{"id":5311,"date":"2013-08-09T07:33:45","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T13:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5311"},"modified":"2013-08-10T21:46:01","modified_gmt":"2013-08-11T03:46:01","slug":"who-will-disrupt-real-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5311","title":{"rendered":"Who Will Disrupt Real Estate?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2013\/08\/04\/who-will-disrupt-real-estate\/\">Frederic Lardinois<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So where is the real disruption in real estate? Startups are taking on commercial real estate and apartment rentals all the time, but when it comes to private properties, we\u2019re still basically stuck with the same sales model today as somebody who bought a house in the 60s. We\u2019re still working with agents and pay them fees (directly as least as sellers \u2013 and indirectly as buyers), even though we often know more about a house and neighborhood then they do. They do, however, have the key to the house we want to see and unless there\u2019s an open house, there is basically no other way to get into a place that\u2019s for sale.<\/p>\n<p>Real estate transactions are big and complicated (and you can bet your agent will often remind you that it\u2019s the biggest financial decision you\u2019ll ever make), but where is the startup that tries to change this or at least tries to make some aspects easier and more transparent? Sure, it\u2019s a well-regulated industry with plenty of (local) quirks, but the same could be said for taxis and it looks like some companies have been able to change that landscape pretty effectively. If Airbnb can rent out houses, there sure must be a way to at least make home showings easier in the age of Lockitron (once it starts shipping) and internet-connected surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 there are plenty of good real estate agents out there, but I can\u2019t help but think that in the long run, real estate agents will go the way of travel agents. There will also be a need for a few good ones that can help you out in special circumstances and some people will always want to rely on them instead of handling things themselves. It took some ambitious startups to change how we book our travel today and it\u2019ll take even more ambitious startups to change real estate as we know it.<\/p>\n<p>There is a huge opportunity here, however, and I\u2019m looking forward to seeing somebody try to really shake things up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frederic Lardinois: So where is the real disruption in real estate? Startups are taking on commercial real estate and apartment rentals all the time, but when it comes to private properties, we\u2019re still basically stuck with the same sales model today as somebody who bought a house in the 60s. We\u2019re still working with agents [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5311"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5323,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5311\/revisions\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}