A Nightmare on kELMan’s Street?

Posted by: Tim White
Posted on: Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 12:08 am
Categories: Popular

Attention traditional real estate professionals!  Want to know what Glen Kelman’s worst nightmare is?  Aside from spending another six hours being interviewed by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes, Mr. Kelman of Redfin may have unwittingly revealed to the audience of Bloggers at Inman’s Blogger Connect during his keynote address what really keeps him awake at night–that is: a blog army of traditional real estate professionals intently focused on producing high quality, hyper-local, consumer-centric real estate content on a city by city, town by town, or even neighborhood by neighborhood basis 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  

Apparently, the above scenario strikes fear in the hearts and minds of some of the newer entrants–the so-called web 2.0 companies–that are all the rave now.  And, by golly,  it should. 

Let it be known that I have no axe to grind against Mr. Kelman or his company.  On the contrary, I found him to be quite affable, knowledgeable and certainly presentable enough, and I wish him and his firm much success.  Anything that offers consumers more choice is O.K. with me. 

But let’s be honest.  There are many traditional Realtor’s who are not as eager for Redfin’s success–and perhaps some who may secretly wish for Redfin’s demise.  There are also some traditional agents who are perhaps fearful of some of the emerging business models and web 2.0 companies (e.g. Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, etc.).  But here’s something they may not know….

They fear us, too.

I’m not sure if fear is a good motivator for either side, but if you happen to be on the traditional side of things take note of Mr. Kelman’s nightmarish revelation.  The fact is that many of the tools available to these hi-tech firms are also available to the old school players who only need learn how to pick them up and use them.  According to Dale Stinton, there are currently 1.4 million Realtors members of NAR.  Could you imagine if even half that number started blogging in earnest about real estate in their respective communities, or even if one-third of them started engaging consumers on social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace?

Forgetaboutit! 

My point is this: Mr. Kelman and the current cadre of Web 2.o firms are indeed onto something BIG (IMHO).  But instead of being fearful of this new breed of real estate technologists, traditional agents should learn from them, and embrace some of the same tools they use and the social media strategies they employ in order to level the playing field.  And then let’s compete head to head on things that matter to consumers: local knowledge, service, negotiating expertise and follow up. 

For more on hyper-local blogging, check out:
http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=864 
http://www.buzzmachine.com
 

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