Real Estate Connect is an international conference that brings together 2,000 leaders from some of the biggest and most innovative brands in the property industry. Its aim is for participants to understand the industry and the important social function it serves – to make people happy by guiding them through the emotional process of buying or selling a home
The conferences take place in New York and San Francisco and the reason to attend is simply to find out where the market is moving to. Ultimately, it is still the United States that produces most of the technological innovations that add to the dynamics of the market.
The announcement of a blizzard in New York did not stop the industry from attending this year’s event. Despite cancelled flights and severe weather conditions (an icy -22 degrees!) almost all the seats were occupied.
The program offered a colorful mix of highly specialized industry knowledge. In parts it was overwhelming, surprising and even involved some flights of fancy: with drones now being used at the top-range of the industry for breathtaking motion video of the exterior and interior of a house.
With the progress of technology and the range of communication platforms, the real estate industry is getting more complex. The key to success here seem to be pairing state-of the art technology with high level personal relationships and interaction.
The essence of the new value chain in property is not smarter real estate presentation but smart relationships between real estate companies, their agents and customers. The goal of technical solutions is less effective, if not supported fully by the human interaction. Here the aim is to close the gap – no matter how large or small – between the digital presentation of information and the personal experience and knowledge delivered by the real estate professional.
Managing and exceeding customer expectations
Brad Inman sees a need to document the performance of interactions between real estate professionals and their customers. ‘We have to solve problems that are seen as bottlenecks by customers and professionals’, says Inman. A good example in a different industry is the quality of customer relationships provided by Uber. Managing and exceeding customer expectations enforces an innovative dialogue with passengers and therefore sets new standards in passenger transportation.
That is why it is no surprise that a number of start-up companies in the United States are currently focusing on solving bottlenecks within property related topics. Next week’s article will portray some of these companies and provide more insights to what is coming next in property.
