We’re looking for a Ruby Developer to help keep our systems in tip top shape. This means taking ownership of the performance and maintainability of multiple systems.
We’re a distributed team, so day-to-day work requires active participation on Microsoft Teams, and the ability to seek help when you’re stuck and provide ongoing feedback to your teammates.
Lone Wolf is seeking a Software Engineer with advanced JavaScript skills to play a key role in a growing, agile product development team. This person will work with our team of programmers, designers, product owners, and management on new and existing web apps for the real estate industry.
Zillow has been consumer-centric since its inception in 2006. And in the early days, the tech company didn’t pay much attention to agents. Now Zillow realizes that reducing friction for consumers means helping agents respond to online leads and schedule showings, for example. But is it too late to earn the industry’s trust?
Errol Samuelson is the Chief Industry Development Officer at Zillow Group. With 25 years of experience in proptech, he served in leadership roles at Realtor.com, Top Producer Systems, and Move, Inc. before joining Zillow in 2014. On this episode of Industry Relations, Errol sits down with Rob and Greg to explain why Zillow is acquiring ShowingTime and explore what’s behind the industry’s volatile reaction to the announcement.
Errol discusses the real estate industry’s distrust of Zillow, acknowledging the frustration the tech company has caused over the years and assuring us that his team will not misuse ShowingTime data. Listen in to understand how Errol thinks about CoStar as a competitor and learn why he believes an industry without cooperation and compensation is not good for agents, brokers or consumers.
What’s Discussed:
Why the real estate industry went apeshit over Zillow’s acquisition of ShowingTime
Zillow’s assurance that ShowingTime will remain an open platform with a strict privacy policy
What problem Zillow is trying to solve by acquiring ShowingTime
Errol’s insight on the rumor that Zillow bought ShowingTime to keep it out of CoStar’s hands
How Errol thinks about the fact that people assume Zillow is lying
Errol’s acknowledgement of the frustrations Zillow has caused agents over the years and how the company’s behavior may have amplified the industry’s distrust
The possibility that social class and age are a factor in the industry’s mistrust of Zillow
The focus of Zillow’s Q4 earnings call (Zillow Offers vs. streamlining the consumer experience overall)
Why innovation in the lending space is limited by federal regulations
The unique opportunity Zillow has to innovate around ownership models
Errol’s thoughts on CoStar as a competitor and why CoStar’s success hinges on the government putting an end to cooperation and compensation
“Sacramento, California-based MetroList Services, which has about 21,500 subscribers, acquired the Sutter Yuba Association of Realtors MLS at the end of 2020, adding four counties to its footprint. The deal is part of a multi-year trend of consolidation among MLSs looking to provide better services and achieve economies of scale for their agent, broker and appraiser members.”
All I really wanted to do with this post is wish Bill Miller a Happy Birthday! Bill has been a great friend and supporter over many years, and I can’t wait to see him and the rest of the MetroList gang again soon.
“Ashley Terrell, EVP of Partnerships at Buyside, and her growing team have pulled together this last-minute event as a new method of communicating with clients, including top industry leaders to contribute content on how Buyside’s evolution is in line with their own company’s growth.”
Love seeing new ways vendors are engaging their clients in this new normal. Looks like they put together quite a list of brokers for the event.
“-Paul Boomsma, President & CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies
–Emmanuel Fonte, Vice President of Ultimate Client Relationship & Digital Strategies of John L. Scott Real Estate
–Rajeev Sajja, SVP of Innovation at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach
–Peter F. Hunt, Chairman and CEO of Hunt Real Estate
–Dan Forsman, President and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties
–Kevin Patai, Director of Digital Marketing of Howard Hanna
–Kelly Gesick, Director of Digital Innovation and Marketing Services at Chase International
-Jeni Pardo de Zela, Chief Marketing Officer at Mott & Chace Sotheby’s International Realty
–Paula Renaldo, Chief Marketing Officer at The Keyes Company
–Erik Kaukonen, Division Director of Career Development at Florida Properties Group
–Wendi Iglesias, CIO of The Keyes Company
–Ann King, Vice President Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Network Realty
–Kathryn Redican, Chief Operating Officer, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties, Westchester Properties, and New York Properties
As the real estate industry has evolved, we’ve been trained to focus on who owns the data. And Zillow’s acquisition of ShowingTime has many concerned about sharing their data with the proptech giant. But what if hoarding your data is not the only way to compete with a company like Zillow? What if it’s not really about access to the data but what you do with it?
Nick Bailey is the Chief Customer Officer at RE/MAX. With nearly 25 years of industry experience, Nick served as an agent, broker and proptech vendor before becoming the head of a major real estate franchise. On this episode of Industry Relations, Nick joins Rob and Greg to share his take on Zillow’s acquisition of ShowingTime and what’s behind the industry’s emotionally-charged reaction.
Nick offers insight on how the data Zillow acquired was already publicly available, explaining why that information doesn’t necessarily give the tech company a competitive advantage and reminding us that it’s not unusual for companies at scale to offer various products and services to the industry at large. Listen in for Nick’s perspective on what we can do to improve the process of buying or selling a home for consumers and find out why you shouldn’t panic about Zillow’s acquisition of ShowingTime.
What’s Discussed:
Nick’s background as an agent, broker, tech vendor and head of a major real estate franchise
Why Nick sees Zillow’s acquisition of ShowingTime as one tech company acquiring another to make the process of buying and selling homes easier for consumers
How ShowingTime’s market share influenced the industry’s emotionally-charged reaction to its acquisition
Nick’s argument that the data Zillow has acquired was already publicly available
How Nick addresses the objection that the ShowingTime acquisition forces agents and brokers to provide Zillow with a competitive advantage
How it’s not unusual for companies at scale to offer various products and services (e.g.: RE/MAX’s acquisition of Motto Mortgage)
What Nick is doing to educate agents around the spirit of cooperation in the industry
How Nick thinks about whether Zillow is a RE/MAX competitor
What the real estate industry can do to improve the fragmented process of buying or selling a home
Nick’s insight on what differentiates RE/MAX in competitive industry that includes a growing number of iBuyers
The trend toward a greater concentration of power among fewer agents and how that might contribute to the panic around Zillow
Nick’s advice for MLS, franchisor and large brokerage CEOs on using data to identify trends and create contingency plans accordingly
“As the Chief Innovation Officer, Flores will oversee the operations of the Broker Listing Cooperative (BLC) and focus on creating solutions that improve the delivery of services to our members.
Flores has been an executive director for 7 years and an administrator for over 15 years. In her current role as the Executive Support Manager at Anthem, she is responsible for project and vendor management, process improvement and daily operations of IT Management for Anthem’s top 150 executives.”
Nice to see some new blood enter the industry. Welcome, Tamara and congrats!
Zillow’s Economic Research Team just released its forecast for 2021, and they expect it to be the best year for home sales since 2005. In fact, Zillow’s number crunchers believe that a whopping 6.8M existing homes will close next year, marking the biggest one-year gain in sales (nearly 22%!) since the early 1980’s.
Jeff Tucker is a Senior Economist at Zillow Research where he studies the causes and consequences of changing supply in the housing market. On this episode of Industry Relations, Jeff joins Rob and Greg to discuss the inputs his team used to make its predictions for 2021 and describe how current growth differs from what we saw at the height of the bubble in 2005.
Jeff offers insight around the demographics of who’s buying and selling homes right now, sharing his take on why the low millennial marriage rate may not impact the housing market as much as we think and how feasible it is for young, working-class Americans to afford home ownership. Listen in to understand how COVID facilitated the single-family home inventory crash and get an economist’s perspective on why the housing market will stay hot through 2021.
What’s Discussed:
The inputs Jeff’s team used to predict that 6.8M existing homes will close in 2021
How current growth differs from what we saw at the height of the bubble in 2005
The decrease in share of income spent on mortgages since 2018
Why the iBuyer’s mission to create a frictionless experience is so important moving forward
Jeff’s insight around the demographics of who’s buying and selling homes
The distinction between family and household formation
Why the low millennial marriage rate may or may not impact the housing market
How COVID facilitated a single-family home inventory crash
Why Jeff sees appreciation slowing down by the end of 2021
Jeff’s take on the feasibility of home ownership for working-class millennials
How the skyrocketing US money supply might impact the real estate market
I was talking with a tall and smart MLS exec (he made me write that) about the negative response from agents and brokers about Zillow buying ShowingTime, and why it’s not going away anytime soon. He said, that the underlining issue is not about the privacy of data, but more related to Zillow now being a broker in nearly every MLS market in the country.
“Greg, what agents and brokers are really pissed off about is their money contributing to the bottom line of a competitor. Their MLS, which they pay dues to, is now pro-actively funding another broker’s business.”
Now, you could argue if Zillow is really competing with the average agent, but when you shift to “Zillow is now a broker”, it cuts both ways.
“Today, CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) delivered a letter to the Board of Directors of CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) setting forth the terms of a superior proposal by CoStar Group to acquire 100% of the equity interests of CoreLogic. Under the terms of the proposal, CoreLogic shareholders would receive 0.1019 shares of CoStar Group common stock in exchange for each share of CoreLogic common stock, representing a value of approximately $95.76 per share based on CoStar Group’s closing share price on February 12, 2021.”
“Northern California real estate brokers, agents, and appraisers now have one-stop single-login access to thousands of listings throughout 22 counties* spanning from the Greater Bay Area and Silicon Valley, reaching as far south as Monterey County, and up through the Central Valley to Sacramento and Nevada”
For almost as long as I’ve been in real estate there have been several initiatives to organize a way for MLS providers in Northern California to properly share MLS data. MLS Alliance, Mercado, just to name a couple. They have all failed in one way or another. But here we are. This is a truly remarkable achievement. Hats off to these MLS providers and their leadership.
• BAREIS MLS
• Bay East Association of REALTORS®
• bridgeMLS
• Contra Costa Association of REALTORS®
• MetroList®
• MLSListings
• San Francisco Association of REALTORS
One thing I find myself saying a lot is something akin to “we can do anything you want technology-wise, its the politics that get in the way.” But in this case the tech was a bit of a bear as well. This “cross pollination” strategy wasn’t easy.
“The NORCAL MLS Alliance unites four separate MLS operating systems and databases—Rapattoni, Black Knight’s Paragon, dynaConnections’ connectMLS System, and CoreLogic’s Matrix systems—in which each respective MLS maintains its existing platforms and protocols. While the transition will be a complex technical feat, NORCAL MLS Alliance staff have spent months testing, planning, and preparing for a smooth and successful launch on January 20, 2021”
They say the pandemic hasn’t started new trends, just accelerated existing ones. I’m hoping to have a podcast episode with some of the players to really do a proper deep dive. Also hoping to see these same players speaking at upcoming conferences telling their stories about making this achievement happen.
