Inman Real Estate Connect SF 2011 day 1

Day 1 of Real Estate Connect 2011

Real Estate Connect 2011 is underway, and after a full day at the conference followed by showing homes in the early evening, I’m ready to curl up in a ball and crash for the night. Or at least step away from the computer. Ha!

Real Estate Connect

Here are a few of my impressions from this year’s Real Estate Connect so far:

1) As always, the event is filled with incredibly smart people. Regardless of the information gleaned in various sessions, the personal connections are pretty amazing. Last year I was a little intimidated, but this year I’ve had the chance to meet some folks that I highly respect from facebook and twitter in person, which has been awesome. (Yes, Ben Kinney, this totally includes you).

2) Last year I was impressed with the vendors in the exhibit hall. This year I just wanted to scream “Enough!” I feel as though the problem is no longer that there aren’t enough good technology solutions, but that there are almost too many. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t meet some great people with awesome ideas on the show floor, but here’s my unsolicited advice for every company out there making technology solutions for real estate agents:

If you want it to go on an agent’s website, make it a one clickÂ WordPressÂ install. Otherwise, move along…
If you want it to be used by an agent in their daily business, make sure it’s an iPad app…
If it costs money, show me the leads…
And if anyone needs a new idea for a product, show me a high quality solution for taking an agent’s existing site and optimizing it for mobile

3) The general real estate connect sessions, so far, have been an odd combo of hit and miss for me. The Facebook preso underwhelmed. Shorter Facebook: Forget about the web, live in our walled garden, get some fans on your page, give us your ad dollars and ~~love~~ like it. Google’s preso contained some really phenomenal numbers about the shift to mobile. I’m still digesting how I can take advantage of that, but the info was great. Â The rest of the chats with 3 or 4 people on stage at a time left me with a random collection of useful insights and sharp one-liners, but no “ah-ha” moments so far. I think part of the challenge, for me at least, is what feels like the constant shifting of gears from day-to-day tactics and business strategies to 50,000 foot industry overviews, touching on 30 different facets of the real estate industry along the way… but that’s also part of what makes it all so interesting.

So that’s my Day 1 breakdown… how about yours?

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