Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Agent Webinar: How to Effectively Deliver a Winning Listing Presentation

I don’t typically do this but I wanted to share that I’m hosting a webinar next week with Sharran Srivatsaa. I’ve known Sharran for a while now and he really is a great teacher.

Sharran is going to talk about helping agents do better listing presentations. I’ve seen him do this presentation live and its gold. He has real-world experience, he grew Teles Properties by 10x in 5 years and led its acquisition to national real estate powerhouse Douglas Elliman. He’s legit.

So I would love it you could share the link below, I know a lot of agents will benefit.

How to Effectively Deliver a Winning Listing Presentation

thanks!

Industry Relations Episode 41: 10 Defining Moments & Trends in the Last Decade of Real Estate

On January 1, 2010, organized real estate was still reeling from the recession. Dale Stinton was steering the ship at NAR. Zillow was seen as the enemy of the MLS. Real estate software was meh. Agent teams were rare. Nearly all brokerages took a split. Selling your house online seemed outrageous. And we still signed documents in pen.

On this episode of Industry Relations, Rob and Greg are looking back at the last 10 years in real estate. They discuss the passing NAR’s MLS Statement 8.0 Clear Cooperation Policy, debating the significance of the office exclusives loophole and how it might lead to government involvement. Our hosts also express their disappointment around the Newsday investigation in Long Island, Testing the Divide, challenging brokerage leadership to make a strong statement against the egregious racism it uncovered. 

Greg and Rob go on to share their top 10 defining moments and trends with the biggest impact on the industry over the last decade, describing how the rise of agent teams, 100% commission brokerages, the iBuyer model and consolidation have transformed organized real estate. Listen in for insight into how NAR’s decision to fund RPR and Upstream changed the way the MLS saw Zillow and explore how the space has evolved from 2010 through the end of 2019.

Editor’s Note: We did record an Episode 40 that was never aired. It was about Policy 8.0 but wasn’t ready before the vote. After the vote passed we decided it didn’t add to anything to the issue.

What’s Discussed: 

NAR’s passing of the MLS Statement 8.0 Clear Cooperation Policy

Rob & Greg’s take on the Newsday investigation in Long Island

How the loophole in 8.0 could lead to government involvement

The 10 defining trends/events in the last decade of real estate

  1. The end of poorly designed software
  2. The rise and domination of agent teams
  3. The transition in leadership at NAR
  4. Opendoor pioneering the iBuyer model
  5. Zillow’s acquisition of Trulia
  6. 100% commission brokerages
  7. Consolidation and the influx of capital
  8. The practice of buying agents/agent teams
  9. The mainstreaming of digital signatures
  10. NAR’s decision to fund RPR + Upstream

Connect with Rob and Greg:

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

Resources:

MLS Clear Cooperation Policy

Compass Pre-Litigation Letter to Bright MLS

Bright’s Response to Compass

Newsday Documentary: Testing the Divide

Rob’s Blog on the Newsday Piece

1000watt Article on Real Estate Software

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller with Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan

Ben Thompson Interview with Rich Barton

Our Sponsors:

Cloud MLX

The Red Dot

Cloud CMA now integrates with Buyside data

Cloud CMA launches new data integration with Buyside

“Agents who create listing presentations with Cloud CMA are about to get a new edge in their efforts to win clients thanks to a new integration with data firm Buyside.
The integration, which was announced Tuesday, will let agents directly incorporate Buyside’s real-time market data into their presentations. Pennsylvania-based Buyside compiles data from online portals, open house software and various other sources to identify how many people are looking for a particular type of property at any given moment.”

Jim Dalrymple II at Inman News

We’ve always made it a point to be inclusive of data and tools that help brokers and agents look awesome in front of their clients. Showing the homeowner real-time data of the number of buyers looking for homes like theirs is a no-brainer. This new integration does exactly that with just the click of a button.

2020 is going to be a great year for Cloud CMA customers. I’m so grateful and proud of our team at W+R Studios and I can’t wait to share with you what they have been cooking up!

Webinar: What’s Behind Opendoor?

I’ve asked Tyler Hixson, director of Real Estate Partnerships & Strategy at Opendoor, to join me on a webinar on December 5th. On this webinar, I’m going to ask Tyler to explain how agents are using Opendoor to increase their real estate business, common misconceptions and other tough questions about where Opendoor sees the industry going.  We will have a Q&A session at the end.

Register for the webinar by clicking on the link below (Please feel free to share):

Registration => What’s Behind Opendoor?

P.S. Can’t make the live webinar? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording.

Listing Bits Episode 54: Opportunities for Agents to Partner with Opendoor – with Shannon Fitzpatrick & Tyler Hixson

Many agents might view Opendoor as a competitor, yet another tech platform out to eliminate their jobs. But what if you could leverage the iBuyer as a partner to build your real estate business?

Shannon Fitzpatrick leads a team of 45 agents at Movoto Real Estate in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada, and Tyler Hixson serves as the Director of Real Estate Partnerships and Strategy at Opendoor. In this episode of Listing Bits, Tyler and Shannon explain how agents can leverage Opendoor as a tool to grow their business, bringing cash offers to prospects and tying multiple transactions together.

Shannon speaks to the value of going into a listing presentation with an Opendoor offer, describing how it allows him to do what’s best for the seller, and Tyler discusses why agents can get a stronger offer from the platform by articulating the property’s unique features. Listen in for insight into the misconceptions agents have about Opendoor and learn how to work WITH the iBuyer to serve your clients and generate more leads.

What’s Discussed: 

How Shannon uses Opendoor to bring a cash offer to prospects

Leveraging Opendoor to tie multiple transactions together

The value of going into a listing presentation with an Opendoor offer

Opendoor’s offer valuation process and associated service fees

How Opendoor passes its vendor discounts on to sellers

How Opendoor can serve as a powerful lead gen tool for agents

Why agents can get a stronger offer from Opendoor than sellers

How Opendoor works directly with agents through closing

How Shannon uses Opendoor as a recruiting tool at his brokerage

The advantage to sellers of working with an agent AND Opendoor

The misconceptions agents have about the Opendoor platform
-Quality of offer + fees
-Think it’s out to eliminate agents

Opendoor’s plans to expand to serve all customers, home types

Resources:

W+R Studios

Cloud CMA

Opendoor/CloudCMA

Connect with Tyler:

Opendoor’s Agent Partner Program

Connect with Shannon:
Movoto

Shannon’s Website

Shannon on Zillow

Opendoor partners with Cloud CMA

Cloud CMA will now include all cash offers from Opendoor

“Last year, W+R Studios unveiled a tool called iBuyer Connect, which allowed agents to incorporate all-cash offers from investors into their listing presentation. Robertson told Inman that most of the interest from investors at this point had been home flippers, but now adding Opendoor as a partner in the platform will allow agents using iBuyer Connect to present all-cash offers to owners of turnkey homes.

Agents who refer clients to Opendoor ultimately have two options. Negotiate a traditional listing agent commission with the seller – who will also be paying Opendoor a transaction fee that averages 7.1 percent – or forgo the listing agent commission and receive a 1 percent referral fee from Opendoor.”

We’ve been working on this for over a year. What I think is going to be transformational about this is the software integration between Cloud CMA and Opendoor.

The experience of creating a CMA and going right in to generating an offer is like nothing out there. It really gives agents the advantage in simplicity and speed. And its only going to get better.

In case anybody asks…

Get it? ????

Homebeat™️, a new way to keep in touch with past clients using Cloud CMA

Just two weeks ago, I was sitting in the audience at a real estate conference and the moderator asked the panelists, “What’s next in real estate?” Brian Boreo, co-founder of 1000watt, is one of the smartest people I know in real estate and said, “I’ve always thought that whoever figures out loyalty in real estate will win.” This brought a smile to my face, because there’s something Brian and the rest of the audience didn’t know that I’m excited to share that with you now.

About 5 years ago we made a fundamental shift with Cloud CMA. We knew that not all agents have listing presentations scheduled every week so we added features designed to help them get business – not just serve current clients. Pivotal to this was adding a “What’s my home worth?” landing page to every Cloud CMA account. This landing page could be easily shared on social media – which agents did –  and the results were astounding. The number of Cloud CMA reports skyrocketed. To give you an idea, we launched Cloud CMA in 2010. In 2018 we hit a milestone of 10 million Cloud CMA reports generated. One year later in 2019, we are sitting at 14 million Cloud CMA reports generated. We can also account for 548,517 leads generated from automatic Cloud CMA reports. That’s moving the needle. Today we want to move that needle even further.

The National Association of REALTORS® has stats that show agent satisfaction over 80%, making it a well known industry fact that a majority of consumers were happy with their agent.  Yet only 11% of those consumers use that same agent again. Why? Because agents are not doing a good job of keeping in touch with their past clients. That’s why we are introducing Homebeat, a new way to pump up your business from past clients. With Homebeat, agents can schedule automated CMAs to be delivered monthly, quarterly or yearly. And while traditional Cloud CMA reports are generated as PDFs, Homebeat will be completely digital, allowing your clients to view homes comparable to their home from any device.

Just like Cloud CMA reports, Hombeat is branded to the agent and also includes a call to action to request a “Full CMA” when they are closer to selling their home.

With Cloud CMA you can generate seller leads, convert those leads to clients and now with Homebeat, keep those clients coming back for more. 

We will be rolling out Homebeat to select markets starting later today and will be free for 30 days to any Cloud CMA subscriber. To find out more about Homebeat, visit https://cloudagent.wpengine.com/automate-your-cloud-cmas-with-homebeat.

“Cloud CMA’s iBuyer Connect has legs.”

I couldn’t come up with a better headline than Inman News in their post today about Cloud CMA’s new feature “iBuyer Connect” so I just stole it. : )

Cloud CMA’s iBuyer feature has legs
New feature from W&R Studios is patent-pending, now open to investors nationwide

“In August, W&R Studios began testing iBuyer Connect, originally called Cloud Investor Connect, in Southern California. It gives an agent the option to request cash offers from iBuyers after creating a CMA for a property, provided that the property meets the requirements of an iBuyer.

Should any iBuyers that are part of the iBuyer Connect network choose to submit an offer, the agent can then go to a listing presentation armed with one or more cash offers to present to a prospective seller, along with a CMA.

If the seller accepts the investor offer, the agent will represent the investor as a buyer’s agent. The agent might also win the listing, in which case the agent could also serve as a dual agent. The feature doesn’t comes with any additional cost, and the compensation agents receive from an iBuyer varies by company and market.

Our current test is with a Southern California company who is focused on flipping homes. Venture backed iBuyers like “Opendoor” are typically making offers closer to market value. Cloud CMA can work with both models.

We recently celebrated the results of agents who used iBuyer Connect for the first time to make transactions. The response from these agents has been great.

We are also surveying all agents using iBuyer Connect and are very encouraged by the results (we sent the survey out to a pool of 250 participants and got 35 results back).

When asked, “How likely would you use this feature on future listing presentations?” Over 85% said they were “Very Likely”, “Likely” or neutral.

Here are some other quotes from the survey.

“The services works as advertised, the communication from the investor was great. “

“It could work for certain properties. We would use it again in the future.”

“I think this is a great new tool and look forward to using it again. “

“The offer was extraordinarily low… but still useful for selling an investor network to clients.”

“I really appreciate the service. I believe that it is great to have that service available when listing homes, especially when the home needs work and you dont need to wait for an offer.”

I reached out to one of the agents, Briar Warren of Murrieta, who successfully sold a home using iBuyer Connect, you can read her comments on our press release here.

As we continue to test this feature we are learning how to provide even more value to Cloud CMA subscribers. We think agents can provide a great experience to their clients by enabling them to participate in this growing iBuyer marketplace.

Alain Pinel chooses Cloud CMA

Alain Pinel Realtors Unveils Dynamic, “Best Of Breed” Technology Strategy

“As sole proprietors of their own business, agents deserve the confidence of knowing that their data and tools belong to them exclusively. We have chosen a model that gives agents flexibility and options without extra cost on their part,” said Zane Burnett, Vice President of Digital Innovation & Technology at Alain Pinel.
APR has inked partnerships with the following companies:

ActivePipe: Automated email marketing with exclusive property feed integration

Adwerx: Automated, geo-targeted social and display advertising of property listings

Cloud CMA: Deep property, comparable sale and buyer reports presented in a branded format

RealScout: Collaborative home search between agents and buyers and email alerts powered by “computer vision”

Contactually: An intelligent CRM that automates common tasks required of agents

Several of these applications are integrated; all will be available to APR agents through a single sign-on (SSO) dashboard within the company intranet.

Smart guys.

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