frontline real estate sales experience to help you be better prepared to sell your own home.