The End of the Traditional Real Estate Brokerage

Austin Allison

January 05, 2017 | comments

Gone are the days when agents alone had access to listing data and acted as gatekeepers to their clients. Today’s on-demand technology has given clients on both ends of the transaction access to immediate and seemingly limitless property information.

Many brokers see this shift as a threat to the business model that has proved profitable for the past 50 years. However, recent research by Zillow has shown that better informed consumers are more likely to value the help of an agent. Conversely, brokers who believe they can counter the on-demand revolution with an adversarial strategy, one in which they attempt to regain control of the available data, will not succeed. The information genie is out of the bottle.

The solution is to work with the trend rather than against it. As old sea captains knew, it is impossible to sail against the tide.

The good news is that brokerages of all sizes are succeeding by using the new paradigm to their advantage. They are letting technology do what it does best, and letting successful agents do what they do best—bringing people together to get deals done.