Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Real Estate Tech is Hot!

The article from TechCrunch by Joanna Glasner mentioned in Paul’s tweet does a good job of putting in to perspective whey so much capital is being put in to our industry. A few interesting tidbits…

“Rising interest in real estate deals comes amid a period of generally rising property and rental prices, as well as cultural and demographic shifts that are altering longstanding patterns of household formation. There’s also a sense among investors that real estate, despite being the world’s largest asset class, has historically been slow to embrace change.”

You think?

“Sure, there have already been some multi-billion-dollar businesses like Zillow and Redfin that brought online, mobile and data analysis capabilities to the industry. But real estate VCs believe that it’s still very early innings.

“still very early innings”

“Real estate investments can deliver big returns, too. After a string of lackluster technology IPOs, tech-focused real estate brokerage Redfin reversed the trend with big first-day gains and sustained aftermarket performance. Zillow, which went public in 2011, has also been a big hit with investors, maintaining a market cap of more than $7 billion despite a history of steep losses.

For those looking for liquidity, it’s also worth noting that the real estate industry knows a thing or two about generating returns. After all, before it was co-opted by venture capitalists, the word exit usually applied to real estate.”

Love that last sentence.

Consolidation-mania

What a crazy couple weeks. Here’s my list of recent M&A activity.

July 25th – FNF acquires Real Geeks
August 2nd – CoreLogic acquires Clareity
August 2nd – RealPage acquires On-Site (rental)
August 2nd – Ben Kinney acquires Automabots
August 3rd – Thomas H. Lee Partners acquires TenX (auction.com)

I’m sure I’m missing something. Plus, I’m still hearing another major deal could be announced next week (terms and $ issues). Crazy!!

Boston Logic buys Propertybase

Teke Wiggin for Inman News:
Boston Logic buys Propertybase, with more acquisitions in sight

“Boston Logic CEO David Friedman declined to disclose terms of the deal, other than to say that Propertybase will retain all of its employees.

Boston Logic became Providence Equity’s “platform for acquisition” of real estate software after the private equity firm, which has $50 billion in capital under management, made an undisclosed investment in Boston Logic last year. Drawing on Providence Equity’s deep pockets, it’s looking to build real estate tech portfolios through acquisitions — a goal shared by some other well-heeled firms like Zillow Group.

“We are looking at a lot of opportunities out there,” Friedman said. “Price does not scare us away.”

Boston Logic was attracted to Propertybase because of its global reach and effective use of the Salesforce platform.”

Consolidation is happening everywhere. On a side note David Friedman was my very first guest on my Listing Bits podcast. You can listen to it here.

Shelley Fowler & Kevin McQueen take on new challenges

I’ve been a bit remiss to mention that Shelley Fowler has recently taken a position at RE Technology.

Looked who joined RE Technology!

“Shelley has worked in our industry for over 40 years! She’s worked full time within the MLS and REALTOR® Industry since 1977 when she started with PRC/Interealty – one of the nation’s first MLS system providers. There, she held executive positions throughout the western United States…

Shelley will be responsible for furthering RE Technology’s partnerships and relationships with MLSs and associations.”

This morning I also read that Kevin McQueen has joined Swanepoel T3 Group.

Swanepoel T3 Group Adds New MLS Consulting Division

““Kevin is a proven and respected leader in the MLS space and will significantly enhance our efforts to help the hundreds of MLS organizations in need of intelligent research and quality advice,” said Swanepoel T3 Group CEO Stefan Swanepoel. “With MLS consolidation being the second most important trend of 2017, exploring all your options including legal mergers and partnerships as an MLS organization is vitally important,” Swanepoel said.”

Congrats to both RE Technology and Swanepoel T3 Group. Great to see these two talented veterans to continue making a difference in our industry.

More on Opendoor

Ben Thompson of Stratechery has an altruistic view of what the Opendoor can provide the changing job market.

OPENDOOR: A STARTUP WORTH EMULATING

“OPENDOOR’S POTENTIAL IMPACT
There is a deeper reason why I am excited about Opendoor, and it too is related to how the company’s approach differs from Zillow and Redfin. While Zillow makes it easier to look for new houses, and Redfin promises to save sellers a few bucks, making it trivial to sell a house has the potential to fundamentally impact our economy at a time we desperately need exactly that. Many, including myself, have written about how globalization and technology are upending the job market; one particular challenge is that often new jobs are created in different geographic areas than where job seekers are located.”

The Notorious R.O.B. think he’s figured out how they will pay for it…

Forest for the Trees: Opendoor Edition

“The final observation here is that while buying and selling houses is painful — and Opendoor does want to make that process easier with all of its innovations — the real pain as of today is the financing process. Honestly, compared to trying to get and close a mortgage, the house-hunting process is a joyful jaunt through a shady park on a clear fall day.

What’s Opendoor going to do with the $320 million they just raised?

Teke Wiggin from Inman News…

What Opendoor’s Uber-like funding round means for real estate

Property-exchange platform Opendoor just bagged what is probably the largest funding round ever for a real estate tech startup, with a reported valuation of at least $1 billion only two years after launch.

The startup is overhauling the traditional real estate business model in a fundamental way. It buys and sells homes itself, giving it unprecedented flexibility to improve speed, convenience and customer experience.

Opendoor’s deployment of $320 million in equity funding and $400 million in debt will send shockwaves across the industry, perhaps most by popularizing new technology and business practices.

I might be oversimplifying this but I think it’s pretty obvious why Opendoor raised that much money and what they are going to do with it.

The need to buy houses (inventory). So unlike most institutional money, a lot of the money raised will be tied to an asset. So I think getting a larger sum was a good risk.

To me Opendoor is more akin to CarMax. I recently sold on older car through CarMax, I didn’t get as much as I would have wanted but the process was pretty much hassle free, and to me, time is money.

The rub here is that some in Silicon Valley have thought real estate agents would be replaced by software by now, just like travel agents.

But many of these new entrants have failed to grasp the emotional nuance of buying and selling real estate.

The MLS™ touts strong customer satisfaction numbers

The MLS™ 2016 Customer Survey Reveals Increased Overall SatisfactionShare Article

“Overall satisfaction with The MLS™ has grown in the past year, with 89% of members reporting satisfaction, compared to a satisfaction rating of 83% in 2015.
The survey results also reveal that 97% of members feel The MLS™ meets their needs, compared to 94% in 2015. Among other key findings, 95% of members would recommend The MLS™ to a colleague or friend.

Further, the 2016 results imply that member feel that The MLS™ provides them with increased value for their money when compared to 2015 results. In 2016, 92% of members reported feeling extremely or somewhat satisfied with the value of The MLS™ for their money, as compared to 66.65% in 2015. The MLS™ offers numerous complimentary tools to members including Property Websites/Virtual Tours, Cloud CMA, 10K Infosparks, RatePlug and more, along with support through various channels such as a Help Desk, a compliance team, hands-on classes, Webinars and more.”

The real estate in The MLS™/CLAW’s territory is some of the most expensive in the world and its no easy task keeping those brokers satisfied. Kudos to Annie and her team for these impressive results.

CLAW’s has been working on upgrading their existing MLS software to something totally new. This and other “home grown” MLS systems, including IRES and RMLS Portland were featured in a recent article by Matt Cohen called, “MLS: Homegrown and Happy“. In this post Matt listed out the main reasons these MLS providers have chosen to go this route.

-Vendors can be difficult to work with. Most of them have gone through periods where they are less than optimally responsive to enhancement requests and even to bug-fix requests.
-Vendors are acquired by a company that doesn’t provide the same level of service.
-Vendors go out of business (though all the current major vendors are quite stable!)
-Vendors ‘retire’ well-liked systems
-Licensing a shared code-base can mean waiting months or years for enhancement requests – or the vendor may just say, “No.”

“Well-liked”. High praise indeed. : )

Mele Kalikimaka

I’ll be heading to Oahu next week. I’ll be speaking about Cloud MLX at the Worthshop Conference. Not sure how many MLS peeps will be there but if you are going, let me know. Here’s some information on the event.

Worthshop 6

Once a year, Hawai’i Life presents the Worthshop. Join us for an exclusive event and inspiring exchange of ideas with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and real estate professionals at the Four Seasons Ko Olina.

#vendorlife

NARlando 2016

Many of you are already in Orlando, personally I don’t arrive till tomorrow afternoon. Which means I’ve got a jammed pack weekend! Here are some of things that we have going on.

W+R Studios booth!
Stop by and see our newly redesigned booth. Our booth number is 1185. No ping pong this year, but sit in on a demo and get a free t-shirt!

MLS Association Executives Session
November 4, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. (that’s this Friday)
Hyatt Regency, Windermere Ballroom Z

Brian Donnellan has asked me to moderate a panel with Mike Wurzer, Matt Cohen and Chad Curry on the future of real estate technology. We are going to geek out on future tech and what it means for real estate. (I’m just glad not to talk about Upstream)

AMP Presentation
November 5, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. (Saturday)
Katie and I will be demoing our Cloud Agent Suite (Cloud CMA, Cloud Streams and Cloud MLX) and highlighting recent integrations we’ve done with the AMP API.

ListHub Party
November 5, 2016 5PM-9PM
ICEBAR – 8967 International Drive, Orlando FL
W+R Studios is co-sponsoring the ListHub party. We will have a cool photo booth set up for attendees.

Corelogic Party
November 5, 2016 8PM-11PM
B.B. King’s Blues Club – 9101 International Dr. #2230, Orlando, FL
W+R Studios is also co-sponsoring the Corelogic party as well (what can I say, we like to party!)

Come by our Suite!
Katie and I will be in our Suite at the Rosen Centre giving private demos. We have a few slots open so reach out to Katie if you like to talk about adding the Cloud Agent Suite to your MLS or brokerage.

Other than that I’ll most likely be at the lobby bar (but you already knew that.)

Just remember, DON’T GO BIG ON THE FIRST NIGHT!

See you soon!

P.S. We are going to miss you Skinny!

Boston Logic has a few things up their sleeve.

New Real Estate Marketing Solution Delivers Tech Plus TalentAce by Boston Logic Fills Resource Gap For Agent Teams and Boutique Brokerages

“Boston Logic (http://www.bostonlogic.com), the technology platform that powers enterprise brokerages nationwide, announced the launch of Ace (http://ace.bostonlogic.com), a powerful technology solution that ties together a brokerage or team’s website, online lead generation, lead routing/follow up, CRM and online marketing, while also providing a skilled marketing person who can help drive these initiatives and campaigns.

Ace is tailored for agent teams and boutique brokerage companies, who often lack a dedicated staff person to lead their online marketing programs.

“Through many years of working with brokerages, we’ve learned that one of the biggest obstacles that brokers and teams face is having the staff to help drive the technology in which they invest,” said David Friedman, founder and CEO of Boston Logic.

“We designed Ace to include marketing support because we want to provide not only great technology, but impactful outcomes, even when the brokerage or team doesn’t have the full time staff to do so in-house,” Friedman said.

Boston Logic is doing a great series of presentations at ICSF next week in what they are calling the “MarTech Salon“.

On Wednesday Tuesday at 11am I’ll be speaking with David Friedman, CEO of Boston Logic, on “Building an RE Tech Company”

You can see Tuesday’s full schedule here: http://sched.co/7qr9

You can see Wednesday’s full schedule at: http://sched.co/7ktS

Thursday’s schedule is also pretty strong.

At 8:30am Alex Lange, newly appointed CEO of Upstream will tell us “The Truth about Upstream”

At 2:15pm Errol, Curt and Jonathan Bednarsh (president of Onboard) will answer “What does the future look like for the MLS?”

You can see Thursday’s full schedule at : http://sched.co/7mta

Sponsored By Paragon Connect