As we have all no doubt experienced over the past few years, some aspects of this business have not been all that enjoyable. Many of our colleagues have moved on to other lines of work, but there are plenty of us who have decided to stick it out. Looking at myself personally, perhaps I was just too stubborn to quit, or maybe I just really do love this business. And if you are reading this, you are likely as passionate about Real Estate as I am.

Some say "never waste a good recession." Well, here we are in the midst of a doozy, so now is a better time than ever to Innovate, Create Opportunity and ReThink Real Estate. Whether that involves "going green," driving assets to perform in a new manner, looking at deal structures in a way you may not have in the past, or investing in new technologies, do something, anything, to change the status quo for the better, and it just might turn out to be insanely great!

My drive to ReThink Real Estate was to make a change in how we see this business, to bring people together and build a worldwide community of strong thinkers and innovators: the people that will push past the current boundaries of Real Estate, create distinctive technologies, and build companies, people, systems, and ideas for the next hundred years.

Although Real Estate is an immense global business, it is for the most part a local business built on handshakes, friendships, local markets and economies. I think that one of the first and most powerful changes to the industry will be made in communication and technology. We've done that with the fax, cellphones, and email; could you imagine doing your deals now without these tools?  Now is a great time embrace 2.0 technology, all the way from social networking and webcasts to predictive financial systems. These technologies are just coming into their own, and while some people may be slow to welcome these ideas, real estate professionals of the future are already well down the road implementing them.

An easy way to look at this 2.0 vision would be to consider a triangle with three interconnected and equally important points of technology, business method, and financial process. Just about every single thing we do as Real Estate professionals can be put into one or more of these three major categories and then looked at and improved. When a market is not skyrocketing up, these are the places we can all innovate to reduce costs, streamline practices, and create efficiencies that will improve the bottom line.

So now is the time to innovate! In the coming months and years I hope to bring together business leaders as well as a few people from outside our traditional industry, but the goal is to focus on showcasing innovation, challenging the old ways, pushing the boundaries, and making our industry a leader for all industries.

Troy Hicks, Editor in Chief, Real Invest 2.0

Written by :

Troy Hicks