How many of us remember the large black beepers that eventually got smaller and became available in cool colors. Needing dimes – or was it quarters - for a pay phone? When’s the last time you saw a pay phone? The Motorola brick – the most popular cell phone for Realtors – available in beige or black.
In 1988, my brand new $4,000 computer had a whopping 40 megabyte hard drive (about 1/1000th the capacity of my iPod). In 1993 I was the first Realtor in my area to own a digital camera. I paid $700. for a Logitech digital camera that shot only black and white and had a capacity for 6, count ‘em – 6 photos! Oh, and did I say they were only black and white? In 1995, the World Wide Web got traction for consumer use. When the internet was being demonstrated at our Realtor convention, the search words Real Estate received several pages of results. Yes, several pages! I just Googled (when did that become a word?) real estate and found a whopping 383,000,000 entries (in .13 seconds I might add!)
Home buyers today can now drive by homes in a virtual world instead of the confines of a car. They can find the demographics of neighborhoods, the ratings of schools, the closest shopping, cost of living and job opportunities of their future homes from their iPhone. Home sellers today can research the value of their homes through a multitude of websites and upload their homes on eBay, Craigslist and more.
So why need a Realtor with all of this technology and knowledge at our fingertips? Well, at the end of the day, it’s still about our knowledge, our communication skills, our ethics and our relationship with our clients.
No matter what technology brings to the table, it is the human interaction that makes the difference. Seeing a home on-line is not the same as physically crossing the threshold of how many untold homes until you finally hear that click in your brain and feel the quickening of your heart that says, yep, this is the one for me. No matter how many websites you visit that explain the process of buying or selling a home, nothing compares with the actual process…..the previewing, the negotiating, the inspections, the appraisals, the packing, the moving, the closing day, the hand holding….and more.
Yes, we are still America’s dream makers though times they are a changing…..