Power Up Conference Looks Into the Future

Nearly 150 REALTORS® converged on the Phoenix Art Museum for a look into the future during the conference “Power Up: Redefining the Real Estate Journey” on December 13, 2017.

Jeff Turner, CEO at immoviewer and Todd Carpenter, managing director of Data Analytics at the National Association of REALTORS® jammed at least four hour’s worth of content into three hours. Here is just a slice.

“A machine cannot explain to a buyer what it will feel like to live in a neighborhood. Real estate will always be a people business.” – Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Zillow Group

Turner: Spencer actually has no idea whether that’s true or not. As smart as he is, he has no idea.

Carpenter: Big data now isn’t just the listing data. One of the things that you have is this proliferation of open data. For example, this is a geo-located database of every tree in Evanston, Illinois (points to a map).

Turner: Let’s say I’m searching for a house…and I want to live in a house that has a certain kind of tree. We can analyze every single photo and identify every single type of tree from that photo.

Carpenter: One of the ways the consumer is going to chew through all this information, is to use a robot.

Turner: In the future, (sensors like these) will provide that data. The notion that only a REALTOR® will be able to tell you what it’s like to be in a neighborhood — that’s where this goes. The best robots in the world are gonna sit on a (computer) chip.

Carpenter: Consumers want to know, what is this home worth? What homes in the area are for sale? And what’s the market like? Zillow came along and they took the one piece that they knew they would be able to provide…that you guys always wanted to hold back…the Zestimate.

Turner: A Zestimate is an algorithm. The AVMs (automated valuation models) you’re using, they’re all based on an algorithm and guess what? They’re only going to get smarter…and be better than you at some point.

Carpenter: The AVM is 25 years old. CoreLogic was doing this for the mortgage industry long before Zillow. RPR has AVMs, Core Logic has AVMs — your MLS might provide an AVM.

YOU + TECH > TECH

Turner: What if you team up with a computer? In a world of increasing automation, people who can genuinely connect with other people are going to be more important, not less. Your soft skills, emotional skills, emotional intelligence are greater than artificial intelligence alone.

“Because technologies are speeding up the time to complete the transaction, and because cybercriminals are becoming more and more sophisticated, agents need to become the consumer’s cyber-advocates.”
– Todd Carpenter in his report Robots in Real Estate

Turner: Your ultimate role in all of this is to protect the consumer…to provide them with security. As the pace of this transaction increases, their ability to have a human being to reach out to becomes even more valuable. You have a role to play that only a human can play.

Related article: Machine Learning Is Redefining Real Estate Search – Huffington Post (Aug. 8, 2016)

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