This is a big question that deserves a thoughtful conversation about your business, your goals, your confidence and your needs. Read on to discover a little about us and to help you determine if you would like to have the conversation.

If you value professionalism and ethics – doing things the right way – Innovation Realty might be right for you.

With CREA’s Data Distribution Facility (DDF), your listings will appear on every participant’s website, including all of the big brands in Ottawa. If you are with a brokerage that does not participate in the DDF, your listings will have far less exposure than we offer.

Boutique brokerages that are creative and progressive, like Innovation Reality, have the ability to be more nimble and creative than any brokerage that houses hundreds (or thousands) of sales reps. Economies of scale do not work for innovative ideas. Why? Because it is too expensive to try something new. If there are hundreds of agents and dozens of staff, “trying” something new involves a huge training endeavour and a significant expense. You may have noticed that the big brokerages are always reluctant when the real estate board offers any new service. They have to have proof that something will work or they have to be forced into change. The cost involved with adopting and paying for something new for 100’s of agents, in addition to training management and staff and promoting the offering within the brokerage, keeps the large brokerages from being cutting edge and at the forefront of where real estate is going.

Is a boutique brokerage right for me…

At a boutique brokerage, you know that your success is not dependant on the big brand name. Boutique brokerages, by their very nature, are different. Is your boutique brokerage meeting your individual needs?

Although the Ottawa marketplace appears to be dominated by big brand brokerages with hundreds of agents, there has been a proliferation of boutique brokerages in recent years. Many of these are small (less than five sales reps) and offer little more than low fees.

But a boutique brokerage can be so much more…. Solid, independent leadership that is not restricted by outside ownership or brand requirements. A desire, not just a willingness but a specific intention, to be innovative and progressive. The ability to be cutting edge in ways a big brand just cannot. 

Ask if your brokerage offers you:

1.     Solid, knowledgeable and experienced leadership.
2.     Quality colleagues you are proud to be associated with.
3.     Technology, tools and services to help you serve your clients better.
4.     Creative branding that you can build your personal brand upon.
5.     A learning based environment that will keep you on top of the market, industry news and regulatory and rule changes.

If you desire a boutique brokerage that can offer much more than lower fees, you should call us.

The missing value proposition…

At Innovation Realty, we believe that technology will continue to change how we do certain things, but it won’t change the core of what we do. We help people make the right, smart, personal buying and selling decisions. We know that, just like Tinder™ dates, pictures of homes online don’t reveal the full story. We know that visiting a home, exploring its’ features and flaws, can reveal so much more than a well written descriptive profile.

For the vast majority of people, home buying and selling is a personal endeavour and not merely an investment transaction. It’s emotional. Siri™ and Alexa™, as remarkable as they are, don’t get all of your voice commands correct. Do you believe that A.I. will dramatically change the humanity of real estate? If your answer is “yes”, that somewhere down the road your device will tell you that Susan is ready to sell based upon analytics*, do you want to be paying for years of developing this?

*Analytics might interpret someone’s online behaviour as an indication that they are thinking about buying or selling. Apart from the creepiness of you now approaching Susan, the algorithms used to make these determinations will be significantly flawed for years and will never be perfect. There are other hurdles, like privacy and anti-spam legislations, that will prevent unsolicited direct contact with these consumers. Billions of dollars are being spent on this technology in real estate right now. Billions. If the proof is in the pudding, where’s the pudding?

We’ve been conditioned to believe that “tech” will inevitably figure things out. That “tech” can do anything because we have space exploration and self-driving cars. But tech has not figured out cancer. Tech has not solved our environmental challenges. Tech helps with these things. And in real estate, tech will help you do some things more efficiently, but tech won’t change a home owner’s need to trust you with making a huge life decision. Tech should help you bring value to the consumer, but tech cannot replace a great REALTOR®.

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