Today Inman News takes a look back at where they began, and opens up a conversation on where they Industry is headed into the future.
In 1996, Inman News called on the industry to create a more transparent real estate transaction. Specifically, we encouraged real estate leaders to fully leverage the Internet by putting the entire multiple listing service on the Web, open up other data sources, digitize the transaction, and add visual images like pictures and virtual tours to listings.
We spent more than a decade pounding on this message and reporting on the reaction, the progress, the controversy, the legal actions, the innovation, the fear and the hope. The job is not done, but substantial progress has been made. When it comes to placing home listings on the Web, the last couple of years look a lot like the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With the current housing slump and a broken Wall Street, Inman seems to recognize a certain helpless feeling many in the industry have – but Inman also recognizes that many changes are in store for the real estate industry and see an opportunity for you to join the conversation in shaping the future of what our industry will look like.
It was interesting to me to hear Joel Burslem, Future of Real Estate Marketing, and Inman News talk about this yesterday. There is a passion in this mission to find a productive outcome to the mess in our housing industries as well as the overall economy, and while addressing today’s headlines, to really get into solutions, help agents get involved, educate on the future, and to help create a sense of hopeful optimism amongst professionals.
Inman named five topics from regulation to practice as the framework and specific ways to communicate your point of view, ideas, and goals. We’ve always been about constructive conversation at AG- it’s one thing to rant and moan, but being depressed is never an answer. I encourage you to get involved in any conversation about this industry that is constructive.
