In the next few years the real estate industry will change more than it has in the last 100 years. That's up from 15 percent two years ago, he said. The electronification of the real estate industry is going to knock some agents out of the business, he said. My sense is that the part-time agent who works a couple hours a day in real estate will have a very difficult time. Paul J. Harrington, president of the DeWolfe Companies Inc. said his firm just completed a massive reinvestment in their Internet Web site, including a full-motion video tour of every home listed.
Viewers can direct the camera to slow down or speed up, or to jump to different rooms.
They essentially use still photography that takes a wide-angle of a room and stitches the photographs together. What we are doing is using actualb video, so if there is a fire going in the fireplace you can see it moving. He said he expects the number to increase by up to 25 percent this year. DeWolfe and other firms that are investing in technology are betting on projections of where the Internet will be in a few years. Currently, about 65 percent of the population is hooked up to the Internet, and only a third of those have high-speed connections.