A colleague and close friend at Microsoft recently told me that since the rise of artificial intelligence, it feels like she’s working at a startup.

This was shocking to me. With a majority market share in most of its core business areas and nearly the largest market capitalization in the world, Microsoft is a 50-year-old dominant force in the industry. How is it that they could be acting like a start-up?

To hear my colleague tell it, the environment has completely shifted with increased pressure to innovate, compete with emerging companies, and adopt new technologies at a rate not seen in years.

The lesson: If even Microsoft is doing it, the rest of us – in the real estate sector and far beyond – need to be both paying attention and ready for anything.

Change is part of the journey

Lately, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time listening to Acquired, a podcast focused on the origins and evolution of some of the world’s greatest companies. On a completely different scale, I’ve interviewed dozens of owners of small and medium-sized businesses for my own podcast. There is no denying the fact that lasting companies fundamentally change over time. Their value proposition evolves based on external forces, consumer demand, shareholder expectations, and competitive pressures.

Every Realtor and broker across Canada is a small business owner, and – like with Microsoft – now is a perfect time for each of them to get into startup mode. What is your value proposition today, and, more importantly, what will your value proposition be tomorrow?

When I’ve written articles that challenged the status quo of the real estate sector in the past, inevitably, someone would comment that people have been “crying wolf” for years and yet here we still are. So, let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that Realtors will be replaced by some new technology. In fact, I don’t think anything of the sort. I believe it is our resilience and ability to adapt to the evolving business environment over the past 100 years that will serve us as things continue to change.

This adaptation isn’t always self-motivated. Sometimes it’s resisted at first and simply becomes inevitable over time. Resistance isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing – it’s just a reality. And that goes for most industries and businesses. Sometimes being an early adopter has saved a company or provided them with exponential growth. Sometimes, resisting and delaying the inevitable (while learning from others’ early forays and mistakes) has been equally beneficial.

So, whether you’re a Realtor, own a brokerage, or are in a leadership position in organized real estate, let’s not focus on the myriad changes that are potentially forcing us to adapt, but instead focus on our direct value proposition to our client base.

Looking back, and ahead

Consider for a moment the value proposition of the Realtor at a time before the internet, when the catalogue was the go-to resource for listings. For those in the sector then, you remember it well. For those who weren’t, I’m sure you can easily picture it. 

To see listings – and not just the ones found in a “scroll” through the real estate section in the local paper – clients had to sit across a desk from a Realtor. As such, the catalogues were protected at all costs. A client might leave with photocopies of their favorite listings, but, in some cases, information would be redacted from them. 

There were no professional photos or virtual tours. The exposure to the property happened during the showing. 

There were no FINTRAC compliance requirements and, famously, the contracts were only one, two, or three pages, depending on who you ask (but be sure to ask; anybody in the industry at that point loves to talk about this).

Today, clients know more about a property of interest before seeing it than ever before. They can do virtual walk-throughs and see more information than the catalogues ever had. And that’s not to mention the ancillary information on the internet, not curated by the MLS System. The information is nearly open, available on many different portals in many different forms. 

What’s more, the regulatory environment has become far more robust. Consumer protection by way of anti-money laundering requirements, privacy legislation, licensing and regulatory compliance, and board and association rules are now woven into the fabric of real estate sector business. 

The question is: How are we reacting to all this? Have we accepted this as a changed value proposition or are we just generally annoyed that the contracts are longer and the data is no longer exclusive? Whether accepted or not, I think most recognize that a Realtor’s value has evolved based on the changing world around us.

Regulation as a value-add

I have written before about Realtors and regulation, and continue to believe that there is more opportunity for us to embrace the fact that we are regulated as part of the value proposition. No, we don’t need to get excited every time there’s a new rule or compliance requirement, but with the world changing around us and our clients so quickly, being regulated can help build lasting consumer trust.

As for the value of the data, we need to be ready for a world where the current ecosystem becomes diluted as tens of thousands of Realtors leverage AI systems to assist with data analysis, dispersing data broadly across learning models. Again, this isn’t good or bad – it’s just real, and the value proposition will change as a result. 

Focus will need to be put on ensuring that Realtors’ contribution to this broader data ecosystem continues to be recognized and rewarded. Equally, value will be placed on discovering and exploiting other sources of data by digitizing all aspects of the process and streamlining the consumer experience.

Of course, that’s just the change we can see coming. The value proposition for all of us will continue to evolve in the coming years. It’s up to us as business owners and leaders to contemplate what value we’ll bring to the ecosystem and how we’ll positively move toward that role. 

There will be a struggle between the innovators and the resistors, but there always is. This conflict isn’t unhealthy. It just challenges us to better hone and articulate our vision of what that value proposition is going to look like.

Trevor Koot

As a former managing broker and realtor, Trevor Koot’s nearly two decades in organized real estate gives him hands-on expertise in understanding the profession’s needs. Before stepping in as CEO at the BC Real Estate Association, he served as CEO of Kamloops and District Real Estate Association for four years and Kootenay Association of Realtors for three before successfully merging the two into the Association of Interior Realtors. Trevor’s leadership in the real estate sector began long before his CEO career when he was Chair of the Saskatchewan Real Estate Commission for five years. He played a key role in redrafting provincial real estate regulations during his tenure. Trevor also served two years as Chair of the Governance Committee at the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials.

He holds multiple degrees, from a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a minor in Mathematics through the University of Saskatchewan to a Master of Business Administration degree through Royal Roads University. Trevor is adding to his extensive education through his current pursuit of completing a Master of Laws degree at York University. His daughter, Abby, attends the University of Victoria while he and his wife, Jill, live in Vancouver’s Chinatown.