Not too long ago, Brad Inman wrote about the role of a marketplace in real estate. He described the influx of polarizing new business models to the industry, highlighting what they meant for consumers and gathering them up under an umbrella term: The iMarketplace.
It conjures a compelling image: A metaphorical bazaar of everything a consumer could possibly need throughout the process of buying, selling, what have you, in one place that makes it easy to understand what’s available.
Many of those up-and-coming business models benefit the agent and the brokerage in a way because, by offering extra services, they can help deliver a better consumer experience. But the truth of the matter remains: with hidden opportunity for enterprising agents and brokerages comes hidden cost. While these new models focus on simplifying things for the consumer, they are less concerned with the toll that takes on the agent or brokerage.
Real estate is overdue for its Netflix moment
Think about the popular streaming service for a moment. Most of us open it up on our devices without reflecting on its early days as a mailing service for popular movies, and without considering how it used technological advances made over time in the media industry to create easier, immediate access for everyone.
It’s a business model as old as time: you take something you know people want and make it accessible like never before.
That is a Netflix moment.
It’s a moment where existing technology and in-demand products come together into one thing so simple that no one can believe it didn’t exist before. One thing that might, a few years down the road, become such a quintessential part of our day-to-day lives that when we look back, we’ll ask how we ever got anything done that way.
That moment isn’t only inevitable; it’s imminent
This revolutionizing moment isn’t for just consumers. It’s for the agents and brokerages, who bear the standard for the real estate industry and have diligently served buyers and sellers for decades.
Imagine that virtual bazaar again. Rather than picturing one that necessitates a trade-off of an agent’s time to save the client’s time, picture one designed for the agent.
A place that’s filled to the brim with everything imaginable to help agents and brokerages do what they do even better—close deals and serve their clients—and in less time. A place that empowers them to be their own Netflix moments within the industry; to give clients an experience that leaves them wondering why they’ve never experienced that before.
It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?
That will be the Marketplace from Lone Wolf
For months, Lone Wolf has been introducing partnerships with technology companies involved in almost every step of a real estate transaction.
On its own, this isn’t revolutionary; connected technology has existed since the first computer programmer had to move data from one place to another.
What’s revolutionary is that our earlier example of an imaginary centralized place for agents and brokerages is no longer imaginary. It will be very, very real.
What will this centralized location look like? This prototype of the final site, which is set to launch soon, showcases its unique plug-and-play format.
Marketplace will be the single location for everything an agent could possibly need, from productivity and business-building tools for themselves to the value-added services clients didn’t know they needed. It will house real estate tools for every stage of a transaction, from the day a house is listed to the day the client moves in.
And it’ll be just as simple to find and use as downloading the Netflix app on your phone or TV.
The Marketplace is where real estate professionals can find everything they need for their real estate experience. It offers a variety of services and eCommerce options both for free and for sale in one centralized location, all of which plug into the Lone Wolf transaction management solutions provided to 1.4 million agents across North America — just like downloading an app for your phone or TV. Click here to learn more about the Marketplace.