Thoughts on ‘Crowdsourcing’ in Real Estate

Jay Thompson
Published: 01/26/2012
Posted by: Thompsons Realty

Yesterday I finished reading the latest Stephen King tome, “11/22/63” (a great read by the way). Needing a new book, I posted this on my Facebook Profile:

I need a new book to read. Not some business / self-help / save the planet book. I want mindless entertainment. Mainstream fiction, historical fiction, perhaps a biography. Suggestions?

Within minutes, I started getting suggestions from my Facebook friends. Dozens of suggestions. Of course the humorists in the bunch suggested things like “Everybody Poops” and “Goodnight Moon” (which I can still recite from memory some 15 years after having last read it to the kids for the ten thousandth time). But I would expect nothing less from my friends…

As the suggestions rolled in, I created a Wish List on Amazon — Check it out here.

That list currently has 73 79 books on it (including a few I’ve already read). As I added books to the list, I read some of the reviews on Amazon to help me decide which book to read first . For the record, I wound up picking Keith Richards autobiography “Life”. I *think* next up will be Ken Follett’s “The Pillars of the Earth” — but who knows.

What I chose is neither here nor there.

Sifting through the suggestions, and reading reviews on Amazon got me to thinking about “crowdsourcing”, and being someone obsessed (possessed?) with all things real estate, I also started thinking about how social media connections and crowdsourcing and reviews might impact real estate. More specifically, how people pick and chose a real estate agent to work with.