Alley Cats – Front End of Choice State of Union
The idea of Front End of Choice has morphed over the years. I gave it a strict definition in my Speaking MLS post, but the concepts of giving brokers and agents more choices to access MLS data are still relevant. Or are they? Join me today at 3PM.
Not Sure what Clubhouse is? Read my previous post.
“I can’t say I’m an expert in content licensing outside of real estate, but I’m having a hard time thinking of content licensing where the cost isn’t driven by usage volume. For example, pretty much every RE site licenses Google or some other mapping content, and we pay based on usage. APIs like Walkscore (owned by Redfin) are based on usage and other terms. Even beyond content licensing deals, all the cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure, etc., all have usage based pricing. Given this, why is it that real estate content is licensed without terms of use based on usage?”
Interesting response from Michael Wurzer about the new LEAP Policy being floated around. This part is interesting.
“If MLSs would treat the aggregated content as the value it is with proper licensing terms, almost all of the problems LEAP is trying to address would go away. And, more importantly, there would be a sound basis for addressing the wide differences among the sites using the data. Let’s just be clear about this: There’s a HUGE difference in value being derived from the licensed MLS content by Zillow or Realtor.com versus a single agent IDX site. Treating those the same is crazy.”
Really good points here (as usual from Mike). Lots to think about.
Pacaso raises $75M, goes from launch to unicorn in 5 months.
For one, the team. Former Zillow executives Austin Allison and (CEO and co-founder) Spencer Rascoff came up with the concept of Pacaso after leaving Zillow together about 18 months ago. (Publicly traded Zillow today has a market cap of $32.9 billion.) The company gives people the ability to purchase shares in, and become co-owners of, a second home.
This is such a great idea. What struck me is that it’s not really real estate you are buying (or shares in real estate), what you are buying is the memories, experiences, and traditions you and your family will have at a second home. They are starting at the high end of the market but hope they are able to make this model work with less expensive homes.
I had a great conversation with Austin about Pacaso on my Listing Bits podcast. You can check it out here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
As the demand for the SentriKey Showing ServiceTM ramps up, industry veteran joins SentriLock
“We are truly pleased to welcome Kerry to the SentriLock team,” says Devin Beck, Director of Revenue at SentriLock and key driver of the showing service business. “Kerry’s unique blend of experience with MLSs and technology solutions fits perfectly with our business profile and strategy for the new showing service.” Kerry will begin workingwith customers and prospects in her new role with SentriLock on March 22, 2021.
Somehow I missed this news but lucky I was able to get it posted on Kerry’s first week. Congrats Kerry and SentriLock!
Take that Client to Dinner: Business Meals Are Deductible in 2021 and 2022
“Business meals at a restaurant are now fully tax deductible — at least for the next two years. To promote increased business spending at restaurants, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021” directed the IRS to increase the deduction from 50% to 100% of the cost of food and beverages provided by a restaurant.”
Can’t wait.
Former Trulia CEO Pete Flint leads investment round in Instashowing
Flint, who today is a general partner at venture capital firm NFX, led the funding round, which poured $1.5 million into Instashowing. Other participants included Ferry, along with Howard Hanna Real Estate Services President Howard W. “Hoby” Hanna, IV, former Contractually CEO Zvi Band, former dotloop CEO Austin Allison, and Greg Schwartz, founder, and CEO of real estate technology startup Tomo.
Last week when it was announced that former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff was investing in Offerpad, a rival to Zillow’s iBuying efforts, it raised a lot of eyebrows and questions about his motives and relationship with his former employer. Now 3 (Pete Flint, Greg Schwartz, and Austin Allison) other former Zillow execs are joining the pile-on and investing in another company that competes against Zillow’s newest acquisition ShowingTime.
Talk about bad blood!
Talk about bad blood. I’m hearing a boatload of former Zillow execs is following Spencer Rascoff’s lead and are investing in another company that is directly competing with Zillow.
Ouch!
Developing…
Ex-Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff leads SPAC deal to acquire Offerpad, a rival to his former employer
“It’s a deal that pits Rascoff in an intriguing match-up with his former colleagues at Zillow, including co-founders Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink. Rascoff’s SPAC — operating under the name Supernova Partners Acquisition Company — is acquiring Offerpad in a deal that will value the Chandler, Ariz.-based company at $3 billion and bring in an additional $650 million in gross proceeds to a real estate technology provider that powers the quick selling and buying of homes.
Offerpad plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPAD.”
Real estate is hot. If you don’t think so, look no further than this deal. Offerpad is in 3rd place (by a country mile) in the iBuying space. I love this quote from Spencer,
“The real competition for Offerpad isn’t Zillow or Opendoor, it’s the fact that 99.5% of the time people sell their home the old analog way.”
He’s exactly right. But how much is that percentage going to shrink, and it doesn’t have to shrink that much to have a huge company. I have two predictions about Mr. Rascoff’s recent moves.
Pacaso will be acquired by AirBnB, and Offerpad will be acquired by Zillow. Wall Street loves a story.
T3 Sixty Organized Real Estate with Clint Skutchan with guest Greg Robertson
Enjoyed my conversation with Clint.
Lone Wolf launches Digital Title Orders for 1.4 million real estate agents in the U.S.
“The new feature was made possible through an unprecedented collaborative effort between Lone Wolf and leading title providers, including First American Title Company and WFG National Title, and leading title software providers, including SoftPro and RamQuest, with many more on the way and planned for 2021. Through these individual partnerships, Lone Wolf has created real estate’s first direct integration between real estate agents and title agents and made it available to every real estate agent and brokerage in the U.S. through the member benefit, Lone Wolf Transactions. The national launch of Digital Title Orders kicks off today with First American Title, while those using the RamQuest title production system are also able to get their title companies onboarded within Transactions to connect to their customers. By the end of 2021, Lone Wolf plans to onboard 80% of title companies.”
It’s crazy the amount of scale that Lone Wolf has in the market. 1.5 million agents, 125 million forms per year and 22 million digital signatures. But scale is a double edged sword.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been learning a lot about forms, transaction management, and brokerage accounting/back-office software. Due to zipForm’s partnership with NAR, it has the most forms coverage of anyone in the market. That also means they (we) have a lot of challenges as well. For instance, I learned last week that we get over 150 form change requests a week. A week! That is spread between two different software platforms – Zipforms and TransactionDesk. Each platform has separate processes for updating and creating new forms. In many markets, that’s one form, but twice the work. It’s a struggle. It can mean customers waiting longer than they want for forms updates. It’s painstaking work – I mean, it’s literally a legal document. I’ve talked to many of you and it’s clear that there is room for improvement. But that’s another blog post.
On the other side of the coin, what scale can also do is bring a great benefit to a lot of people in a very short amount of time. That’s what I believe is the significance of the launch of Digital Title. Starting with First American and those using the RamQuest title production system agents get a lot of benefits. It’s pretty amazing.
-One-click title orders in Transactions
-Automatic status tracking
-In-product chat with your title agent
-Secure document sharing
-One-click order cancelations
-Accurate data at closing with real-time sync
This works both with zipForms and TransactionDesk. Digitizing the process of ordering Title is just one innovation that is making things easier for agents and brokers. With brokerages that have JV agreements with title companies, it can dramatically improve capture rates.
I can’t wait to share another innovation Lone Wolf is launching next month that starts at the very beginning of a transaction. Can you take a guess? : )
