Transparency the key in property game
A few taps on my phone and within 30 seconds I know who my driver will be, their customer rating and a close estimate of what the trip is going to cost me.
How did we become so willing to welcome such change into our lives? It’s definitely a step up from the hit and miss service we used to so readily put up with, and it didn’t take long for people to change their behaviour.
But underneath all of these nifty shortcuts and customer benefits, it occurs to me that there has to be something more valuable at stake. And, I keep coming back to one word … transparency.
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The idea is far from new, but it’s the execution of transparency that remains an evolving challenge for brands and organisations globally. If you want to be successful, it’s time to step up to the plate, and companies are quickly making that connection.
On the extreme end of the scale, a fashion house in Britain recently published an environmental profit and loss statement that itemised its impact on the planet. A Chinese-built mobile phone with an in-built molecular scanner lists the composition of everything, from food to cosmetics. An American wine company’s model is built entirely on transparency, by providing an explicit breakdown of costs for each part of the production life cycle. Three companies, from three very different sectors, with one thing in common: transparency.
Buyers and sellers alike crave transparency of information so they can make their best property decisions
And of course, we don’t need to look far to find an example of where a lack of transparency had a negative impact. The 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal illustrates very clearly what happens when transparency gets shrouded in (diesel) smoke.
This is all happening against a backdrop of numerous global consumer studies, such as Havas Media’s 2016 report on 10,000 global consumers, where 78% of respondents said it was important for a company to be transparent. We’re seeing this with our own users on realcommercial.com.au.
More than a third of visitors to the site say they would benefit from greater transparency around listings information and data to help them make investment decisions, and we’re working towards making real change in this space.
In the residential real estate industry, positive steps are being taken in this direction. Recent legislative changes now require real estate agents to provide relatively detailed evidence that supports the individual property price estimates in certain states. This “intelligence” is typically based upon historical sales data for comparable properties in the same area.
It’s now time for the commercial property industry to follow suit. Buyers and sellers alike crave transparency of information so they can make their best property decisions.
Is this need “for more” all part of a passing fad? I’d say not. And we only need to look to the next generation of our users and buyers — the millennial — to understand why. Millennials are often diagnosed as a peculiar if not slightly different breed. The fact is, they will represent half the global workforce in 2020 and, if anything, it’s this emerging cohort who are driving the speed of change and expectation.
Millennials are demanding more in almost every facet of their lives. They’re less tolerant of being kept in the dark, causing headaches for brands and marketers alike, but they’re moving the landscape forward.
Joseph Lyons is REA Group executive general manager commercial & developer.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
