Closing Real Estate’s Digital Divide With Privacy, Transparency And Choice
David is CEO of Move, Inc./realtor.com. Realtor.com makes buying, selling, and living in homes easier and more rewarding for everyone.
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I’ve had to adapt to change from new advances in technology early and often in my life, having spent my career at some of the country’s leading digital commerce businesses, including eBay and Expedia. From travel to retail to real estate, I’ve always been attracted to industries that touch people in their day-to-day lives. Having successfully guided two other organizations through transitions, I am excited to be leading Realtor.com as our industry is at the beginning of a change journey to better use technology to bring confidence and value to consumers.
A true digital transformation has been slow to come to real estate, which has long been a people business. From showings and open houses to inspections, appraisals and closings, the extent to which the industry relies on in-person, decades-old methods to buy and sell homes was made even more apparent with the coronavirus pandemic — and it’s not at all transparent to consumers. Aspects like home search through apps and listings portals have moved fully online, but buying and selling homes remains a complex and fragmented process. We need to make the entire journey easier, from helping consumers connect with the right real estate professional for them to giving people the tools and resources they need to find their perfect home, secure a mortgage and close the deal.
Demographics, cultural shifts, consumer expectations, public policies, and attitudes toward online privacy, choice and transparency will all influence the journey ahead toward a seamless digital transaction. Success in the digital marketplace will depend largely on how real estate agents, brokers, technology companies and other industry stakeholders understand and interpret these trends to deliver a better buying and selling experience. Here are just a few to consider.
Most of today’s homebuyers and sellers are digital natives.
The largest generation in the country, some 70 million millennials are tech-savvy digital natives who are at or near the age when they’ll start families or begin buying homes. According to the National Association of Realtors, about 5 million homes are bought and sold every year in the U.S., and it’s no surprise that millennials now make up the largest share of those transactions. Buying or selling a home is one of the largest financial transactions that most people make in their lifetime, and I believe all of them — given the choice — would gravitate to a more digital, seamless and transparent experience with trusted real estate partners who inspire their confidence.
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The industry must continue to move away from the era when buying and selling meant participating in an opaque, fragmented, paper-heavy, legalized transaction. Now is the time to respond to changing consumer demands and build a truly personalized and seamless buying and selling experience.
AI and machine learning must be used responsibly and for the consumers’ benefit.
At Realtor.com, we’re constantly collecting feedback from consumers to understand how they think about buying and selling and then using it to develop features and tools that deliver the best possible experience. We use machine learning and AI to create an exceptional consumer-centric experience that’s unique to every user, transparent and supportive, with access to trusted industry professionals as well as the information and resources that will help them achieve their real estate-related goals.
As we and others in the industry continue to leverage technology and data to improve our competitive advantage and deliver tailored experiences, we also must inspire consumers’ confidence and show that we value their privacy, information and data. To deliver a fully digital transaction, we must solve for both a deeply personalized experience and privacy laws and demands for transparency. To succeed, businesses must listen to consumers who continue to have high expectations about their personal data and who seek empowerment through access to information as well as corporate honesty and openness.
People want transparency and choice.
Looking ahead, we’re beginning to see two different approaches in the digital real estate space. Some in the industry are trying to become everything for everyone with a closed-system approach, which is often framed as a way to create a seamless experience for consumers, but ultimately, there are competing forces, and the consumer isn’t really the one who benefits.
I believe an open approach is the better way to go. An online ecosystem should connect successful people and businesses to deliver the best homebuying experience that empowers the consumer through an abundance of trustworthy information and quality choices.
The race is on, and change is just ahead.
Buying and selling a home is a complicated, high-stakes game that’s often stacked against consumers and made even more challenging in today’s high-demand housing market. The race is on to create a seamless, digital marketplace for buyers and sellers. The industry’s ultimate goal should be to make buying, selling, renting and living in a home easier and more enjoyable by leveraging the tools and resources necessary to build consumer confidence and inspire trust.
By creating a seamless and guided digital experience, we can take the anxiety and drudgery out of the homebuying and selling journey. This won’t happen overnight, but the journey is the fun part.
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