Solano Real Estate Scene: Selling real estate from a workstation in India or Seattle
Artificial intelligence, hedge fund money, venture capital, technology and the Amazon Effect and brilliant STEM-focused young people with college degrees in internet marketing.
Add Facebook and social media, math wizards that understand the numbers, as well as the American Dream, Wall Street, Apple, the mobile generation, Uber and self-driving cars, trains and trucks and finally, the fact that many people are tired and busy lying on the couch staring at their phones, are all the reasons selling real estate has changed over the past 10 years more than it has over the previous 100 years combined.
Real estate market values have climbed in the U.S. to $33 trillion this year and some folks around the business and Internet world are trying to figure out ways of making money from their call centers and workstations around the country and even India and the Philippines. Zillow, for example, gave away free estimates on what your house was worth and obtained contact information on millions of Americans for many years until they monetized the business from all the data they collected from their consumer inquiries and all the public websites including the Realtor multiple listing services in every community in the nation, and now sell buyer and seller leads to real estate agents in every city in the country.
I estimate that real estate agents in Solano County alone send more than $200,000 per month to Zillow for advertising and leads. They are making money selling real estate every day without showing property nights and weekends, negotiating purchase transactions, hustling for new listings, doing transfer disclosure documents or holding open houses on Saturdays and Sundays.
Home Light is another great idea for making money selling real estate without sweating through an open house on a 100-degree day in Vacaville. Home Light spends money on TV advertising and all over the internet touting their vetted list of top real estate agents in every market. I inquired through them once as a test and was impressed when they had two of my favorite top veteran ethical Realtors call me about a house in Leisure Town I was looking at for my sister-in-law. Both agents were, as advertised with Home Light, very experienced, local and familiar with Vacaville.
If I had purchased the home through one of these two Home Light-recommended agents, the agents and their broker would have had to pay Home Light something like 25 percent of their commission as a referral fee and Home Light would never have to deal with my wife or her stressed-out sister.
I don’t know what the future will look like in the next 20 years but I know one thing, if a local Solano County resident wants to find a great agent, just ask an older and reputable local lender, lawyer, banker, insurance broker, accountant or financial advisor or better yet, ask your parents and grandparents if they know a great local Realtor and let’s keep the money in our community for our local charities that local Realtors support here in Solano County.
