Podcast - Episode 6: Tech that Transforms: AI, VR, and the Future of Real Estate

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Episode Transcript:

Tech that Transforms: AI, VR, and the Future of Real Estate

Lance Pendleton: What technology can you stop wasting your time with? And what technology should you be focused on and paying attention to? Or which one should you probably just kick to the curb on the next episode of consume? This is consume the podcast for real estate agents who are tired of hearing the same old industry stuff and want to experience something completely different. So I am excited to talk about today's topic because of the fact that since I do a lot of conversations with consumers, one of the things that I always appreciate is how different the real estate agent community's perception and understanding when it comes to current technology, how different it is from what the consumers understanding, want and need is from current technology. And I'll give you the perfect example. The other day I was talking to one of my good, good clients and I said, you know, really there's an opportunity for you to showcase the property now in a different light. It had been stagnant for a little bit. It was not moving. They weren't getting a lot of traction on it. And I said, you know, one of the things that you can do is do a matterport tour, right? Do an immersive Matterport tour, highlight the different areas and parts of the property that you think people might miss or overlook, and then run a promotion where you have that link accessible as a private, literally a private immersive tour only by request. Put an e-blast out to the people that you have in your orbit to see if anybody wants to have access to that immersive tour. Lance Pendleton: So it was another attempt at sort of refreshing the property in a much cooler, hipper way. And here's the best part. The agent said to me, oh, I don't like doing those 3D tours. I said, why? And without blinking she goes, well, I don't like using them. I find them hard to navigate. And I was like, well, what? But it's not for you. It's for the customer, right? And it's like, the thing that I never seem to understand is agents still get stuck in this belief mechanism that the end user is themselves like, no, we don't need I don't care if you're good at using the technology or not, like it doesn't matter to me. It's what does the consumer actually want and what do they like? And if you have an immersive tool and what we're going to be talking about today is, you know, again, this discrepancy and where's real estate heading when it comes to technology, when it comes to the use of things like AI, VR, all the different things that exist in the tech space, because at this point, it's a transformational period in which if you're not supplying the consumer population with the things that they like and the things in the ways that they want to engage in a property or in a residential real estate experience because you don't like it or because you don't know how to use it. You are completely missing the boat. Lucy, tell me I'm wrong here.

Lucy Edwards: Well, I happen to agree with you 100%. The industry is changing and actually the consumer is getting much more educated. The consumer is investing more time in research and understanding what's happening and what's going on. Things that come across their desk and their computer, and they reach out to the agent. And I can tell you it's very important that the agent is educated, well educated. It knows all the tools in the toolbox, because if the consumer is going to put them in front of a question, well, are you doing this, this and this? My neighbor just did and they have no clue what's happening. It's just going to make them look so bad. I can tell you when, uh, and I'll just bring it from my personal life when my daughter and my son in law were looking for the agent to represent their property, their technology was a number one question how you're going to advertise our house. And actually, the agent wasn't crazy about Matterport either. And I said, listen, that's my daughter and you're going to do it. I'll help you with tagging and everything else, but you have to use 100% of what's available to represent the property. And as a matter of fact, it was purchased by a young couple in California. So here we go. Florida and California, you have to invest. And just the other day, about a week ago, I was at a cryptocurrency blockchain conference. That's all they were talking about is AI and all the tools that are available for agents. It's unfortunate that not everyone is embracing it, but it is there. And I think I think it is very it's crucial right now. It's not an option. You just have to do it.

Lance Pendleton: Well, let's talk about for a second, though, where I'm most passionate, which is helping agents best understand the idea that their opinion of something is most often misaligned with what the consumer opinion is. But what I want to start with, Lucy, is why do you believe that because I have a theory on this. But why do you believe that agents don't adopt more technology in their business?

Lucy Edwards: I think they're just not comfortable. God forbid they will use a marketing tool or let's say in this case Matterport. And and for example, the buyer will say, why don't you present it to me via zoom, or let's go to your conference room and run me through the property. And, uh, and the agent doesn't know what to do because they're not prepared. They didn't do the homework. They don't want to make a fool out of themselves. So they would rather avoid using a certain product, then make themselves uncomfortable. And I can tell you, on Monday I had a meeting and the agent was going and I was showing this beautiful Billy Joel house. Oh my God, it's it's awesome. It is 70 zero zero zero square feet. It was very hard to navigate, you know, whatever.

Lance Pendleton: Tiny little box, but.

Lucy Edwards: Uh.

Lucy Edwards: Well, no, 70 zero zero 70,000ft² all together. It included main house, beach house, and a guest house. But still. Yeah, it's just a little tiny box. And he was just going on his phone up and down, right and left. He, you know, he ended up somewhere in the ocean and you just you just have to take your time. You have to learn, you know, what you are doing. You have to, you know, and and I was trying to explain and he like, don't don't rush. Just take your time. Enjoy. Move a little bit. My point is no patience, no desire to learn sometimes what what you are doing and no desire to embrace the marketing tools that you have no choice. And I know that we will talk more about it, how agents should grow. And, uh, but this is, in my opinion, it's fear. And you always talk about fear. And I agree with you. It's the fear to make, to make a mistake and not to be professional in a way.

Lance Pendleton: Well, it's more than fear, though. See what happens. For from my experience with most of the folks that I work with, is that there's an underlying problem of which they live in this constant fear of disappointing others. There's a consistent, pervasive feeling or concern that they're going to disappoint someone. And because of that persistent fear and concern that exists and the fear of disappointing somebody, they don't ever want to put themselves in that position to do anything that may, in turn, then disappoint somebody. So when you present them with new opportunities and give them an option to use a tool that may help differentiate themselves, because that's the magic word, not value. Value. Stupid differentiation that when you give them an opportunity to differentiate themselves, they will always run the opposite direction. If there's the possibility that they don't understand it, where they're going to end up disappointing someone. So if someone says to them, look, um, we really think that there's a great opportunity here for us to, um, use some digital staging, right? And if that agent has no experience with digital staging, or they don't really know much about it, the first thing they're going to do is say, oh, well, no, we have a staging company that can blah, blah, blah, and they will talk somebody out of that. And that's the mistake because it's not them saying, great. Well, I'll tell you what. Let's find out together. I'm going to work on that on my end to better understand how we can meet that need. You know, I don't have a ton of experience in that, but we'll make it happen. We'll make it work. Because why saying that? I don't have a ton of experience in that or saying, you know, that's interesting.

Lance Pendleton: I didn't know about that. Let me look into it. They never want to say that because there's this pervasive fear that if you're not demonstrating, you're just subject matter expert, and that I'm an expert and that you need me because I'm an expert. That's the biggest bunch of bullshit ever. People don't want experts. They really don't. They want partnership with people. And if certain pieces of technology help enhance the partnership with somebody, why would you not lean into that? So I always look at it like, find the different spaces and places of things that will draw people into the differentiation points that you have, versus then being and living in fear of doing anything that's outside of what we've been doing since the Nixon administration in real estate, because God forbid, we do anything that we might look kind of bad because we don't fully understand it. Who cares how many things I do that I don't understand? Like what? I don't know could just about fill the Grand Canyon in truth. And, Lucy, you know this. I've said this before. You've heard me say this before. One of my favorite all time sayings is all wisdom is plagiarism. Only stupidity is original. You're never going to hear anything from me. That is something that I've invented of great cosmic wisdom. It's just years of me learning from other people far smarter than I am, and then piecing things together in a way to help them be a little more understandable and a little more useful, and simplicity in how people benefit their businesses. But technology and the use of technology in real estate. It is one thing I have never understood, and in part I blame the brokerages for this.

Lucy Edwards: Well, I also think and and we will talk about brokerages, but I also think that there is just so much even vocabulary is new. First it came as artificial intelligence. So okay, now finally everyone understand that what artificial intelligence is, intelligence is at least a little bit. Then it's virtual reality. Okay, now VR equals virtual reality. That is kind of okay. That that is today's word. Now we have new word, um, which I cannot even pronounce with my Russian accent, uh, augmented reality where you virtual stage, not just the photo or the image that has been around for years and years, but to actually take the 3D tour. And again, I love going to conferences and I encourage everyone in the audience, go to conferences, stop by my booth, talk to people, be at panels, learn, learn, learn. I don't know, you might disagree with me, but I learned so much. I really, truly do. And I can tell you that I just saw a brand new construction that doesn't exist. There is not even a hole in the ground, and they have a metaphor to it. It's not really metaphor, but it looks like metaphor with all the circles. And you can walk through and and you can see everything is just there. It's just so real. So the technology is really it's here. You have to embrace it. You have to learn the tools. I want to hear your feedback on on conferences. What's your take on it though? Multiple People: I don't know what.

Lance Pendleton: We're talking about. The benefits of of technology today. Um, no, I, I the idea of attending another conference to me is I, I'm telling you, I would rather watch someone rip the wings off of fairies, like, I can't, I like there's no way possible that I could imagine having to attend another conference. And here's my problem with all of these things.

Lucy Edwards: You are speaking at conferences and your panels. Multiple People: And I hate them. I hate you wonderful.

Lucy Edwards: People listen. Multiple People: To you.

Lance Pendleton: I well, that's wonderful and I appreciate that. But I'd rather speak in a, in a place than in a space where people have come because there are certain pieces of information being given that may benefit them in a global scale about something. What I find most frustrating about how these technology companies go about engaging with the agent community is that every single thing that they often present is always directed at this idea that it's going to change your business, it's going to change your business. That's the thing you always hear, oh, it's going to change your business. Guess what? Agents don't want change. They don't want to change anything. So why are we coming at them with this idea that it's going to completely revolutionize their business? You know how many agents I talk to when it comes to the coaching aspect and executive coaching that when I ask them, do you want to grow your business or just maintain a healthy business? Do you know how many? No, no, no no, I don't want to grow. I just want to maintain where I'm at. I'm good. Most of them. Why? Because what does growth mean? What does that expansion mean? It means more overwhelm. They're already living in overwhelm. And if you're already living in overwhelm, if your entire day operates around living in two periods of time. Because let's be super clear, Lucy, agents live in two periods of time. Are you ready now and not now. That's it. You know, when they come to me about time management and time blocking, I'm like, time blocking is bullshit in real estate. Stop it. It's not good for you. That's not how you work. It's like when they come to me and say, oh, I just read the 12 week year. Help me, you know, master the 12 week year. It's like, stop it. There are 52 weeks in a year for a reason, and you're going to need all of them. Okay. This concept that we're sort of like we're changing and revolutionizing your business, they don't want to be revolutionized at all.

Lucy Edwards: But I'm not saying that you have to change your business, but I am saying that you have to learn what's available to improve the business or to understand how you can. Let's say if I win you development, I want to know what marketing tools and what technology is available right now that I can incorporate in my everyday life. And when I'm meeting with a new developer as an example, I. I have something to offer and something unique to offer.

Lance Pendleton: Well, let me ask you this, but but you raise a really good point. Here's my question to you. How many agents currently understand understand social media and how to use it properly? What percentage would you say?

Lucy Edwards: Not. Probably not even ten.

Lance Pendleton: Okay. Less than 10%. We'd agree. Yeah. Okay, cool. How long has social media been around?

Lucy Edwards: Uh, I haven't been using it for that long. For maybe like 15 years or so. Maybe 18.

Lance Pendleton: Okay. 15 years? 15 years. Social media has been around, and the agent community, less than 10% knows how to use it or uses it effectively. But you're telling me that going to some expo with a bunch of new tech is somehow going to revolutionize what they're doing? That's what I'm saying. Doesn't make any sense because I love the implication or the use of technology, but it's for me using the right technology based on what the consumer wants. Right? So not to harp on like Matterport or any three dimensional tour functions. But when we talk about VR, how many clients come saying, you know what, you know what I really want to do? Let's show up someplace where I can put some sweaty headset on that was worn by five other people who probably have something that I had back in college, and I want to experience moving around inside of this three dimensional said, no one ever. That's stupid. That's dumb. Yet when people are doom scrolling right at 1130 at night, laying in bed because they're thinking about buying a property and they're going through their house porn that they love, when they have the opportunity to see something they like, and there's an opportunity to click on it and move yourself through it in the comfort of my own home and my own privacy, to see cool things about the house and feel what it's like to move around it and see a dollhouse view of where the layout is. And do I like the layout? Awesome. But why do agents not adopt it? Because they're afraid of it. Because they don't understand it. Because they don't know. But there's a difference. You see the difference between a VR thing and something that's highly applicable to how people want to engage and what they're already doing.

Lucy Edwards: I agree with you. But then at the same time, for example, if someone is at 1130 at night and they are just so determined to buy something by Sunday, and they are going through all the virtual tours and everything else that's available, and then they see, let's say Matterport just as an example, and then they can stage the room right there and, and then they get involved and they try to learn. And maybe it's not the realtor who showed them the property. They found it online. And then they just like they get engaged, they fall in love, they pay attention. And there are a lot of consumers like that, especially on the younger side. Or maybe, you know, I'm confused with all those generations, but whatever the generation is at age 45 to 50. And even they get involved and they get excited. And that's why agents need to know that things like that exist, just because that particular buyer saw the property from one brand, and you are in a totally different brand. You have to be aware of what's out there. So maybe I belong to under 10% of if I were an agent who goes to conferences, I pay attention, I listen to panels, I do my follow up, I do my study, I, I spend time at the booth that is interesting to me, and I try to get to the bottom of it, but I think that's what agents should be doing as well.

Lance Pendleton: So let's let's pivot momentarily into what I think is the next big exciting thing in real estate. Um, and I and again, I'm, I'm going to put the blame for most of this on brokerages for the situation that exists with the poor use of or understanding of technology. And the reason I put the blame on brokerages is because brokerages are constantly in this arms race to provide new tools for agents to demonstrate their value to the agent. So what do they do? They sign all these contracts with all these different people to get all these new things in there, that three quarters of them, more than three quarters never get used. I know I've worked in multiple brokerages. I was the person that had to teach agents the benefit of this. And I remember specifically going back to the use of a CRM.

Lucy Edwards: I remember that, and you were the first one. You were at Sotheby's, I believe, and you were the first one who used the not the sale, not the traditional

Salesforce. It was what? Multiple People: Contactually? Yeah. Yeah.

Lance Pendleton: Now, what I remember specifically about that was the data that came back. And this is the part that was the beginning for me to understand that the problem was far greater. Now, first of all, a client relationship management tool is designed to help you understand who are the people that you know. When was the last time you communicated with them, and when should you be communicating with them? Right. So in essence, it's a great tool to not lose track of the people that you care about in fundamental world. That's what it is now. What fascinated me about this when I started digging into it, and this was years ago. And by the way, it really hasn't changed all that much. First of all, at the time, and we're going back about 7 or 8 years ago now, at that time, less than 10% of the entire real estate agent population used a CRM. Less than 10%, which is just astounding. Then on a deeper dive, going back to six years ago when we did another study and this was a pretty extensive study, what we discovered was for the agent population that was using a CRM, right? By the way, that number now is 22%. Only 22% of the entire real estate agent population.

Multiple People: I thought it would be less.

Lucy Edwards: So. You surprised me.

Multiple People: Though, because.

Lance Pendleton: Remember. No, no, no. Remember now what happens is for brokerages, they got smart. When an agent joins, they automatically upload all their contacts into their CRM. So it doesn't mean they're active users. It just means they have this system. In essence that's in effect. So you got 22% of them that are using it. Now here's the fun part. If you looked at the average agent CRM of those 22% that are have it. Of that, less than 3% of all of the contacts in an agent CRM have the person's home address on it. Again, less than 3% of all of the contacts in an agent's CRM, and this includes their past clients have their address on it. And yet what do we do for a living?

Lucy Edwards: We sell houses.

Multiple People: The address is there. I mean, it's like we help people.

Lance Pendleton: Buy and sell homes and all that stuff, and yet we don't have their actual address in the database that we I mean, that's the point that I have. It's because there's so much of this stuff and none of it is simplified. It just continues to add levels of complexity for people in this space. So I bring up the CRM function because it's the brokerages fault. They just keep flinging things at agents over and over and over again, without any rhyme or reason to what has meaningful benefit to somebody versus the new all this lead thing with lead capture, blah blah, where you can have digital sign in of X, Y and Z and then it's going to auto spam email. I mean, we have literally created a system in which we took an industry that did not have a very high consumer opinion in general, and implemented tools to ensure that those people hated us even more. That's literally what they did, because here's what they designed in terms of the contact relationship management system. They said, well, agents aren't reaching out to anybody, so we're going to automate that process for them with a bunch of crappy templates and things that, in essence, are going to allow them to spam people even faster. Because why 32 touches? Because you have to reach out to people 32 times before, or they're going to forget about you, right? That's the big thing that we always heard. Well, tell me if I'm wrong. Lucy. Here we go.

Multiple People: You ready? Yeah. And this is what I love.

Lucy Edwards: If the consumer is annoyed, they're going to forget about you very quickly because they're going to block you.

Multiple People: And not only that.

Lance Pendleton: Exactly, but you've damaged the brand of yourself now at this point in time, right. So here's my favorite part of this is like, you know, we don't put anything into real world context ever, ever think about this concept of being in front of somebody 32 times during the course of the year in order for them to remember you? If I showed up at your house, Lucy, 32 times a year, literally, and every time and I rang the doorbell, you opened.

Multiple People: The door, called.

Lucy Edwards: The police.

Multiple People: Right? You'd have a.

Lance Pendleton: Shotgun or a restraining order by the third time. Easily, right? You know, I'm in real estate. Ding dong. I'm in real estate. Ding dong. Still in real estate. It's like nobody gives a shit anymore. And yet, what do we do? Invent more ways, from a brokerage standpoint to empower agents to continue to damage the brand of themselves. That's what it is.

Lucy Edwards: But I have I have something to say about that. And I work a lot with marketing departments. I work a lot of C-level, I work a lot with agents. And unfortunately, you sit down with marketing, you talk about what you can offer and what your ideas are and the technology and all that, and then they decide, oh, I think our agents only need ten photos. We don't need any more. If they want to get something extra, they can pay extra. Or I think my agents just need this and they don't need anything else. Did you talk to your agents lately? I talked to agents. I talked to administrative assistants who understand the business probably more than CMO or CEO because they listen to agents problems, issues and complaints every single day. That's where you learn what agent really wants and needs. Probably not the fancy CRM, though. They have to have it. Probably not something extremely fancy on their platform that they don't even know how to log into. So I think it is important for brokerages, and I know we'll talk a little more about that, but I think to kind of like get back to the ground and talk to real people what they really want instead of us, as, for example, marketing companies that offer marketing tools and everything else instead of CEOs who probably sold their last house 27 years ago. We need to talk more to agents and see what they really need. And even if they understand they need something like CRM but they don't know how to use it. That's what should be implemented and educated to them.

Pendleton: Well, and you're completely right. But, but and a key component to me is you. You have to know your audience. You have to know your audience. And when you have a demographic of people and it's true, you know, I my background again, the work that I do with agents, especially in the role of behavioural psychology, consumer connection, you know, most of my clients that I work with are, you know, they're neurodivergent. They are people that are highly passionate, motivated, excited, engaging. They can shift focus very rapidly, but they live in those two periods of time now and not now. And if I come to one person and say, here is this amazing tool, you can do 28 fabulous things with, well, is that a now problem or a not now problem for them? Well, it's not now.

Multiple People: It's not.

Lucy Edwards: Now.

Multiple People: They're trying to resolve things. They have to invest.

Lucy Edwards: Time to learn. Multiple People: About that.

Lance Pendleton: Right. And again, if they don't have tremendous excitement to begin with in it, now you're just creating something that's going to make them feel overwhelmed by default right off the bat. So we don't take some of these tools and simplify them in a way. So here's my suggestion. And I want to focus on the fix because this is important to me. It's not just that we're discussing the problems and certain things. What's the fix? To me, the fix is one any tool that an agent thinks about using the first step should always be do I actually need this in my business? Is this something that is a daily, regular active support function in my business? Right. And I'll go back to it. Vr is probably not a daily needed function in my business, right? Three dimensional tours again as a matterport example. Is that something? Yes. I would argue that is an incredibly important part of how you present options to consumers that they can participate in. So it's just do I need this? Then the second thing is, if it is something that you realize like a CRM like that, even I how do I learn the simplest, smallest, littlest thing that provides me basic benefit? And I'll give you an example.

Lance Pendleton: If you look at a CRM, how do I, just of all the people tag the people that I like and love. That's it. Why? Because guess where most of my business comes from? The people that I like and love. And if I focus on those people, not the other 90% of the people in my database. Right. That's where my business is going to grow from. But we use the tool. For what? How to reach the 90% of people out there. It's how do you simplify what you're doing with it? So if you look at I as an example, I is a very confusing concept for many, many people. But at its simplest form, if you go into any chat function and say, hey, as a top real estate agent, provide me with five social media posts, including tags that would showcase points of differentiation that I have in the business. Watch what it provides for you. It's a simple thing, right? It's a simple.

Multiple People: Process, but it.

Lucy Edwards: Comes back to education and and I will put it on brokerages also and and agents. It's agents at fault. They don't come to office meetings. Not that you are against office meetings. I personally think it's a good thing. Um, they, they don't really communicate even, uh, with, with their management when, when the management is asking, just stop by for 50, for 15 minutes. Let's have one on one. I just want to introduce something that might help you because you are into new developments and, and there are some new tools that you can use. They don't even come. So it's it's really there is no solution. I'm not offering solution. I'm offering solution as communicate the management, the leadership should communicate to agents. They should understand their business and they should provide the tools that are needed for their business. Instead of throwing a whole garbage truck at them and and ask them to learn as much as possible.

Lance Pendleton: I agree wholeheartedly, and I'm going to give you the solution though, because I want to give a brokerage level solution and an agent level solution. If you're a brokerage listening to this right now, the solution is stop running training classes on things that cover the entire thing. Break them down into much, much smaller bites. The first class you should run is, how do I install this on my computer? Period. Full stop. Nothing more. Nothing else. How? Why? Because you're probably going to need your what? Password. And we're going to blow up that entire class. By the way, it's going to be 45 minutes of someone going, I don't know my password. It's telling me that I have to go talk to the old man under the tree to discover what it is like The Legend of Zelda or something. So here's what I want. Just break them into smaller things to build momentum and generate excitement and success around the simplicity of something. Agents do not have the time right now versus not now, or patience to sit through 45 minutes of someone explaining and then click here, and then click there and click that. And then they get confused. And then there's no support structure behind it.

Lance Pendleton: So as a brokerage break these things down to smaller, more manageable pieces that are very, very simple. And then from the agent population, Lucy from the agent, if you're an agent listening to this, please, I beg of you, partner with someone else to learn something. Do not do these things alone. When you operate in a vacuum, they become incredibly difficult and frustrating. You need to have. If you're going to use something an accountabilibuddy somebody else you're doing it with because a it makes it more fun. B it makes it a little more comfortable because the other person probably doesn't know all of it either. So you're learning something together in unison with somebody else. And c, I you know, I cannot stress enough that when we learn things together and we support each other, it is unbelievably empowering to then feel like we have success in and around these small victories in community because agents want community. And that's the thing that I think when you have people working together in small groups supporting each other to do something new, it builds and fosters a sense of completion, success and happiness moving forward.

Lucy Edwards: And I just would like to add that I do agree with you, but I'm coming back to my theory, the management, the leadership, and I see it more and more, uh, in, in the industry throughout the country, I see that, uh, good brokerages, they try to arrange this one on one, one on two, one on team, and they sit down and they try to dig into the business, see what their what their particular team or agent really needs. Spend the time they learn the product. They spend that a good office manager, uh, broker, whatever broker learn everything themselves first and then deliver. But they don't know everything from A to Z. So like you said, they're going to get to details together and they will be frustrated together. But they it will be fun. It will be a great experience if the company doesn't offer it to their agents, that company is doomed. But majority are really waking up and really, really working hard on building the relationship with their agents, learning about the final consumer. They really invest their their energy and so they can offer more. And that is actually a great recruiting and retaining tool as well for them to show that, you know, I am going to learn with you and I'm going to make sure you are successful.

Lance Pendleton: Well, I'm going to go put my VR headset on to wrap this conversation up, and I'm going to go visualize myself as a much younger, more handsome Brad Pitt, who is just winning at everything all the time because that's my fake world. What an amazing conversation, Lucy, as always, thank you. It's fantastic and I look forward to the next chat in and around some of the hot topics happening in and around real estate.

Lucy Edwards: Yeah, that was fun. I'm so happy. I agree and disagree.