Dear Monty: You describe your writing as advocacy for industry reform. You also stated that technology would replace real estate agents in the future. Others have similar thoughts, but I have yet to see any of them make a dent in the industry. I am a full-time real estate agent, and I am curious to know if you will share a more detailed explanation of how you think this will happen.
Monty’s Answer: Technology races and predicting the future have always produced winners and losers. Innovation is born out of dissatisfaction. I have said in the past that technology would replace real estate agents. I believe technology will reshape and drastically improve information delivery to real estate consumers. I believe that the technology that will affect that change already exists. Still, both the industry and real estate consumers do not yet recognize it. For real estate agents to remain part of the real estate transaction, they must reinvent themselves. A recent example of reinventing is the assembly line and production workers. They put down their welding torches and learned to program the machines that do the assembly and welding. Some workers were able to adapt, while many others moved on. Real estate workers will have to accept that they are no longer the center of the transaction but can be part of it -- or move on.
