Techno Babble

Technology has changed how we buy & sell

Real estate has changed dramatically in the past 10 years that I have been practicing. When I first started, I had a pager. I didn't even have a PC. That was it. Just a pager. And I felt a bit shady, because, in 1997, only posers (except they weren't called that then) and drug dealers had pagers!

It took about 6 months and I made the HUGE investment of a cell phone. Back then, there were about three companies to choose from and they barely covered all of Milwaukee together.

Soon after, I switched from my Franklin Planner to a clever new gadget called a Palm Pilot. It had a green screen with black font and I think the memory was still measured in kilobytes. Gigs were unheard of! And this little gadget confounded old-timers, especially when they saw me attaching various things to it like a camera and a modem. I was one of the earliest Palm web-surfers! Technology couldn't catch up with what I wanted!

Not that I could access much on the web. Getting it to coordinate with email was a nightmare. Most of my buyers received bi-weekly snailmail of new listing printouts. The MLS database was only accessible by one of 2 computers in the entire office and it was on a privates server - not the internet. Still, I managed to figure out a way to rig it to email listings to buyers. Now I just needed buyers with actual email addresses! Can you imagine life before web-based MLS sending out automated emails every morning at 2am? And no mapping technology??

Life was a lot different for home buyers, too. Househunting consisted of endless driving through desired neighborhoods, vague newspaper ads, rushing to open houses or being dependant on you agent's schedule. "In house" deals were being made all of the time and sometimes properties were sold for a week before buyers with agents for other companies even found out about it.

And driving around town was no help, either. Sure, signs had telephone numbers, but rarely did you have a phone in the car with you.

Now there are 24 hour pin numbers, property web sites, text messages, automated email alerts, virtual tours, tax assessor sites, school reports, mortgage calculators and even video. It's information overload!

About the only people all of this new technology DIDN'T affect are the sellers. They still hire an agent and let the agent handle it from there - taking high-quality digital photos, submitting the listing to MLS and syndicating it all over the web to sites like craigslist.org, Realtor.com and Zillow.com, creating floor plans from cool new software, sending out email flyers and email tours to other brokers, recording 24 PIN messages, etc.

Not that there aren't a few new gadgets that sellers can be using. For instance, my sellers get 24 hour access to their showing reports and receive immediate feedback from showing agents when the agent fills out a quick survey. They can email me 24-7 or leave a voicemail and be confident that they can reach me. They get Market Reports, showing how many hits their house has had at various websites and portals. They can search the MLS themselves to instantly see what the competition is. When they run out of flyers, I can email them a PDF to print up right from work or home.

It really is amazing how much has changed over the years with all of the technology. In some ways, it's made my job easier - like buyers eliminating many homes by searching the web or viewing the email photos before making appointments. Or having the MLS on your cell phone, allowing me to look up that house you just drove by.

But, just as the vaccuum cleaner was supposed to make the housewife's job easier - but in reality only raised the bar to how clean her house had to be - creations like email and cell phones allowing me to be available 24-7 can take away any privacy, too. I actually felt obligated to take my phone on my honeymoon last July!

All-in-all, I'm happy I no longer have to stuff envelopes twice a week or run to the office to print out a data sheet and I just discovered Google Street Views has covered all of Milwaukee - what an awesome application for out-of-towners! I can't wait to see what they come up with next!