The first panel of the day at Real Estate Connect started slowly (Dottie Herman: "I love real estate!") but heated up when moderator Brad Inman steered the conversation to the Internet. Apparently, the Internet is this hot new thing that everyone thinks is just gonna be huge. Snippets from the panelists:
Pam Liebman: "I think the Internet has changed the way we do business... We've become a population that has no patience. To our brokers, I say, one of the ways you present your brokers is on the Internet. We get over a million hits a month on Corcoran.com."
Dottie Herman: "The consumers in many cases know more and have more information because they do their homework on the web, they go to more sites. They don't need us for information."
More after the jump, including discussion of NYC's so-called multiple-listings service, and discussion of the impact of Craigslist.
After REBNY's Steve Spinola defended the need for brokers, CBHK's David Michonski wasn't afraid to take him down.
David Michonski: "The aggregation [of multiple listings] isn't really there. That is where we are behind. There is a multiple listings service in NYC, there are 22 firms who have belonged for two and a half years who share not just listing data but also past sales data... That information has been held close to the vest in Manhattan, and that prevents a lot of market research