Real estate eyes the iPhone
June 29th, 2007Real estate agents are surprisingly not really interested to eye on the iPhone although it is reaching a fever pitch among the technologically-savvy.
Ric Parker, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Los Altos, was once the subject of a cover story in the National Association of Realtors magazine because of his tech-centric ways. He’s not poised to give up his current Palm, cell and the always-on laptop with high-speed wireless connectivity that rests on the passenger seat of his car. But he’ll buy an iPhone as soon as it’s easy to walk into an Apple store and do so. He can imagine incorporating the iPhone into his business eventually, he said, and “I’m getting older so I like the zoom-in feature” the phone has. And if the device doesn’t meet his needs, no biggie: “I’ve invested in things I’ve thrown away before.”
On the other hand, Heidi Mueller, a Prudential agent in San Francisco, said when asked if she planned to buy one: “Never. They’re toys for people that don’t need a phone.”
And this from Tom Tognoli of Intero Real Estate Services, whose corporate headquarters in Cupertino shares a parking lot with Apple employees: “Honestly, I haven’t slowed down long enough to take a look at what makes it so great.” Half a dozen people have asked him recently whether he’s buying an iPhone, and the answer for now is no; he’s committed to his Blackberry. Then again, he said, it wasn’t too many years ago that he couldn’t imagine himself typing on the little handheld keypad all day.
Most of them already had a Palm or a Blackberry long before the iPhone appeared on the scene. No surprise there. Apple is going to do a lot more than to rely on hype.