Owner Lock-Down, Cell Block “D”
Lately, REALonomics has been devouring a steady diet of negative real estate and mortgage lending press…”why?”, you ask. Because that’s what’s being served up, that’s why.
Actually, there’s more to it than forced feedings. The negative goes with the turf; you can’t have yin without some yang. It seems like the industry is in a “locked down” state with owners feeling powerless against the contemporary forces of change coming at them from all sides.
But are owners really powerless to initiate their long awaited prison break? Now that the official word is out that the market is going south (check your compass needle), we finally catch a sense of what it is like to be surrounded by the iron bars of overhead that imprison us?
One of my favorite films is Birdman of Alcatraz, staring Burt Lancaster as Rober Stroud (the real bird man) and Karl Malden as the Warden. The Birdman, although imprisoned and segregated, is portrayed as finding freedom, meaning and solace through the raising and selling of birds.
The Birdman found three injured sparrows in the prison yard, captured them and spent time keeping them alive for personal enjoyment and satisfaction. In the movie, Burt Lancaster (the Birdman) switched from caring for sparrows to raising canaries, belieiving the canaries were a better economic model.
Who are we kidding in the real estate industry. Our traditional economic models (the real estate company) entrap us as if we Birdmen in a lock-down. Despite our toying new breeds of birds (agents), nothing seem powerful enough to release us from our sentence.
We have entered the real estate industry’s Third Economic Wave, the Consumer Centric Era and this era, unlike others, will challenge our model like no other.
There are three economic changes that must be made by owners in order for us to find true freedom, meaning and solace, not to mention profitability.
- Reinvent and View our Companies as Market Management Engines
- Implement Technology and Internet Models that Diminish Overhead Dependency
- Create Consumer Centric Services that Simplify the Real Estate Transaction for them
The heat is on. Trading sparrows for canaries, while bringing a sense of personal peace will not release us from the bars that hold us. However, models like e-Partner may.
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