RISMEDIA, Sept. 14, 2007-Can agents manage data overload and a more knowledgeable consumer? This valid and troublesome question has been addressed in a new whitepaper released this week, titled “Real Estate Confronts the Information Explosion.”The 24-page report was authored by three well-known and respected industry leaders; Stefan Swanepoel, best selling author of the Swanepoel TRENDS Report, Stu Siegel, founder of eNeighborhoods and Allen Wright, developer of the CreateAPlan business planning system.
This whitepaper marks the 10th publication by RealSure (www.realsure.com). The”Real Estate Confronts” series started in 1997 with “Real Estate Confronts Reality,” and has gone on to produce other popular titles such as “Real Estate Confronts the Banks” and “Real Estate Confronts the e-Consumer.”
If you search on the term “real estate” on Google or Yahoo, you will find over 300 million Web-pages referenced; the word “sex” is the only term that has more. By comparison, the word “Bible” has less than 100 million references. So the fact that there are more Web-pages referencing real estate than there are people living in America illustrates just how fragmented the pod of information is.
So with consumers now able to research an almost unlimited amount of property information, agents are no longer occupying the role of gatekeeper that they did in the past. As a result, today’s agents need to be smarter than their consumer counterpart or risk losing some of their value in the home buying process.
Available information shouldn’t stop with the property. The same effort will uncover almost any piece of information about a person, area or neighborhood – much of which may be considered confidential. So determining what information is relevant and legal for a real estate professional to distribute to the consumer is increasingly creating a challenge as the many restrictive issues surrounding fair housing are not trivial.
The Whitepaper examines this shift in information, the access, the sources and the overall implications it has for real estate professionals. The position of the Whitepaper is clear: the role of an agent may be limited to an administrative order-taker or it could be expanded to that of a true professional, specializing in an area with the skill set necessary to provide and interpret the relevant information pertaining to that area. The time has come for agents to make the conscious decision to become more professional or leave the industry.
True real estate professionals will ensure that they have the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively serve the new home buyer and seller. To achieve this they will need to conduct proper and comprehensive research by utilizing the best data aggregators and service providers in the field in order to provide their customers with a meaningful and relevant interpretation of the data. And last, but by no means least, professionals must continuously enhance their professional skills and abilities by studying and remaining current with changes in the industry through the latest education opportunities.
This Whitepaper retails for $29.95 and can be downloaded for free at http://www.realtyu.com/information_whitepaper.htm compliments of RIS Media.
