A short, motivational YouTube talk by Lars Hedenborg addressing the current ‘shift storm’ in real estate driven by economic and technological changes (notably AI). Hedenborg criticizes the paid-lead model as ineffective, cites very low odds of high transaction volume for agents, and urges agents to build a clear, determined roadmap and structure their businesses for predictable growth and better personal outcomes.
Chapters
Way less than 1% of agents will sell 25 homes this year. Just think about that. It's not even 1% of agents that will sell 25 homes this year. Do I have a clear roadmap in place to take advantage of the economic shift and even the technology shift and predictably grow my business? That's the caveat there. Predictably grow my business. A lot of real estate agents have businesses, but they're super stressful and chaotic. Make no mistake, we're in the midst of a shift storm in a lot of different ways. Whether it's technology or just how brokerages are operating, most agents will run away from the business during crazy times. You'd be stupid to think that AI isn't going to impact how agents roll. A lot of agents are using AI at a high level. So it's not to say that it can't help us in our business, but a billion leads were sold to real estate agents in the last 12 months. A billion? How many homes sold in the last 12 months? 4 million. So let's say two sides. That's 8 million. And let's just assume that they didn't have any relationship with their agen. Let's assume they all came from the billion. So we are sold a bunch of nonsense as real estate agents. So you're just spinning your wheels if you're playing that game of paid leads or the way the industry wants us to play it. And some of you have kids, you've got a wife. Maybe you're trying to keep your body in order. Leads are way less than 1%, and they're sold to us like they're the holy grail. And then some of us are probably questioning, in my market during the Great Recession years, we went from 15,000 agents to 5,000 agents. So some of you are questioning if it's even worth it. And I often piss off the people I coach because I don't give them the exact answer. You really have to figure out why you're doing this work, because this isn't going to be the easy path the next 12 to 24 months in real estate. It's going to be the best opportunity, but it's going to require some determination and clarity on why you're even doing it. So 2013, I decided to help agents do this. And I can tell you, no matter where you are right now, that there is hope that you can build this thing in any way that you want to. And if you structure it the right way, you will have a measurable increase in your net worth, and you'll be taking more time off.
