Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Constellation acquires Offrs, SmartZip acquisition also to be announced soon

Inman News:

“Constellation Real Estate Group announced Tuesday that it has purchased data analytics and lead generation company offrs, continuing a running acquisition spree that has seen the software giant pick up firms focused on everything from marketing to mortgage technology.
In a statement Tuesday, Constellation said that offrs (yes, that’s how the company spells its name) “leverages big data and its proprietary machine learning algorithm to predict future home sales and transactions.” Offrs then provides that data to various real estate professionals, including agents and mortgage companies.
Terms of the deal were not made public.”

Spoiler Alert!

I’m also hearing that Constellation is in the late stages of acquiring SmartZip too, which has been looking for a suitor for quite some time. That deal I’m told will be announced shortly. SmartZip had raised over $30M dollars according to Crunchbase.

I have mixed emotions when I hear of companies being acquired by Constellation, because they have a reputation as bottom feeders and founders rarely take any real money off the table.

OJO Labs acquires WolfNet

OJO Labs acquires WolfNet Technologies

“Specific financial terms were not made public but the deal involved a mix of equity and stock.

The founders of both companies, who had previously been working together on a partnership wherein OJO was using multiple listing service (MLS) data from Wolfnet, said that the deal made sense because of the synergies to be found between them, merging a new consumer-facing property search tool in the form of OJO with a trusted agent-and-broker focused software and data company in the form of WolfNet.”

Seems like every week a deal gets announced and this is a pretty big one! I con only think of one other vendor that currently aggregates the amount of MLS data WolfNet does. I don’t know much about OJO Labs but they are VC backed.

Joel is definitely an O.G. in the industry and a big congrats to him and his team.

Terradatum Acquires VScreen

Analytics Provider Terradatum Acquires VScreen

““Analytics that Terradatum provides through BrokerMetrics® and its other services are critically important content that elevates a brokerage’s ability to better execute its business strategy,” says Mark Spraetz, CEO of Terradatum. “VScreen and OnHoldUSA’s multimedia content services offer tools that can elevate marketing efforts in a similar manner. Good content, regardless of form, seeks to engage a person with the brand. Their collective content educates and engages, offering utility across the spectrum of digital marketing. The combination of analytics and marketing content will be a differentiator for our clients.”

I get the where they will use VScreen, but OnHoldUSA is a mystery. But I’m more aware of their BrokerMetrics product than anything else.

RE/MAX acquires booj

RE/MAX Takes Bold Step to Provide Best-in-Class TechnologyGlobal Franchisor Acquires Leading Technology Firm booj

The acquisition exemplifies a new approach for RE/MAX that goes beyond adapting third-party vendor products to fit broker and agent needs. Moving forward, RE/MAX will leverage the capabilities of booj and other strategic partners to deliver core technology solutions designed for and with RE/MAX affiliates. The objective: technology platforms that create a distinct competitive edge for RE/MAX brokerages and agents and complement other tech products they choose to use.

So its apparent the this “tech enabled brokerage” is a thing now. It’s now going to be a bunch of chest beating to show who has the best tech. RE/MAX appears to be taking a more open approach by still working with “strategic partners”, rather than the more closed approach of KW.

In a letter to agents, new RE/MAX CEO Adam Contos stated,

“It will mean an upgrade for the RE/MAX technology suite – a complement to other Approved Supplier products you choose to use.”

A far cry from the paranoid rant of Gary Keller,CEO of Keller Williams last week.

booj is an interesting company. Their pitch has been they only had a few “select” clients and a waiting list. Plus they would never work with any firm that was acquired by a Franchisor. Well it seems that philosophy has changed big time. It will be interesting to see how their current clients react. An opportunity for some, I’m sure. I hope Ido and John got a nice payout.

I’m also curious if this will effect RE/MAX’s relationship with Homes.com, which now powers the remax.com website. RE/MAX started that relationship with eNeighborhoods back in 2004, and have kept it going after eNeighborhoods was acquired by Homes.com parent, Dominion Enterprises.

ATTOM Data Solutions acquires Onboard Informatics

Looks like the rumor from yesterday is real.

ATTOM Data Solutions acquires Onboard InformaticsOnboard’s neighborhood data will be integrated into the ATTOM Data Warehouse

“Founded 15 years ago, Onboard Informatics’ data products include area data, point of interest data and community data.

“Not only will our customers now be able to access a broader set of property-related data from one vendor, they’ll also have more flexible options for consuming that data through the various ATTOM data delivery solutions including the ability to consume neighborhood data as bulk files,” said Jonathan Bednarsh, president and co-founder of Onboard Informatics.”

The consolidation trend continues. The number of independent companies in this space continues to fade. But 15 years is a great run, congrats to Jonathan and his team. Hope they got the big bucks!

Did ATTOM Data Solutions just acquire Onboard Informatics?

I’m hearing rumors point to yes. Anyone know for sure?

Constellation Software acquires Real Estate Digital

Constellation Software’s Perseus Operating Group Completes Acquisition of Real Estate Digital

“Constellation Software Inc. (“Constellation”) (TSX:CSU), announced today its Perseus operating group (“Perseus”), has purchased Real Estate Digital LLC from Xome Holdings LLC, excluding its reDataVault product which will be retained by Xome. The acquisition further expands Constellation’s market presence in the real estate industry as a leading provider of scalable SaaS products.”

Shortest press release I’ve read in awhile. I’ve got some thoughts on this I put together in another post. Big news day.

Where’s the pony?

Walk with me…

July 2006

Fortress, a Private Equity (PE) firm, buys Nationstar Mortgage, LLC.

2008 – 2010ish

The Great Recession

July 2011

Zillow goes Public

May 2014

Nationstar acquires Real Estate Digital (red) in 2014, under its sub division Solutionstar. See what happen there?

July 2014

Zillow announces it will acquire Trulia.

May 2015

Solutionstar re-launches as the unpronounceable name “XOME” in May 2015. With Nationstar CEO saying “We expect to revolutionize real estate.”

July 2017

Softbank acquires Fortress (owners of Nationstar and XOME)

Redfin “Amazon of real estate” announces IPO, eventually raising $138M

December 2017

Softbank invests $450M in Compass, a “a technology-driven real estate platform.” Sound familiar?

Okay, so it seems the whole “Amazon of” “tech-driven” “reimagine real estate” brokerage of the future is hot right now, white hot.

So I see a few scenarios here playing out. Seems Compass has the branding figured out but, sofar unproven tech. XOME does a lot of the backend “services” bundling. Maybe Softbank, owners/investors of both Compass and XOME, reach the same conclusion that the dual investors of Zillow and Trulia reached back in 2014, “why are they two separate companies?”.

And don’t forget Opendoor, co-founded by former Trulian Eric Wu, or as I like to call him Head of Product Development of Zillow and Redfin (see Instant Offers and Redfin Now). They raised $210M back in December of 2016. What’s their next move?

My “Black Swan” Prediction (nod to the Notorious R.O.B.)

As part of Zillow’s “multi-brand strategy”, they buy fellow Seattle company, Redfin. Boom, now they are a brokerage, which a everyone knows is the sixth sign of the real estate apocalypse.

But, even after all this, I still don’t see the $450 million dollar pony.

FBS acquires Solid Earth

FBS acquires Solid Earth’s Spring software platform to achieve powerful industry vision

“Michael Wurzer, CEO of FBS, says he looks forward to building on the foundation established when FBS and Solid Earth announced a partnership earlier this year to build the Spring Portal on the Spark API. “Spring is the best MLS consumer portal in the market and powering it with the Spark API reduces duplicate entry and data lock-in for brokers and agents,” Wurzer said. “Today, MLSs, brokers, and agents need to clearly and beautifully communicate the full-breadth of the powerful value proposition they deliver together, and Spring is laser-focused on creating the best portal to deliver on that value proposition.”

Smart (an both sides). It basically gives FBS more design focused products to sell in to its market, and the integration work is already done. Matt Fowler, Solid Earth co-founder will stay on and serve as Vice President and lead the Spring team.

and this…

“Spring and Spark together create a platform that does not exist today and achieves a long standing goal of MLS industry leadership,” Wurzer said. He noted that an initial focus is to enhance the current Spring offering to include products that help MLSs showcase all of the valuable products and services they provide to members. “Together with Flexmls, this will be the most complete MLS portal available, serving all customers of the MLS beautifully and efficiently,” Wurzer said. “

This is basically a counter to the Clareity Dashboard, which was acquired by CoreLogic earlier this year.

Unsaid in this release is any future involvement Solid Earth might have in AMP, NAR’s backend effort into the MLS business. I’ve seen Matt at many of the AMP presentations. Not sure if that is going to happen any longer.

2017 was certainly a year for consolidation, both on the MLS side and the vendor side. And I don’t think its going to slow down. Congrats to Michael and Matt and both of their teams.

There and back again

Premier Provider of Software and Data and Analytics Solutions Rebrands as Black Knight

” Black Knight Financial Services, Inc. (BKFS) announced today that, effective upon the completion of the previously announced distribution by Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (FNF) of its equity interest in Black Knight Financial Services, Inc., it will be rebranding as Black Knight, clarifying its position as a leading provider of software, data and analytics to the nation’s top financial institutions.”

I love the fact that they don’t mention FNF in the title of this press release. Foley is relentless.

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