Marketing demons and market prophecies

Creed Smith, a real estate broker in Denver, Colo., is not the first broker to envision major change for the real estate industry, and he's not the first to propose a subscription-based property-listing service as an alternative to traditional multiple listing services.

He does, however, have an interesting approach to marketing his ideas (see Inman News article).

Smith is the force behind InevitableChange.org, which he describes as a think tank that produced a "Real Estate Market 2003-2012" working paper detailing some possible scenarios for industry players through 2012.

Among the predictions:

1. In 2010, "Zillow is purchased within year's end by Google, Yahoo, MSN, Realogy, or maybe even RE/MAX; they had the 'eyes' and one of these groups wanted to 'monetize' the volume going to the site."
2. In 2011, "For the last four years the massive expansion of alternative brokers has been nearly out of control. ... New business models have captured 75 percent of the broker-assisted sales. Buyers and sellers 'find' each other via marketing services on the Internet; brokers are hired to complete the transaction."
3. In 2012, "By year's end, 90 percent of all MLS systems existing in 2007 have failed and are out of business; new Internet-based models and systems dominate how housing information is disseminated into the marketplace."

He also is behind a promotional illustrated guide for his UniversalMLS.com site, called "The Demon of Marketing." That guide contains a grisly image of bodies and burning real estate offices and the foreboding message: "The market runs swiftly to those with the best. Those not innovative will be laid to rest."

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