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Amongst the chaos of managing my 2-year while on holiday in Bali, I’ve had a few chances to think about the upcoming year and what I’ll be focusing on for my consulting gigs.

Mobile

My own consumption of real estate search and news is increasing occurring on my phone and iPad and 2012 will see agents continuing to develop mobile strategies.  The portals have a natural advantage in this space and will dominate mobile traffic.  Agents will need to focus on delivering local information and market insight that the portals can’t.  Augmented reality apps have been really disappointing in 2011 and I’m hoping that 2012 witnesses some decent app launches.  My business will continue to focus on our iPad development and we plan to introduce a range of new solutions for listing presentations and agent promotion.

Own the Letterbox

Paradoxically, the move to Internet advertising is driving many of our clients to increase their spend on letterbox marketing.  As it becomes more difficult to get newspaper advertising, agents need to engage in letterbox distribution to maintain top-of-mind awareness.  This trend should continue in 2012, especially if the market remains relatively flat.

Newspapers in Flux

The recent sale of Metro Media to Fairfax is going to change the Melbourne media landscape yet again.  It’s too early to gauge the effects, but the fact that agent’s have retained a shareholding in the venture suggests that The Weekly Review will continue to dominate the inner suburbs.  Less clear are the dynamics that will play out with Fairfax’s local newspapers.  By throwing in 30+ local mastheads into Metro Media, they’ve raised the complexity of the business tenfold. They have also put some really weak publications into the venture that should have probably been closed down.  My gut feeling is that the new business will struggle with its new complexity.  On the plus side, the deal means that inner city Melbourne agents will continue to support the Weekly Review and from an industry standpoint, will continue to be motivated to sell vendor paid.

Social Media Evolution

Social media has been the hot topic of 2011 and I think many of us are entering 2012 older and wiser.  I’ve put forward my 5% rule (see here and here) and believe that 2012 will see social media become a small but necessary part of real estate marketing. Google+ will take at least 1 year to get momentum and can be safely ignored in 2012.

New Technology Skepticism

One of the major changes that I’ve seen in 2011 has been the increasing levels of skepticism in regards to non-social technology.  Five years ago, you could launch a new product and people would seriously look at it for competitive advantage.  This attitude seems to be changing significantly among real estate executives.  The new attitude seems to be, let someone else be your beta tester and come back to me when vendors actually want the product.

The only “new” technology that actually seems to be getting any momentum is video, which has been around for 10 years and is only now starting to make sense.  I was a software developer in a former life and it’s taken me 15 years in the industry to realise that there’s no such thing as early adoption in real estate, we’re a very conservative bunch.

CRM Chaos

The CRM space seems to have ended the year in an absolute mess, with major vendors either dramatically raising prices or losing the plot after being taken over.  I think that there is still room in this space for some innovative technology and the cloud will be the source of new tools.  I’ve started to use Insightly CRM, which is a cloud package, and I’ve finding it fantastic.

Speaking of the Cloud

It will be interesting to see if the cloud becomes more widely used in the industry.  I can’t think of an industry that is better suited to cloud computing, insofar as you have lots of remote offices with no IT support and no real ability to maintain servers.  As I mentioned above, the industry is overly conservative when it comes to technology and there is a lot of value being left on the table in regards to implementing cloud software.  I think that you’ll see adoption in 2012 as the industry wakes up to the advantages of the cloud.