The Traditional Real Estate Brokerage Model is Broken

The traditional broker better rethink the ways in which they do business or suffer extinction.  The business model is suffering and despite the facade that all is well in residential real estate, I’m here to tell you that isn’t the case at all.

First let’s define ‘traditional brokerage:"

• A real estate company that focuses on it’s brand more than the consumer.
• A real estate company that is highly leveraged with office space and expensive leases.
• A real estate company that hires agents blindly creating a revolving door that can damage the brand on which they are spending so much money.
• The real estate company that continues to make promises to it’s agents that it can’t deliver due to corporate bureacracy.
• The real estate company that decreases dollars spent on the consumer in an effort to maintain profit due to high overhead.
• The real estate company who is "trapped in the box" with no ability to truly see "outside of it."
• The real estate company that defends a 6% commission while providing less service than it did 10 years ago.
• The real estate company that claims to embrace change all the while avoiding it like the plague.
• The real estate company that talks the talk but resists walking the walk.

I think you get the picture here.

I can’t and won’t speak to ALL the traditional brokerages in Manhattan.  That said, the traditional brokerage that I believe to be doing the best job of keeping abreast of what technology has to offer while maintaining their focus on the consumer is The Halstead Property Company.

My hats off to Clark Halstead and Diane Ramirez for "getting it!"  They understand that the consumer is demanding a more transparent industry.  They understand that our job is no longer to be providers of data but rather to help the consumer navigate that information and make smart decisions when buying or selling real estate.  They understand the power of technology as they embrace the agent blog (ex. Noah Rosenblatt’s UrbanDigs), the video tour with ProperTV and maintain a powerful presence on social marketing sites like Twitter and Facebook.

So for the rest of the brokerage community out there…take a good hard look at Halstead.  As far as the big companies go, they are without a doubt the one that understands the direction in which this industry is heading and the leaders in implementing all that technology has to offer.  All of this in an effort to better serve those who matter most…consumers!