Brokerage, We Hardly Knew Ye
In June, 1980, as a 28 year old doctoral student with a two year old and a baby on the way, I got my real estate license in order to make some money while I completed my Ph.D. At that time the overriding perception of Manhattan real estate agents was one of ladies draped in mink carrying a bunch of keys. Getting a real estate license then (as now) presented almost no barrier for entry; you needed only to take a ridiculously simple state test and endure a mind-numbingly dull and uninformative 45 hour course. I survived both and went to work as a residential broker, not yet understanding that real estate would eat my life.
Brokerage was a very different job in the days before widespread computer use. We had listings, we advertised them in the paper, and buyers came to us for information about what was available. While negotiating and organizational skills were important to success, even the least skilled among us had the keys to the kingdom: file drawers filled with cards containing listing information. There were almost no exclusive listings so there was no co-broking. Buyers had no access to information about what was for sale except through us.
Over the years I have watched an extraordinary step by step transformation in our industry. As real estate firms started to proliferate, the notion of branding crept into the mix. How would we distinguish ourselves one from another? Marketing, which had been limited to placing classifeds ads in the Sunday real estate section of the Times, began to include magazines. Then radio and TV. As sellers began to give exclusives, the real estate community began to co-broke. For the first time, the possibility arose that a buyer could see everything in the marketplace with one agent.
And then technology completely rocked our world. With the rise of the Internet, brokers no longer controlled access to listings. Information of every sort became public. That change, with all its ramifications, forced us to update our business models and re-imagine our value proposition. If buyers did not need us to find property for them, and sellers did not need us to find buyers, what did we add to the transaction?
Our job, no longer information provider, is now more akin to investment advisor. Today the ranks of residential brokers are filled with former bankers and attorneys. We bring our expertise to bear on the many nuances of the purchase and sale processes. We have become expert online and offline marketers of property and of ourselves, brand building in both the personal and the corporate spheres. We still show listings, and we still negotiate (although today more likely with another agent representing the other side than between two principals). We are still, mostly, paid on commission rather than salary. But overall, it’s a different world from the one I entered 30 years ago this month, with a far more empowered consumer population and a better educated and more expert broker force. And today it’s a BIG business!