What will the future bring in real estate? Here are 50 innovative, contrarian and simply weird questions we think need to be answered on our way there. Feel free to suggest your own.

In our quest to change how real estate is done in the future, we have a few questions we think must be answered. It’s true: in our past two decades, much has changed in the business. Yet much remains the same. Stubborn features of a calcified system – mercantile and provincial in nature – prevent the industry from reaching and even seeing many opportunities in the future.

Thank goodness, then, for the recession. It puts everything on the table.

It’s time to broil up a bunch of sacred cow-burgers. Celebrate, then move on, from our successful pasts. And face up to the real challenges of innovation – which go beyond buying an iPad or using social media.

These are just fifty of our most burning questions. Perhaps you have one or two, too? Be sure to add them to the comments at the end! So here we go!

1. Why do brokers get paid more when the market rises and less when it falls? Don’t they do the same work?
2. Why does the high-priced home owner pay more to sell his home than the lower-priced one to the same broker?
3. What would happen to non-productive agents if brokers charged agents $25/hour for management services. What if agents charged brokers similarly for floor duty?
4. What would happen if listing presentations were done by pairs of agents, or threes, instead of individually?
5. If managers accompanied agents to appointments and open houses, what might they learn?
6. Why do we transfer control of our company data to third parties who then add restrictions to our own use of that data? Or, is it so hard to imagine a post-MLS industry?
7. Does saving money not running newspaper ads not matter if we don’t pass it along in the form of lower fees to the seller?
8. Why do we pay other brokers to show their buyers our listings? Isn’t their job to help clients find and buy homes?
9. Didn’t we promise to find the buyer ourselves in our listing presentation, with all of our fancy marketing tools?
10. What if we stopped forcing good customers to subsidize bad customers by charging those who work “with us” the same as those who work “against us”?
11. Do “restrictions” on contacting listed sellers with our services restrict their access to better services, prices and agents who could sell their home?
12. What would happen if a broker declared a recruiting moratorium for one year?
13. Does the virtual office matter if we haven’t reduced our fees to consumers?
14. What if agents had to “shop” for a broker each time they wanted to bring a listing to market?
15. What if brokers started charging for office meetings?
16. What if franchisors stopped taking responsibility for providing the tools to their independent franchisees?
17. What if agency laws were repealed? Do consumers really “buy” agency?
18. What if brokers required agents to buy-into their models rather than join for free?
19. What if auctioning were used regularly to sell homes?
20. If agents charged sellers a retainer, would it have a corrective effect on pricing?
21. What if brokers charged for each leads distributed by their marketing department… Agents pay third parties already, so…….?
22. What if consumers paid a monthly insurance fee, then received unlimited real estate services during their coverage period?
23. Could a system exist where brokers picked any agent in any marketplace, assembling the best team for each particular client?
24. Could we make a profit if every and any transaction was flat-priced at $10,000? $5,000?
25. What if real estate agents had to file a business plan that brokers could review online – then bid for their services?
26. Are “teams” already the proven model for profitable real estate brokerage?
27. What would happen the day after brokers introduced a “100% money back guarantee” to customers?
28. Would consumers care if every agent was a Certified Financial Planner?
29. How do we create agent careers that start with health care and end with retirement plans?
30. What if the housing industry were based around one big “tax-free exchange” for sellers and buyers? How would you get paid?
31. What if franchisors decided that “independently owned and operated” meant exactly that?
32. Is it possible to create a division of labor in a “jack of all trades” culture?
33. Which lessons of Wikipedia, YouTube and open source projects might let consumers design their own real estate services?
34. What if all advertisers had to provide an “effectiveness” report for their services like we require of Google adwords?
35. What if real estate agents were “sponsored” by big companies, like NASCAR drivers and sports figures? Or, what if RESPA ceased to exist?
36. Could the industry attract better recruits if we looked for people who didn’t “like people” but profits?
37. Rather than rating agents and brokers, what if a system emerged to rate buyers and sellers?
38. What if listings were open to the public every day, all day, without an appointment?
39. What advantages would you need if the number of agents dropped by 75%, leaving only the hyper-competitive in the industry?
40. What will you do when government-lenders become the primary sources of funding (think: college tuition finance)?
41. When the average agent leaves after 18 months, does it matter if the speakers and trainers at the convention have something “new” to offer?
42. What would it take to make it possible to order a home entirely online?
43. What if brokerages were listed on an “exchange” based upon performance metrics? What if the public could buy/sell/hold shares of “confidence” in them in real time?
44. How will you compete with non-profit brokerages that will appear in the marketplace?
45. Can we design a work-week that will appeal to a Generation Y workforce?
46. Which comes first: Agent loyalty or client loyalty?
47. What are the primary standards of performance desired by customers from their brokers and agents?
48. What if the government starts fixing commission fees (think: through its finance operations)?
49. What if brokers started thinking of customers as customers, rather than their agents as customers?
50. What has to change before the jewelry kiosk at the national convention stopped being the most popular place in the trade show?

I don’t consider these questions rhetorical – not even the last one – but I do think it’s time to move beyond the rhetorical answers we’ve been giving for at least the twenty years that I’ve been around this business. Do you have any answers? If so, I’d love to hear from you below. And stay tuned, because we’re going to address these and more this year as we push forward toward the next generation of real estate industry!

So which do you want to discuss? Let me know your favorites – or better yet, the ones you dislike the most – and we’ll construct our series on Innovation in the Industry based upon your feedback. And if there’s a question or two you think I forgot, please do let us know, too!