Bill Chee Talks Technology and Hawaii Real Estate

PBN: How does technology affect real estate agents today?

To match up with clients, you have to match up with technology. It’s changed drastically since I’ve been in this business. We never had email when we first started; we never had texting. There is so much information. There is almost no disadvantage to technology. Properly used, it’s like a gun. You can either use it for good or bad.

Bill Chee, CEO of Prudential Locations at the company's Diamond Head office. Photo by Tina Yuen

PBN: What’s the biggest change you have seen in the business over the years?

Technology! And the empowerment of customers. When I started in the business, the Realtor had all the information. Now the customer tells you what properties they’ve seen. There is a huge amount of power in the hands of the customer.

PBN: Do you agree with the predictions for Oahu’s housing market that forecast the median price for a single-family home will be more than $1 million by 2017, and would those higher prices be sustainable?

If you take a look at what it takes to get to $1 million, interest rates would have to stay low, and the probability of that happening is not sustainable. Household income would have to go up by 50 percent just to qualify for that million-dollar median. Possible? Yes, I think it is possible. Probable? I don’t think so under these conditions.

PBN: How is the growth in ultra-luxury condos changing the local market?

It happened with geography. If you look at offshore buyers, they were participants in the market only in Waikiki at the time. They’ve come in and expanded themselves. They are expanding their territory. It is like New York. Midtown was Midtown, then everything else expanded around it because people felt more comfortable.

PBN: What traits make for a successful real estate agent today?

The biggest thing they can develop is trust. There is nothing better than giving people information so they can make a decision. The more information you can give them the better they feel and the more they trust you. (Technology has upped the game.) Real estate now becomes a game, and when you play the game well, you are well informed.

PBN: How are these traits different than they were when you first got into the business?

There was no technology, first of all. Ten or 11 years ago, I found out I was looking at the wrong thing. We bought the first computer and used it for real estate assessment and analysis. It’s more about people than it is property. We started mining information about people, figuring out where they came from, things like that. It was more of a game of who you know and how well you kept in touch with them than it was about property. If you know so much about property, you should be an appraiser, not a Realtor.

PBN: What do you know now about the business that you wish you had known when you first started?

We have a huge database. If we would have collected data on people, we would have been much better off, and a bigger company.

PBN: What is the biggest mistake that new agents make, and the biggest mistake more experienced ones make?

The experienced ones don’t take too well to technology. They think they don’t need it. That’s what gives younger guys a huge advantage. That’s why you see younger guys in their 30s passing the guys who have been in the business for 30 years. They know social networking, they know what a blog is, they know the feel and touch of what happens when they put something on Facebook. The younger guys make the mistake of thinking it’s all technology. They don’t understand that a purchase is an emotional decision. If a guy doesn’t trust you, he doesn’t care how many emails you have sent him. Both sides can learn from each other.

Story originally published by Pacific Business News. Reprinted with permission from PBN.