New Technology Will Make, and Break, Real Estate Careers

September 21, 2007 |

realtorsaurus1.jpgRemember the Realtorsaurus?

The Realtorsaurus is alive and well, I am afraid. I came face-to-face with this reality yesterday at a REALTOR ethics class that I attended. Many of the latest changes to the REALTOR Code of Ethics addressed the use of the Internet. In one such change, Standard of Practice 12-10 prohibits REALTORS from “deceptively using metatags, keywords or other devices/methods to direct, drive, or divert Internet traffic, or to otherwise mislead consumers. (Adopted 1/07)”

When we came to this section of the code during the class, the instructor asked everyone in the class who knew what a “meta tag” was to raise a hand. . .

Out of a class of about 30– four people raised a hand.

I must admit that I was very proud to be related to two of the three, other than myself, who raised a hand. That means, however, that had the three of us not attended, only one person in the room would have raised a hand. Yikes!

I’m not sharing this story to embarrass or make fun, but the reality of the situation is that at the rate technology is changing the real estate industry, if you don’t know what meta tags are, you are way behind the game. NAR is already behind. While it may be great to have language about meta tags in the code, SEO technology and strategy is already moving past that.

Think about it for a second, the code is talking about meta tags, but the industry is talking about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, SMS, RSS, SEM, wikis, and the blogosphere, just to name a few. While none of these subjects has anything to do with becoming a REALTOR, they have everything to do with having a sustainable, successful career in real estate.

I think that the reasons are many that REALTORS have little knowledge about the technology that is changing our industry by the day. I won’t go into all of them right now, but there is no reason for this to continue. Each individual REALTOR must make an effort to learn about the technology that has the power to make or break their future success. To ignore these subjects is to risk extinction.

Realtorsaurus, your days are numbered. . .

[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, technology, realtorsaurus, twitter, linkedin, facebook, rss, [/tags]

Posted by Daniel | Filed Under Blogging, Industry Issues, Realtorsaurus, Social Media 

Comments

One Response to “New Technology Will Make, and Break, Real Estate Careers”

  1. Martha on September 22nd, 2007 12:16 am

    HAHA, great post. I was realtorsaurus earlier this year. At the beginning of the summer someone showed me this text messaging service that gives you home valuations on your cell phone. I think it was a company called HouseFront. And then after that I was just amazed and started looking up other things, I’m not on active rain and searching the internet every day. The time has come for all agents to see what technology can do for them!

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