Skills in Real Estate: Please Sir, may I have some more?

‘The more I know, the more I realise I don’t know’. 

Albert Einstein

Aristotle, who lived, 384-322 BC, is said to be the last person who knew everything there was that was known. And even he knew nothing, of course, about the areas of the world that he did not know even existed. Prior to the printing press (starting in 1436) enabling widespread dissemination of the written word, it was possible to get close to reading everything that had been written, that existed within the geography you inhabited. Leonardo (1452-1519) famously travelled around with his own library and was of course a noted polymath. When there wasn’t that much to know about any subject, knowing a fair amount about everything was feasible.

Of course those days are long gone. From perhaps 1700 onwards it would no longer be possible, even with access to the material, to have read everything published. Today, you probably could not read in an entire lifetime everything that was published every single day.

Some industries though have not moved as fast as others. Construction hasn’t changed much in centuries, so there have been near contemporaries who knew just about everything there was to know about the industry. Within the wider real estate world it could be argued that until recently all you needed to know was broadly the same as those from 100 years ago. The mechanics, dynamics and economics of real estate never really changed. The fundamentals, the principals by which you measured the feasibility of a project, were almost a ‘rule of nature’. The universe of required knowledge was not large.

Even in real estate though this perpetuation of a status quo is being rent asunder. The real estate professional of today, let alone 5, 10, 20 years off, has to know so much more, about so much more, than the real estate professional of 5, 10, 20 years ago.

Mostly this is due to technology. Back in 2017, Mckinsey wrote ‘Overall, we estimate that 49 percent of the activities that people are paid to do in the global economy have the potential to be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technology.’ Simply put it’s not the way we work that matters it is the work we do. ‘The Machines’ (to cover computers, robots, automation et al) are ‘slowly, then suddenly’ taking over all job tasks (please note tasks, not jobs) that are structured, repeatable or predictable. The much lauded computer scientist Andrew Ng talks about humans no longer needing to worry about anything that takes them less than a second to consider. All these cognitive tasks will be done by machines. It’s almost like Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast, and Slow’ will no longer apply, as we’ll only be doing the slow thinking.

We live in a paradoxical age. Moore’s Law, which essentially describes how computing power doubles every 18-24 months has held true for nearly six decades. Every decade computers get 100X faster, every 20 years 8000 times, and a million times over 30 years. And as processors increase in speed, coupled with ever expanding datasets, and more and more sophisticated algorithms, the capabilities of machines grows exponentially. The world is becoming ever more technological. Yet, at the same time, the skills of humans are not becoming redundant but in fact ever more important. Because humans and machines are complimentary, and one can be used as a lever for the other.

Machines are good, as we said, at the structured, repeatable, predictable. What they are not good at (at least for now and probably for quite some time) are the things humans, at least potentially, are excellent at. We are good at Design, Imagination, Inspiration, Creation, Empathy, Intuition, Innovation, Abstract & Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Social intelligence, Judgement. And in many cases these are skills best worked at together, in groups and teams.

This paradox, that in practice a more technological world will mean we need to be more concerned about our human skills, than our technological ones, will have wide and pervasive ramifications. Within real estate it will mean that the spaces and places we design, build and operate will utilise the most advanced technologies but, in terms of use, will need to catalyse human skills. The form factor of our real estate will need to adapt and change so as to enable humans to be the best humans they can be. Most of the work they will undertake will involve the human skills mentioned above, and how these skills can inform the design of the software and hardware we want our machines to create. Humans won’t win on their own. Winners will be those who have the understanding and knowledge required to enlist the machines in the service of man. Picasso said ‘Computers are useless, they can only give you answers’, and he was right. Knowing the right questions to ask is the super skill, and that’s a human skill.

All of which leads us to education as being the killer app for those looking for a successful real estate career. Not only is the technology utilised within the industry now developing fast (Covid has acted like a massive forcing function for the PropTech world), but understanding this space is now just necessary, rather than being sufficient. The universe of required knowledge within real estate has exploded.

The industry is now moving from being less about selling a product, than it is about delivering a service. Ownership is no longer the thing, access is. People want more than four walls and a roof. They want a wide range of digital layers being built on top of physical real estate. So the industry is now a service industry. And that is very different from being a product one. And requires a slew of new skills.

In April 2022, Anthropology News, the trade magazine of that industry, published ‘The Work Issue’. Yes the entire issue of Anthropology News was given over to the role of Anthropology in the world of work. And this makes sense, even if it feels other worldly to those of us who have been in real estate a long time. We can easily answer the real estate questions, but can we answer the ones about Branding, or storytelling, or about human behaviour? Quantitative questions, facts and figures, are easy for real estate people, but qualitative ones, about the wants, needs and desires of people, our customers, are way harder. Ask anyone in real estate for a detailed analysis of their customers, and you’ll likely receive a paragraph or two. Ask a company like Lego and you’d receive oceans of data.

Teams within real estate companies are going to become much more multi functional. No longer will the silos of marketing, sales, operations, finance, accounting etc be fit for purpose. In each case getting their ‘job to be done’ done will require both a mix of functional skills, and and a mix of thinkers, feelers, doers. Each of us has their preference: some are good at analytics and understanding the essence of a problem, some have much stronger empathetic abilities than others and can understand the social, psychological and emotional reasons behind XYZ. And some of us are best just getting the job done. Putting into action a plan. Successful teams will leverage all of these complimentary skills.

A rule of thumb of the industry will be starting with the individual and working back to the real estate. Thinking of real estate as the output, not the input. Only by deeply understanding what it is your customer wants will we create great real estate.

So many new skills, and so much new knowledge is required. Everyone needs to be continually educating and re-educating themselves. As Bob Dylan wrote in 1965, ‘he not busy being born is busy dying’.

So, please Sir, may I have some more ....