At Inman Connect, The Online Battleground is Laid Out
I have been present at the Inman Connect Conference in New York this week. The Inman Connect Conference brings together over 3,000 CEOs, business tycoon, executive real estate agents, network connected brokers, and sales administrators, to discover latest drifts and systems, and to study ways of adjusting to the transformation that surrounds our industry. Zillow, an online real estate power house and Trulia an all-in-one site for real estate are set to come together as one soonest. And with Murdoch’s NewsCorp, the largest information and news supplier in the English speaking world possessing Realtor.com. It will be a huge battle between this two portal to get the attention of Realtor with the company still contemplating if it should get involved or not.
Immediately after one of the previous sessions, Murdoch gave a prominent speech which was followed by an interview. Also the session started with another captivating interview with Richard Smith, Realogy CEO. The nation’s biggest brand-name, mortar-and-brick brokerages and broker centric is NRT/Realogy. Though Smith was soft on the third adjective, he was relatively firm on the former two adjectives.
Smith gave a dismissive response upon being quizzed about profit sharing brokerage Keller Williams being agent-centric. And as a company, Keller Williams has experienced a great rise in recent past. Smith response suggested he wouldn’t be moved into buying the company and isn’t scared of the company’s rivalry also. Rather, his major interest is in complete reduction of the technological part of brokerage. Fortifying and reducing in size it’s many brick and mortar offices was one of the ways NRT successfully overcame the downslide of real estate. Zip Realty acquisition by Realogy is a clear technological act and Smith’s attitude seemed to show he buys into the idea of inputting Zip’s system which allowed it to be an online-only brokerage and believes it will be a good platform to future brands like Better Homes and Coldwell and Gardens Real Estate.