Brokerage of the future? This is like Jetson’s style futuristic:
So imagine your client comes to your office in 2021 because the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet and we all have jet packs because the Jetson’s promised them to us. Your client is a young couple looking for their first home and you all sit together and look at a large screen on your office wall. You show them pictures of the top three homes that match what they’ve asked for, and they eliminate one and want to see the other two.
On the first house, you zoom in to the front door to open it, then walk your way through the home in life size from your desk. You open the kitchen drawer to see the appliance manuals because they’ve asked the Energy Star rating of the refrigerator. They wonder how the natural light appears in the home, so you change the settings to rain, morning sun and sunset so they can see all angles. They ask about the nearby rail station and you turn on the sound to show them the slight hum and they decide that they can deal with that.
They’re in love and don’t even want to see the second home, but they argue over whether or not their sofa will fit in the living room or if they should put it in the gameroom upstairs and buy a new one. You ask them for their QR code they saved on their phone that uploads 3-d images of all of their furniture to the large screen so they can see what the sofa looks like in the room and spin it with their fingers to check out the configuration.
These are all buyer signs, so you click the docs button on the bottom and draw up the offer papers that are autopopulated based on the home info in the system and what you’ve audibly agreed upon for a sales price. It also pops up simultaneously on their mobile devices, and they thumbprint scan into their phone and enter their password stating that they agree to the offer.
Does this mean NO MORE REALTORS?
The future doesn’t eliminate Realtors, it forces agents to redefine their value proposition. Knowledge is worth money and agents will always play a role in negotiations because there is always a human element when selling a personal asset such as a home- as Benn says, it will NEVER be a point-and-click proposition. But the future is exciting and I’m hoping the Jetson’s weren’t too far off with their promises.
Don’t believe me? Watch this:
This video is of technology that currently exists but is of course too expensive to manufacture in mass (but that was once the case with light bulbs as well if that tells you anything). Can’t you see the implications in the real estate field? The above story is just my sci-fi real estate fantasy, but when you watch this video, you’ll see how I can jump to conclusions:
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Consumerism, Geo-mapping columnist
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Take me to your leader?
I’m thinking, in 11 years we’ll be talk’n Matrix and pretending from our immersion pods.
It’s an interesting ponder. Even more, if this is what’s experimentally possible today, what will it look like in 10 years. Can’t wait.
Cheers.
Very cool video Lani!
At Inman in San Francisco this Summer, there was a similar technology that could be used for real estate — a huge touch-screen monitor set in a coffee table that allows you to explore videos, websites, real estate, etc. I can imagine one of these in every major real estate office once the technology becomes more affordable.
Lani,
We’ve got the baby steps already in the making! Look up Mobile Augmented Reality Systems (MARS). I would argue that the new Google Maps(3.2) for my BB is the first baby step in that direction.
The new Google Maps puts “layers” of data on the map. You can choose what layers to view or not view. Extrapolating out: there is no reason consumers couldn’t snap a pic of the QR code on a flyer, sign or email and “view” the home via their phone, laptop, desktop or wearable computer…!