“More than 50 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the federal Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination in housing, this remains a core question for one of America’s oldest, most populous and most segregated suburbs. The answer should be equal treatment for all by real estate agents and equal access for all communities. In the decades after World War II, Long Island experienced explosive growth as its communities swelled with returning veterans investing in homes and establishing roots. But opportunities were not the same for everyone in what was also an era of racially exclusive covenants and blockbusting tactics that separated communities along color lines.”
Editor: Newsday
Just devastating. A must-read for everyone in organized real estate. You can only imagine what’s happening in “exclusive buyer networks.”
““More and more companies are realizing that RESO standards are not just for MLSs,” RESO CEO Sam DeBord said, in a statement. “EXp Realty is showing great leadership as a brokerage pushing interoperability and technology innovation for the entire industry.” DeBord also used the occasion of the newly announced certification to push other brokerages toward the same goal.”
Well done Glenn and the entire eXp team. I agree with Sam, this is an extraordinary show of leadership.
I attended the first couple days of the recent RESO Fall Conference in St. Louis and have more thoughts on RESO, but I’m saving for a longer post next week.
“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.
Gavet spoke at length with Inman about the results of Compass’ technology push, her working relationship with Reffkin, the departure of multiple executives and what exactly Compass has accomplished. Her remarks have been edited for clarity.
Seems that the latest shakeup at Compass was a much bigger thing that I thought. Even some press on The Real Deal on “…tension between CEO Robert Reffkin and COO Maelle Gavet on how to run the company — on everything from decisions marketing strategy to product development.”
Yikes!
Maëlle Gavet:
“To be perfectly honest with you we both very much believe in the fact that a partnership requires some type of debate, this is very important. Robert and I are different people by background, by gender, by approach. We both spent a lot of time building this partnership.”
Translation: We hate each other.
Inman:
In the internal letter [Reffkin] sent out in January that announced this three-month push, he had said you’re ‘bottom line, responsible for the entire initiative,’ and [Malik] will take the point on product marketing. He also said [Seidman] and [Sirosh] will have delivered everything agents need to bring the core of their business onto the Compass platform. At the end of this push, two of those people are gone and you’ve had your duties shifted. Is it fair to say the push underdelivered in [Reffkin’s] eyes? Is that an uncharitable reading?
Maëlle Gavet:
I understand where you’re coming from, but that’s not exactly what happened. Let me start by talking about the results. I think the results have been good. We have hired close to 200 people in product and engineering since the beginning of the year, which is a big number. We acquired Contactually based out of Washington D.C., which was an important acquisition for us. We started displaying the listing agent on every listing whether or not its a Compass agent. We launched a new geo-agnostic search experience. We revamped entirely our iOS and Android app. We’ve done a lot of things. It’s actually more because Robert felt that the product and engineering team was on a good track and delivering that he decided he wanted to be more involved in the product.
Really? I mean, really? Since when does the CEO of any company shift their focus on divisions that are “on a good track and delivering” instead of areas that need the most help?
The interview is very revealing. You get a real sense that Compass is in trouble. Maëlle comes across as some sort of corporate robot, which is such the antithesis of the perception of Compass, CEO Robert Reffkin.
The sad part is it’s the same self inflicted wound a lot of leaders make in this space, “over promise and under-deliver.” I also have a feeling that more changes are coming.
Glenn Kelman has always had the ambition to make real estate better for consumers. But it took him a while to realize that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to do that. He came into the game with an US vs. THEM mentality, assuming that all of Redfin’s competitors were villains and snake oil salesmen. To his relief, it turned out that his industry rivals were actually good people. And while that doesn’t make him any less driven, he does concede that this shift in perspective has made him ‘not quite so insufferable.’
Glenn Kelman is the President and CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered brokerage designed to redefine real estate in the customer’s favor. Prior to Redfin, Glenn cofounded the startup Plumtree Software and served as its VP of Marketing & Product Management until its acquisition in 2005. Glenn has been the CEO of Redfin for the past 13 years, and under his leadership, the company was twice named Innovator of the Year by Inman News. Redfin went public in July of 2017, and today, its market cap is $1.82B.
Today, Glenn explains why he still feels like an underdog, despite Redfin’s success. He weighs in on running a mission-driven company, discussing his aim to ‘do something good for real estate consumers’ whether Redfin makes money or not. Glenn also covers the civil nature of the relationship between Redfin and Zillow, Redfin’s new partnership with Re/Max, and the impetus behind Redfin’s ‘buy without an agent’ feature. Listen in for Glenn’s insight on cultivating agent professionalism and learn how his perception of the competition has changed over time.
What’sDiscussed:
Why Glenn still feels like an underdog despite Redfin’s success
Glenn’s aim to ‘do something good for real estate consumers’
Glenn’s take on the tribal nature of American politics
How becoming a father has made Glenn a better leader
The learning culture Glenn works to cultivate at Redfin
How Glenn’s perspective of his competitors has changed
Glenn’s solutions-based approach to candor with employees
How Glenn is driven by the desire to live up to his potential
The civil nature of the relationship between Redfin and Zillow
How Redfin addresses the idea of agent professionalism
The impetus behind Redfin’s new partnership with Re/Max
What inspired Redfin’s new ‘buy without an agent’ feature
In a world where national brands like Zillow and Realtor.com dominate search results, how can individual brokerage websites compete? And how do real estate brokerages stay relevant as the iBuyer market continues to grow? Eric Stegemann believes the firms that adapt and take on alternative options for transacting will be well-placed for the future—and adopting the right real estate tech is a big part of that solution.
Eric is the founder and CEO of TRIBUS, a custom brokerage platform vendor tasked with providing medium and large real estate firms with made-to-order websites, intranet, email marketing, transaction management and CRM systems. Eric became a licensed agent at the age of 18 and started his own tech-oriented brokerage, River City Real Estate, at 21. In short order, River City became the largest independent brokerage in St. Louis due in large part to its real estate tech innovations, which became the framework for TRIBUS. Eric is often called upon to speak at industry events, including Inman Connect and the NAR Annual Conference.
Today, Eric explains why brokerage websites still matter in the age of Zillow and Trulia, discussing what differentiates a TRIBUS site from the national brands. He shares his conservative approach to growth for TRIBUS and offers advice for aspiring vendors in terms of building trust and fixing your mistakes. Listen in for Eric’s insight around the challenges facing brokerages today and get his industry predictions on MLS consolidation, the changing role of the agent, and potential winners in the iBuyer market.
What’sDiscussed:
How Eric started selling real estate to pay for college
What inspired Eric’s shift from broker to software vendor
The meaning behind the company name, TRIBUS
TRIBUS’ aspiration to be a zebra rather than a unicorn
Eric’s take on the challenges facing brokerages today
Eric’s insight on why brokerage websites still matter
How TRIBUS customer sites rank in Google search results
How local content differentiates a TRIBUS site from Zillow
TRIBUS’ pioneering collaborative search mechanism
How brokers can build their own iBuyer programs
Eric’s top advice for vendors on persistence and presence
Eric’s predictions on MLS consolidation + iBuyer success
In a move that could significantly reduce manual data entry, real estate technology vendor TRIBUS on Thursday announced it will automatically send updated sales data through its brokerage platform to Zillow following a closing.
TRIBUS – which boasts a portfolio of clients that includes RE/MAX Results, Zephyr Real Estate and Climb Real Estate – provides brokerages with custom platforms, brokerage websites, company intranet and other tech products.
The new partnership will allow agents to bypass hours of manually entering home sales data into Zillow, executives said in a statement.
“We’re excited to work with TRIBUS on behalf of our mutual broker partners to automate the publishing of a broker’s sold data to Zillow Group sites,” Sara Bonert, Zillow’s vice president of broker services, said in a statement. “This means their data will get to our sites faster and more accurately, eliminating the need for public records and manual data entry.”
This is a vast improvement over the manual process. Big Kudos to Zillow for working with TRIBUS on making this happen. TRIBUS has been really hustling the past few years and its great to see that work pay off. Congrats to Eric, Katie and the rest of the TRIBUS team.
When I see Gary Keller on stage trying to school Brad Inman, or brokers yelling at new companies complaining about their business models, you can deduce only one thing. They are scared shitless. They ought to be. The new entrants don’t give two shits about the old guard.
You think the hyperbole and lies are at an all-time high? I couldn’t agree with you more. Why? Well, I think it starts from the top. But hey, the economy, right?
But, I digress.
You are seeing this everywhere. Zillow vs. Opendoor. Corelogic vs. Remine. Traditional brokers vs. Compass, and anyone else who got a check from a V.C. The times they are a changing.
“In addition to marketing automation, the branded marketing center powered by Imprev is a one-stop marketing shop for agents that includes an extensive library of more custom content. It completes the full marketing cycle by offering agents simple ways to promote their brand and nurture clients outside of marketing their listings.
“We looked at a number of different solutions in our journey to create Emma. Imprev is the best service we found! It’s an easy-to-use, unified solution with best-in-class technology that met all our goals. It’s exciting to see how we’ve been able to streamline our agent’s marketing experience while adding a brand-new dimension of service that they’ve never seen before,” shares David Schmid, vice president of product development at Edina Realty.
“Edina Realty is crafting an amazing experience for their agents by tapping into the power of new, powerful technologies,” says Renwick Congdon, CEO of Imprev. “A brokerage is in the unique position of having a high-level view of all its listings and pinpointing marketing trends, successes, and challenges. That means brokerages like Edina Realty can effectively enforce marketing best practices for agents through automation, which sets workflows in place that implement the best practices of the best agents across the entire business. Offering that type of value to agents is powerful, and we see it lead to greater success and more revenue for everyone.”
The value proposition for Imprev’s platform is huge for franchisors and any large brokerages. Although Edina’s choice of the name “Emma” did have me confused with a popular email service, “emma” I’ve used in the past.
When I see Gary Keller on stage trying to school Brad Inman, or brokers yelling at new companies complaining about their business models, you can deduce only one thing. They are scared shitless. They ought to be. The new entrants don’t give two shits about the old guard.
