Fort Collins, Colorado, 1972.  That’s when and where I leapt enthusiastically into the real estate business.  Each Wednesday morning we Realtors would gather in a small conference room, each carrying a stack of three-hole-punched sheets with information about our new listings.  We’d pass the sheets around to the other brokers, then put each in our notebooks.

High tech young whippersnappers like me would (gasp!) include a Polaroid picture of the house.   After the meeting, we’d all head off to share this new information with our buyers. Thanks to one of those listing sheets, I sold my first house.  It was a gorgeous brick home on Mountain Avenue.  It sold for $21,000.

Real estate technology has changed incredibly since those early days.  This week I’ve asked Eric Scott, guest columnist, to bring us up to speed on some major changes since the three-ring binder days. Eric has a degree in Information Systems, eleven years experience as a software consultant, and he’s earned his e-PRO® REALTOR certification.

Eric says “things have changed a bit since the Polaroid days.”

Digital photos and video of a property can be captured on an iPhone and then immediately uploaded to an online listing.  Listing information that would have been captured on a piece of paper in a three-ring binder can now be entered in a standard format and distributed across hundreds of web sites within seconds.  Mobile computing products and electronic signature software allow for the super-speedy flow of offers, counters, and contracts.  Social networking and blogs allow expertise and information to be shared with the entire world.

These are just a few of the technological advancements that have had an impact on the real estate industry.  The Internet itself is the granddaddy of them all, with 87% of home buyers now using the Internet as a resource during the home-buying process.  You have probably visited one of the many real estate web sites to see what your home might be worth or to look at available properties.

Carly Fiorina (former president of Hewlett-Packard) once said ‘The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight.’  These days there’s an incredible amount of data available online.  Today’s real estate professionals not only need to get the right data to their clients….they need to provide insight so their clients can come to the right decisions for each client’s situation.