real estate dementia » dementia http://realestatedementia.com musings on a crazy industry... Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:45:29 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 the definition of insanity http://realestatedementia.com/the-definition-of-insanity/ http://realestatedementia.com/the-definition-of-insanity/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:11:18 +0000 brad http://realestatedementia.com/?p=3 in a rut?  resistant to change?  call it insanity.

albert einstein is credited with the quote defining insanity as “…doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  a lot of people refer to the real estate business as “insane,” but most are referring to the dramatic cycles of the market and the frenetic pace at which business is conducted when making that reference.  personally i’m wondering if the use of that term in explaining the real estate industry isn’t an apt use of einstein’s definition.

Photo from www.istockphoto.com

i’m not suggesting that the real estate industry is rife with lunatics, but i’m often perplexed why so many agents (and companies) in real estate cling to old, unproductive methods in plying their trade, especially in light of the market in most parts of the country.  yet so many agents, brokers, lenders and other service providers continue to do business the same way it’s been done for many years – same methods of prospecting, same methods of marketing, same manner of dealing with transactions.  and somehow, many of those same individuals and companies expect they’re going to see different results from those efforts.

insane to think consumers will continue to respond to the same old marketing tactics. crazy to ignore what consumers want or how their buying behaviors have changed. demented to think that, in the new world order of doing business in a streamlined, efficient fashion, the byzantine and plodding real estate transaction as it’s now carried out will continue without challenge by consumers.

it can’t continue.  the real estate industry has got to move beyond the old methods and embrace the new, paying particular attention to what consumers want, where they congregate, what messages are relevant to them.  stopping the madness of the property flyers stuffed in real estate agents’ mailboxes, submitting a property to the mls and praying that it will sell, using web 1.0 to market in a web 2.0 world.

unless there’s a change in the thought process, the methods of interacting with consumers, and a willingness to engage consumers through blogging, social networking and the other tools of social media, many in the real estate industry will slowly go mad, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

if you’re in the real estate industry and reading this, my hope is that you are not one being fitted for a long shirt with sleeves that tie in the back.

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