Real Estate Relativity

This post on real estate brokerage future and this one on hyper-local targeting are two excellent discussions about the strategic decisions real estate brokers will face over the next few years, especially with the technology side of the equation. I will focus on two salient points from these posts: (1) the ascendancy of broker power relative to agents and agent teams; and (2) the “Human Touch”.

In the first post, the author essentially argues that “Big Brokerage” along with a constellation of boutique firms will emerge dominate over the next few years. Not only is this argument valid in my opinion, but follows the power law principle, which has been proven in many other social, scientific, and natural systems. Interestingly, the author also skims the surface on some historical trends too. Having just finished reading the Rise and Fall of Great Powers, I’m seeing a correlation in the real estate industry to what existed in the late 1600s through early 1800s in Europe, which saw “old” powers atrophy and “new” powers emerge. Many national firms are under distress and, thus, weakened competitively when confronted by attempts at marketshare gains made by rivals (i.e., analogous to the Hapsburg’s loss of power). What may emerge in the near term is a balkanized set of real estate brokerage fiefdoms (all following the power law principle within their own market) but no one true national “winner”. Over time these fiefdoms (or principalities) will begin competing along their borders too, where the brokerages that strategically deploy technology gain advantage (just like the principalities and states that adopted new forms of weaponry won their military campaigns during the afore-mentioned time period).

Which brings me to my second issue the, “Human Touch“. I’ve always argued that real estate is a participation sport. And technology should serve one principal service: get an arms-length positioned consumer in front of an agent as quickly as possible…but it’s the manner by which this occurs that separates effectiveness from mere happenstance.

Many agents despise Internet leads, and sometimes with good reason. Too many “leads” an agent receives are really a waste of time from the agent’s perspective (too many questions, too many meetings, too many emails, not enough transaction); this tends to breed resentment, bitterness, and non-effectiveness. Thus, smart brokerages employ a lead qualification layer operating under a managed care rubric that works with potential clients prior to handing them off to an agent (in my opinion agents by and large are “closers” not “nurture-ers” and their talents are not deployed optimally when called upon to nurture consumers). And it’s in the managed care environment where firms can make the most gains.

Let’s assume an ideal state of technology circumstances for a brokerage principality that wants to gain consumer mindshare (and, thus, marketshare). This brokerage’s website would consist of the following primary entry points for potential (and existing) clients (all very consumer-facing, focusing on consumers’ needs and points-of-view):

• Tag clouds that demonstrate inventory density demarcated along neighborhood, price, zip code, lifestyle, and home-type attributes
• Search clouds that demonstrate what consumers have been most interested in within the site
• Lifestyle-oriented search (which I’ve written about previously)
• Targeted site elements driven by a Site +1 engine (I have not seen this product work, but will give the company the benefit of the doubt and assume that it works as advertised) that presents relevant imagery, content, property type suggestions, and calls to action that meet the potential client’s assumed demographic/psychographic profile in a predictive sense
• Map display that presents data in compelling ways (like search cloud data overlaid on a Google map)

Deploying such site elements not only meets consumers expectations at a high level by presenting them with features they are “familiar” with by virtue of visiting other types of websites more frequently than a real estate website, namely sites like Amazon and blogs (my previous post references a Universal McCann study stating that blogs have just as much reach as traditional media). But more importantly a Utopian site like the one I’ve described is geared towards four primary things: not wasting the consumer’s time, presenting them with multiple ways to access information, speaking relevantly to them immediately, and incenting them to contact a “human” as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This type of a site uses engagement-oriented features that compellingly reward a consumer’s time spent on the site by giving them information in a manner that mirrors a “human touch” while actually cross-promoting a “human touch”, rather than penalizing or irritating them with worn, tired, slow, and stale elements. Thus, consumers establish emotional and brand-centric bonds with the brokerage via its website. And when a consumer decides to “reach out” and contact the company, this consumer does so in a more informed and qualified manner, which allows the managed care department to not only engage this consumer at a higher level but transfer a more informed and content consumer to the agent. What’s happened is that “technology” has allowed the consumer–at her leisure–to satiate her information gathering needs in a highly effective and efficient manner, making the site more relevant and trustworthy with respect to her quest, allowed the managed care department to spend less time educating her, and focuses agents’ core competencies on “closing” and transaction management issues; which in the end reinforces the power law principle and propels the marketshare gains the firm seeks.

As a real estate firm with a sophisticated website, what other websites are your top “competitors”? Obviously, your local market competitors are your competitors. Similarly, certain national aggregator sites are too. But what about non-industry sites? Like eBay, Amazon, Cabela’s, Home Depot, Facebook, etc? Arguably, they are too. Why?

Internet consumers experience a variety Website experiences on any given day. Their online search experience spans from generic to hyper-specific Google searches to specific item searches on sites like Amazon. Chances are that these consumers are more frequently interacting with these latter types of sites than any real estate firm’s site. Thus, these consumers’ expectations for search, interactivity, responsiveness, customer service, etc, are set by these non-real estate industry sites. If your site does not meet par, your site is irrelevant to these consumer (at worst) or an annoyance (at best).

Accordingly, real firms that are serious about meeting and exceeding Internet consumer expectations regarding website usability should study these outside-the-industry platforms, map their site’s current functionality against these other sites, and begin the process of adjusting their sites to step up. Use these other sites’ public-facing operations as tools to learn best practices and adopt relevant processes. Firms, thus, avoid sinking research and development dollars into usability analyses and, in effect, leverage the millions of dollars these other sites have invested in such.

By using Facebook, an agent could create their own Web 2.0 brand while controlling their sphere of influence and network. Real Living has already established this platform for it’s agents (or was it an agent, or group of agents, establishing this platform Real Living?). What a great way to kick start the engagement process while giving agents the ability to serve existing customers and find new customers (particularly echo boomers).

Continuing the discussion from the McKinsey interview of Cammie Dunaway, she states

[Yahoo!] is using behavioral data–really mining the wealth of transactional data we have about how people are spending their time online and trying to marry that data with attitudinal data…that’s where the most powerful insights can really come from.

Insights into what? It could be many things. Two of the most studied motivational data elements are utilitarian motivations and hedonic motivations. Utilitarian motivations center around goal-oriented behavior (e.g., I logged in to check my email, I checked my email, I logged out). Hedonic motivations are more social in nature (e.g,. I logged in to explore, to analyze, to decide, to eventually take action).

In real estate search, companies have typically focused on rewarding utilitarian behavior, often in a very reactionary manner. Consumer searches site > Consumer registers > Consumer selects home > Consumer is “passed off” to a real estate agent. Of course, the ultimate goal is to consummate a sale. And improving the “experience” of looking for a home on a real estate firm’s website could actually lead to more loyalty, referrals, and sales.

Nevertheless, overly focusing on “experience” at the expense of a goal can scuttle both consumer loyalty and ROI. Thus, balance lies in properly testing and deploying Web 2.0 assets that fulfill consumer goals while logically jibing with the product subject matter.

So how does mining attitudinal data fit this balanced approach or paradigm? Incenting consumers to add profile information that logically fits a goal is one idea. For example, if a real estate firm’s goal was to create a social network on their site targeted at tapping a suburban soccer mom demographic looking to buy a home, logical profile information may be zip code (current residence and desired residence), schools, sports, design preferences, and home type.

Zip code is important because the firm could relate this consumer to an agent who serves that zip code, where the agent serves as the social network ombudsman(woman) to answer questions and otherwise kick-start the group. Secondly, once a firm understands home type preferences and desired location, the firm can relate specific home information, community information and statistics, and other moms in the network to this person. The additional profile information constitutes community building information (e.g., relating moms who have children in similar sports). These steps help build a community and take the burden off the real estate firm to be all things to all consumers (if a mom has questions about how her child can join a traveling baseball team, she could ask the real estate agent, but more likely she’d ask the community). This way the firm’s “social asset” reinforces the firm’s local expertise, which allows for an eventual monetization of this consumer as she “graduates” through the process into ultimately looking at home types and eventually purchasing a home.

Through the tracking of profile data combined with the interaction of the consumer with the group (communications, postings, etc) combined with accessing utilities (e.g., widget downloads pertaining to design elements, video home tours, community data, statistics, etc), a firm could create an “engagement” index to validate whether their site is properly satiating consumers’ needs (Circuit City does this). The experience of this for the consumer is not so much having real estate listings and drip marketing pushed her way, but related data presented in a way that allows her to more deeply engage in the process and begin building a community before actually living in a community. Finally, in terms life-time value, this type of a social network could operate as a forum for a firm–and its real estate agents–to cultivate a valid and meaningful long-term relationship with consumers after they have actually bought a home (thus, closing the circle by adding transactional data with previously compiled attitudinal data).

According to McKinsey, global companies are increasingly using Web 2.0 technologies to engage their customers. Tapping web services, collective intelligence systems, and peer-to-peer network capabilities were the top three technologies companies were currently deploying or planning to deploy. Respondents indicated that customer acquisition was the number one reason they were deploying social media (the respondents also stated that they use Web 2.o media to more efficiently engage partners and suppliers as well as internal collaborative purposes). Several respondents indicated that social media is particularly valuable in terms of ideation and creation of future products.

In a similar report, McKinsey interviews Cammie Dunaway. Ms. Dunaway indicates that Yahoo’s concept of digital salons (online focus groups) have delivered unprecedented success with respect to new product prototypes and new product development initiatives. Yahoo also measures consumer engagement as a success metric (i.e., share of time spent on Yahoo and the number of media properties “consumed” during this time).

Applying social media to real estate home search is a logical step. Real estate firms should begin experimenting with new forms of engagement. Despite the fact that homes are not commodities novel opportunities exist to deploy social media. Virtual renderings of homes (pictures, virtual tours, etc) offer a rich bed of experimentation and engagement opportunities, and there currently exists technology real estate firms can deploy to support this initiative. For example, Benjamin Moore has a tool where consumers can select templates or upload pictures of their own homes and then change color schemes; Halstead Property has deployed a similar tool. There are 3-D home design platforms available.

 A creative firm could move beyond the virtual tour and allow consumers to actually change the color and layout of a prospective home; or grab widgets that have predefined parameters pertaining to build-outs or additions, thereby allowing consumers to visualize how a home would appear after the completion of such. Rounding out the experience, a firm could allow an agent, or team of agents, to answer questions via live chat and have a local interior design consultants “on call” to do the same. These types of consumer-facing features not only meet the consumer engagement parameters explored by McKinsey, but actually allows consumers to design or alter a product so they can visualize, experience, and “feel” how a home will look after purchase (allowing a consumer to virtually move in to the home and get a deeper sense of the living space). As Mini Cooper and Scion have found, the higher consumer engagement, the higher the return on customer acquisition strategies (measured in engagement and brand loyalty).