Time Nailed this One!

Lev Grossman, Time Magazine's technology writer and book critic said about the crowning of the consumer as Person of the Year, "It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes..."

Time's selection recognizes the global power of consumer-centric, consumer generated collaboration on an unprecedented level of exchange as reflected via massive information exchange portals. Consider this: YouTube generates daily video viewings in excess of 100 million; MySpace has a global following approaching 150 million people.

Searching the Soul of RE

How does all of this relate to REALonomics, the New Model Math for the real estate industry?

Let's adopt a new NAR mandated business mantra; no, not "let's whip the DOJ" but rather "We Empower YOU!"

Let's get rid of our whips and buggies and finally realize that our industry is in dire straits and needs to replace brokers and agents as the central personalities of its business model with guess who, the big YOU, the consumer. REALonomics does not advocate the obliteration of the real estate profession nor its professionals, just our patently ineffective and transparently self-serving, anti-consumer-friendly business practices.

Our Lock-Step RE World

Why do we, the owners of real estate companies, continue to allow the industry to dictate practices and policies that are truly out of step with the all powerful YOU? Things like:

1. National and local MLS systems that control data and reduce owner profitability;
2. Bricks-and-Mortar business models that create unnecessary overhead;
3. Agent-centric ego cultures that pamper to too many independent contractors;
4. Labor intensive, capital guzzling transaction management systems;
5. Look-alike brands that offer little value distinction to consumers;
6. Brokerage models that stifle peer-to-peer contact between sellers and buyers;

Why is it that one of the most powerful economic industries, real estate, can't generate a YouTube.com approach to real estate marketing? Why doesn't every consumer that owns a property have a HomeSpace.com they, he, she controls? Why does the real estate industry continue to be so over-controlling and over-bearing with the consumer, to the point that we are not respected, generally speaking? Why can't we seem to Napsterize real estate with billions of seller-buyer conversations in cyberspace daily?

Time Magazine got it right,

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes... "