Brokerage Insider

Get a taste of a long and successful career in Real Estate from Johnny’s mentor, Jim Flaum. They discuss his vast range of experiences in real estate from selling, managing and running an entire company. Get insights into how Jim accomplished his goals of making others successful and how he surrounded himself around the right people from so many different backgrounds and walks of life. They discuss real estate's transition into technological solutions and what it means for the business at large. Other topics include what makes salespeople great, the commonalities and the ultimate success in the business.

Listen as Jared and Johnny identify areas you should be focusing on in your real estate career, plus the mentality you need to break in and stand out. Jared also speaks on LIME culture and what is at the center of it. They also touch on the next big things in real estate that he and his team use at LIME.

Johnny and Eric assess the current and future real estate market and what to look for in tech, CRMs, and challenges across the industry. Learn more at TRIBUS.com

Learn about the Ins and Outs of today's agent with Better Homes and Gardens Linsey Ehle in Houston, TX. Johnny and Linsey talk about all things agent including engagement, marketing, and the program she helped develop at BHG.

Johnny speaks with one of Arizona's top-producing agents, Denise Pruitt of Arizona Best Real Estate. They talk about her start in the resort business, what it means to deliver services, her history in Arizona, and why it is such a desired area. They have a fascinating conversation about being intentional and The future of the industry, interest rates, and all. You do really get a sense and worth of professionals who have been through cyclical markets.

Everyone immediately knows Aspen around the world and Johnny discusses the area with one of the most respected names in Colorado Real Estate, but also within the entire industry, Krista Klees, President of Slifer, Smith & Frampton. They discuss Krista's journey to Colorado, her Real Estate career, The Aspen culture, and the current market.

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. Welcome to episode one in the latest season of Brokerage Insider Podcast, with new host Johnny Pfeiffer and our first guest: President of the Corcoran Affiliate Network, Stephanie Anton. They go over Stephanie's rise through the industry that includes topics like growing a career in real estate, its limitless opportunities, and how to set yourself up for success. They also touch on female leadership within the industry and advice for navigating the landscape plus the people within it. They also give some insight into Corcoran and its importance to Stephanie and the industry at large. And also where the industry is moving to and what to expect for the future. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and check us out at TRIBUS.com

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRIBUS CEO Eric Stegemann discusses the brand new season of Brokerage Insider. Meet the new host of the show, Director of Coaching, Johnny Pfeiffer and see who he has on tap to interview over the coming weeks.

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: 📍 Hi, everybody. Welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interviewed the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann. I'm the CEO of Travis, one of the largest independent prop tech companies in the real estate space and provider of custom brokerage technology to medium and large brokerages in the United States, Canada, and even around the world. Now, in addition, I'm also the managing partner, Travis capital, a private equity fund, focused on the prop tech. On today's episode, we have art Carter. Now art is the CEO of CMLs. It's one of the largest MLSs in the country, and I'm really excited to dig in with him on a slew of topics today. Art, thanks for joining. Thank you for having me, Eric. Now I ask all my guests, you know, tell us a little bit about how you got to where you're at now. First of all, how did you get into real estate to begin with? So I've been working a couple of private and publicly held companies really on, you know, the technology and, and accounting actually fronts and had done some consultants. Especially on the technology side for a smaller mid-sized companies. And it was really looking for a, a new challenge and found a, a position with a local association in 1997, I believe it was. And from there kind of transitioned to where I'm at right now which is Sierra Malawi which was at the time that I started in 2005 was Mr. MLS. And we have grown from an organization servicing about 20,000 brokers, agents, appraisers to about 110,000 today. So a lot of growth, a lot of expansion, a lot of changes. And my job today is vastly different than it was when I first started. And I'm the type of person who loves a challenge. So it is kind of right up my right up my alley and. Well, so obviously being, being in charge of a, a, of an MLS has all sorts of of great pieces, but also probably some, some frustrating things that you deal with on a daily basis. So what's the, what's the the big kind of things are the things you're seeing right now, or that the MLS is dealing with that are maybe challenges that you're working. Well, in all honesty, the, the legal environment that we're facing some of the the legal environment and the, the restrictions that some of the things that are going on legally are, are placing on us as, as multiple listing services. That is a challenge. I think that, you know, we're really trying to. To accomplish moving in, in real time with the marketplace and providing brokers and agents with real value. And it's always difficult, especially when it comes to a policy standpoint and a rule standpoint, I think a lot of times, not so much necessarily at the brokerage level, but at the agent level, there is not a lot of education that is being done as to what the multiple listing service. What it does, what some of its requirements are, why those requirements are there. So that's always a difficulty that we face is that educational piece and throw COVID into that and our inability to get in front of people, you know, as effectively. Zoom's great. But. I'm a firm believer. Real estate is about relationships and most of those relationships are built face-to-face and, you know, sometimes one-on-one even, and COVID really, really put a Kirk in our ability to do some of the things that I really think that we needed to do to keep, you know, our brokerages and our agents kind of in the same ballpark as what it is that that is going on in the industry. Our difficulty always lies in the fact that there's such a high turnover amongst our members. And when I go out and speak, it's not all that surprising when I ask people, how, how many of you have been are newer into the business and have been in the business for less than seven years to have 50% of the crowds crowd raised their hands? 75% of our agents probably don't even remember life before Zillow. And so there's always that difficulty in educating people in early, putting that value proposition forward for the MLS. Well, let's talk about that for a second because you know, I've been in this industry for 22 years now. And even from my 22 years ago when I jumped into it, the concept of ward and MLS is, has changed significantly. And even I was kind of right on that precipice of where. The concept of an online MLS existed. Cause they, my office, when I first started selling real estate real estate, we still have the cards and the the CD ROMs that were available for, for folks. Right. And so the concept of an MLS definitely seems to have changed. From, you know, the original idea being more or less, just an offer of compensation amongst participating brokers to something a lot more than that. So how, you know, how did we get from point a to point B and where do you think we go from here? Yeah. I don't know that I would, I would agree that it has changed that much. I've been, I've been preaching for, you know, 17 years now that I run a broker cooperative and it's more than just, you know, it's more than just compensation. It's about the cooperative. This marketplace, that is the multiple listing service is so important to the brokerage community. So important to the appraisal community. So important to that, to the baking industry that provides loan products and, you know, valuation services out to, out to the, to the consumers, this ecosystem, you know, Even though the technology has changed, even though, you know, we've gone from books to tear sheets, to, to online systems whether, you know, resident on somebody's desktop or delivered, you know, via the internet, you know, the, the basic underpinnings of the multiple listing service. Really should have been the same across the board. And that's this cooperative that, you know, these offers of compensation, you know, have flowed in between members and the, the, the benefits of that. So the ecosystem within the real estate industry are so, so important. And, you know, I think even more so as we've moved into this electronic you know, this electronic age, I feel like I'm dating myself by saying that, but, you know, I agree with you. I was around before, you know, there were really these, these large databases, but that all being said, You know, there's such value to that cooperation. It's not the compensation that necessarily runs the whole entire value proposition of, of an MLS. It's it's really that cooperation and the action. Too close to a, a full marketplace, as you can get as far as information, that's really what the value is that we bring in, you know, what we try to preach here. You know, we, we, it's your MLS, you know, kind of transitioned in 2008. Talking more about taking on more data and providing more data to our brokers and our agents. And that is so Keely important for people going forward. Consumers don't have consumers, don't have borders in. And this this new world, they have access in all honesty to a greater breadth of information than most real estate professionals have in their own MLS. And it's been a key part of what it is that we're trying to do. And that whole cooperative cooperative piece is, is, you know, I, I hope long-term that, you know, it doesn't get that the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bath water and that the brokerage community does understand that. So, you know, yes, I agree with everything. You said that at the core, it's all about cooperation, but, but obviously the level of services that a, an MLS provides these days definitely seems different from where I was in back in 20 21, 22 years ago, where. It was you logged in, you could see what properties were for sale and what the commission rate was, which that's, that's a whole other topic of, of knowing what the commission rates are. Right. But but you know, that's, that's pretty much what you could do and, and they wouldn't have dreamed. And in fact, my MLS. You know, more or less, poo-pooed the idea of offering other technology. But now it seems like every MLS, you know, you've got tax systems like realists and, and all of these other systems like that, that are out there. You've got MLS says that offer CRM tools, even beyond just the regular. Save search alerts and things like that, that traditional MLS is have, you've got email marketing tools. You've got mobile apps that they offer. It seems like pretty much everything under the sun when it comes to technology, you know, at least some MLS out there has done a deal to license many tools for, for their members usage. And, and obviously that's shifted where. Tried to, I think, kind of compete in that world. And now it seems like a lot of MLS are stepping in and I know our clients are always concerned about MLS is stepping into that tech space and offering tools beyond. You know, the, the normal, the original concept of broker competence working together, brokers working together. So, you know, obviously a CMS is as a organization that does offer a lot of tools. What would you say to the brokers that are out there that think, you know, like, Hey, I'm, I'm a broker I'm trying to compete on tech and here's this MLS, that's trying to do the exact same thing and, and pulling people away from my value proposition. Yeah. You know, I don't know that that's ever the intent of any MLS, but one of the things you've got to recognize Eric, is that you and I both been around long enough to know that there's been ups and downs in this industry. Yeah. We have 24,000 people licensed brokers within our system. And I always kind of chuckle when somebody talks about this is what the brokerage community wants because those 24,000 people it's your most probably have 36,000 opinions about what they want and, and how to provide it. And that's the difficulty at a, at an MLS level is really. You know, do we only service the large brokerages then, because that, you know, has a completely different value proposition than serving the mid-size brokerages than serving, you know, the small mom and pops and the vast majority of the brokers within the Sierra molest system fall into that small mom and pop arena. So it is a very difficult road. One of the things that. Know, I know that you will see some of the larger MLSs start to do and really our first foray into this was kind of the. This API for showing systems. And, you know, the, the goal is to really kind of cement that cooperation from amongst the brokerage community. The MLS is in a unique position, probably the only one in the industry to provide this platform for brokers, to cooperate with each other. And you're going to see, especially at CMLs a level that we're moving more and more and more away from these all-inclusive site license tool sets. And the more of an arena where we're providing this connectivity and between, you know, whether it's offer systems or showing systems or lockboxes, you know, there really needs to be, you know, some of that broker choice. And I, I, that's where I would agree with, with the brokers and that, you know, we have stepped up because there's been. You know, some reasons and I've gone through market terms in all honesty where. You know, between 2005 and 2008, the broker's opinion of what technology offerings that we pushed out there, you know, vary pretty drastically because you know, the market turned at that point. So, you know, but at this point, you know, we've, we've grown, we've reached the spot. And with the capabilities of, of being a little bit more technology agnostic and providing those connectivity tools where brokers have that level of choice, they have that ability to differentiate themselves. But what we want out of the brokerage community is to cooperate with each other and share information across showing systems, to share information across, you know, offer platforms, to share information, you know, those areas in which it makes. To have one tool in the tool set, and we should have one tool in the tool set. But where it doesn't then, then we should offer, you know, multiple offerings and, and price it. And I mean so much to dig in there. So obviously as a, as a vendor who, who only works with, you know, usually medium and large sized brokerages, for the most part our, our brokers customers are always concerned, but what you just said is, is what I think all of them dream their MLS. It is, it's a, you know, essentially a data middleware layer. That's very good at what it does that helps brokers work better, brokerages work better together. And that's what they want. Easy access to the data. So for all of you, MLS is out there. I would encourage you to definitely talk to your brokerage members because I think what art's saying here, right? I think you'll pretty ubiquitously here. That's what they're looking for. Even the smaller members. They just want the ability to choose the tools that are, that are best for them. So let's dig in on the showings piece here for a minute. Cause here at Travis, you know, we've been for over a year now really kind of pushing this concept of the idea that showing should be open that there should be a way of getting that showing date. Between the brokerages, the showing broker and the listing broker, they should be able to get access to that data. And, you know, obviously this year with all sorts of changes in the showing industry, for example Zillow buying, showing time obviously there has been more attention to that space, and I know you guys have been right there with us kind of pushing this concept and you guys held this hackathon about pushing the showing data. So where do you think. Showings we'll be in let's say a year from now. Yeah. I, I, I would hope. And, and there's a lot of things that, that your has had, you know, cooking for a long period of time that for various reasons, the vendor community hasn't really fully embraced. And, you know, I, I would hope that, you know, we could partner with the brokerage community to put pressure, you know, on some of these vendors face. To be more participant to, especially on the showing information page. You know, this is the, just the new world we live in. You know, I've talked to enough of the venture capitalists out there and it astounds me of the amount of money that is being poured into the PropTech tech space. And we're increasingly going to be faced with situations where. You know, brokers may have very vastly differing opinions of their comfortability with ownership, structures of the technology that they use. And as such as I said, the MLS is. Uniquely placed to, to be able to ensure that cooperation amongst our brokerages and to share that information. I think the worst thing that could happen for the consumer is this fracturing of the technology. And I think that's one of the arguments that MLS has, will give you is that that fracturing of the technology does harm the consumer. But fracturing of that cooperation, I'm on brokerages in order to deliver that data, you know, is cumi important. And we need a partnership with the MLS is across the country, need a partnership with the brokerage community to make this occur. Because you know, there is no brokerage, that's an island. There is no MLS, that's an island and we're all dependent upon each other. And this next level of cooperation is really where we need to go. Technology dictates it, it demands. And it would be a very sad day that we had 10 dominant showing platforms out in the country with none of them talking to each other because that's not what the consumer wants. And at the end of the day you know, we've got to deliver at the MLS level you know, Through our brokerages, you know, that, that consumer experience to where showings are ubiquitous and, and even on the offer side, things are ubiquitous. And even, you know, the things that we've got brewing with some of our brokerages, allowing our own brokerages to do their own front ends, if they so choose is, is a direction that we all need to go through. And the MLS really shouldn't. Concerned about, you know, cooperative data sharing and making sure that the data that is shared is as accurate as possible to a common rule. So it, you know, it's funny, you're talking about all these things, because some of it is blog posts from seven, eight years ago that that we wrote. And some of it is things that we've been talking about for awhile. In fact, Travis actually rolled out a product called Flo three years ago. And the whole idea was it was an add edit tool for adding listings or managing listings. We, we actually worked with a brokerage and what they recognize is that it took. Almost 10 hours of employee time because they managed all of the entry and, and ongoing management at the listing 10 hours employee time just to manage it in the MLS is cause they had to put it in more than one MLS to properly market the listing based upon where they were at. And so they managing the same data going into the same, you know, the same system. And they're spending all this time managing it, plus they couldn't kick off appropriately workflows. So for example, if the agent signs the listing and gets everything set up, you don't want to necessarily put it in the MLS and have it live until you have photos until you have, you know, all the things to appropriately market a listing and, and cheers to MLS. For sure for requiring our most MLS has now require photos to have it go public because, you know, I'm sure you remember back in the day, you'd go online and you'd see all these listings. And none of them had photos on them. And, and so who knows what it was like, but giving brokers the ability to add and edit their listings in a tool that is part of their daily workflow, I think makes so much sense. Just. Having a tool that manages showings. But if you think about it, I mean, look at showings. As an example, we, we are we're in an environment where there was essentially a monopolistic player in that space. And even they had acquired many of their competitors and even the ones, the other competitors that were out there were kind of also rans, you know, single digit percentage of the markets are smaller. And they kind of had access to all of that data. More importantly, I happen to know from experience, if you have a broker customer that wanted to go get access to that data, they would have to have huge increases in charges of what they were paying that vendor. To go get access to their own data. And this brings up a whole other conversation about MITx that we could talk for an hour about too, but being able to get access to that on their own data you know, just for their own listings was one thing and that didn't even account all of their buyers or their, their buyer's agents data. And, and it seems like to me, and you know, something we're keenly focused on at Travis is on the data side of things, of helping. Brokers better compete using their own data. And without access to that without a good middleware layer, like a MLS is you really can't do much because you have all

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: 📍 Hi everyone. And welcome to another episode of brokerage insider. This is the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and real estate technology. My name is Britt Chester, and I'm the host of today's episode. I'm also the director of client success here at Tribus. We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and provider of custom brokerage technology to small, medium, and large brokerages all over. And today on the show, we're going to be talking with red Oak Realty, CEO and owner, Vanessa Bergmark. But that's a thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. That's I'm really excited to jump right into this. I know you and I have worked a little bit together in the. Today, we actually get to kind of talk about where we are in the industry where red Oak is positioned in a lot of other exciting things. I think the first thing I kind of want to talk about is Inman connect, where you and I also just kind of met in person for the first time. I love to hear kind of your thoughts on the conference and as we're returning to conferences, kind of what that's like. So if you wouldn't mind let's, let's start with the panels you were on, what you talked about and kind of your thoughts around. Well, I think it's funny that we've worked with each other probably for about two years. And I spoke to you quite often in your former position and had never met with you in person. And I think that's the great part about it. And then connect is the, the meeting people in real life, right? So we know them in the social and digital media world. We've known them, you know, you were in Colorado and we were working on projects and PR together, but I never really met you in person. The relationship is it goes up a notch and the network goes up a notch when you actually have that human interaction. So that's something that I've always gotten from connect. I've been there going there for probably, oh God, I think it's gotta be at least 12 years and at least 10 years of, of doing panels and, and, you know, being on stage and being in those conferences and, and, and engaging with the audience and coming up with content. So do I think it's going to stay the same? Well, interestingly enough, I thought the format I've been to a couple of conferences since. I guess the pandemics are technically over, but since we, you know, got out of lockdown and I think what's interesting is they feel very much the same. You know, we're wearing masks, we've got some social distancing and some weird plexiglass and things like that. But on a whole, I don't think the content has changed too much. And I don't think. The, the values that you're taking away from the conferences has really changed. So I have, I was actually surprised to see that it was very much the same as it had been pre pandemic. I think the bigger question is how will they change moving forward? To me, the content at, at all of these events has been somewhat secondary to the relationships that are formed. You know, after the content has been shared and spread and, you know, th th the dinners or the grabbing drinks, or the meeting up in the hallway, all those things are really aware of the. Is built. And I think that in my own career and within my own brokerage, I can say so many of my very strong relationships have come from the halls of those conferences in connecting. How do you think the content could change? One of the things, and one of the things I really had as a takeaway was we kind of have an opportunity to maybe explore new ground within the content. And so you know, in the past, you know, everything has been focused on real estate and it's been focused in marketing. And I think the keynote speakers are all. That's sometimes Inman does a really good job of like pulling in these keynote speakers that are either residual or kind of ancillary to the industry, but can speak to real estate. And so I wonder how we can start to integrate like new content ideas where you kind of bouncing around any ideas. Did anything kind of, what did you think about in, in how we can change that content? And I'm not just speaking just to him and I'm thinking just to, to events moving forward how we could change that and maybe how it can make it more engaging and make it a more exciting for attending. Well, you know, I've always felt that the w there's not a deep enough dive, so you can very, like, surfacely touch on some concepts, but then they never really get to go where it's almost like an episode of Schitt's Creek, right? Like you've got 20 minutes and then you're like, ah, it's over. And I feel like that a lot of times with these conference, they try to pack a lot in, so I think that they're hitting. All these paradigms of conversation and to attract more people to come, but they don't, in my opinion, really, they don't go deep enough. So I don't feel like I've sometimes walk away with this like brand new idea or got involved in a really good debate. Kind of, you know, got that innovation spring and had those, had the thread of that content pull out into the night. And I think I would love to see that moving forward. I also think those, you know, those big stages and these huge auditoriums there's that personal connection is only. Is lacking as it is on zoom. And I would love to see content frankly, the way, you know, Matt Beall did it years ago. I don't know if he ever went to Hawaii life's conferences, but they were very intimate. They were small, they were breakout groups and they went deeper and they brought outside concepts in that were not just real estate related, but they were infused into a real estate industry talk. So, you know, I don't know if that's concrete enough, but I think. I think going really, really deep, doing more workshops at conferences would be something that I think people would really get more out of. And then folks that are there getting and sharing would, would get more giving out. But again, I've never ran a conference and I don't know how, how that all works to make that happen. So there might be something in the P and L that makes that super inefficient and some logistics there. I remember a few years ago at Inman, they had this data scientists, scientists, a guy named Ben Wellington, and he ran a blog called I quantum New York. And I remember him talking about open data in New York and the ability to download these troves of data sets that were, you know, from. The cost that parking meters make for a city to where it's like illegal to park in front of garage is like all this random datasets. And it had nothing to do with real estate, but he did this presentation on, you know, what it does, Starbucks and the proximity to a Starbucks. Affect real estate value. And like I just thought that was this really abstract idea. And I thought that was one of the more valuable takeaways I've ever had from an intimate event, because it was so outside of the box, it had nothing to do with median sale price or list price or, or marketing. It was really just about taking data that is seemingly unrelated to real estate and applying it to that. And I thought that was a really creative way to connect two seemingly in connectable ideas. And see that's I, that right there is a perfect example of taking that and not making it a 20 minute talk, but then having a breakout session or then taking those, just taking that person and then maybe the next. You know, the next panelist or the next person that's speaking, put them with that and put these people on debating with each other and just pulling away threads of ideas that you can bring back to your own, your own networks or your own brokerage or your own teams is, is kinda huge. So I would love to see it get I would love to see these become more intimate, even if the price was high. Then having more people, a lower price and less takeaways, I'd rather be deeper, you know, way deeper dive, probably more expensive and a lot more intimate. And I think you'll take, take, take more from it. In my opinion, it could also just be the stage I'm at in my career where you're like, you know, you want, you want that golden nugget. Yeah, I mean, and you want to be wild and, and I think, you know, I don't know, you know, I'm not going to speak for everybody. I certainly can't. But I would say like, you know, coming back to conferences now and coming back to events, there is that sense of excitement where it's like, I'm so happy to be seeing people. I'm seeing some people that I've never met in person. I'm seeing people that I've only talked to on zoom. I've seen people that haven't seen in a couple of years, and that is a lot like that is, you know, You know, almost an overstimulation of, of human contact that I've been yearning for. But now I also want it from those sessions as well. Like I want the, the knowledge, I want the information that's not being shared with me via video. And that. Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that connect does do that I've never seen at any conference nail at the way they do is really build that community. I mean, they have one, it feels like summer camp every, every summer, when you go back every, you know you know, January in New York, it feels like you are reconnecting. With, you know, some of the industry's best. So I think there's a real opportunity because the people in the players are there. It's just, how do you weave out that really, really, really there's really good stories that changes the way the industry works when they go home from those events. If you were going to give anyone a tip, right. Going to a conference and we'll, we're using him in as an example, but I think it's kind of any conference right now, or any event, what would be your, your kind of tips and insights as to how to build those relationships, how to even start those conversations with people that perhaps you've never even met before, or you've only read about them? Cause I think there might be even a little bit of an intimidation factor in, you know, That person is constantly being interviewed or, you know, they're in the press. I follow them on LinkedIn. I mean, how do you even just create that conversation? Is it a matter of walking up and saying, hi, should you, should you reach out beforehand and try and touch base? What would you kind of advise, you know, kind of newbies to. Yeah. I mean, I guess I would, I would S you know, research and if you're, if you're reading and following things and you, and you'd like what that person has to say. Yeah. I think if you know, they're going to be at that conference, it really behooves you to reach out and try to make some time to see them, or to spend any amount of time with that person, if they're speaking there. And I think, you know, in the past, if that's ever happened where someone said, Hey, Kevin, can I meet up with you? The best thing to say is. Y you want to meet up with them something specific because otherwise it's just a, Hey, do you want to grab coffee? And I don't, I don't necessarily know if that's going to propel a person that may be getting several invitations or is on a tight schedule or is going there for their own connections and their own, you know, meetups to To take you up on that coffee or that glass of wine. So it's really like, here's, here's what I've been doing. Here's what I'm thinking. I've been reading your stuff, referenced that stuff, and then here's why I would like to talk with you. And then you give that person that kind of the benefit of the doubt if they're not up for it, but you have a much better chance of converting them. If you give them a specific, like I'd like to meet with you, because this is what I like to take away from a meeting with you. And a lot of people want, we know they want to be able to provide. Resources, these people that are getting up on stage or an up there, just because they don't have anything to say or give, they, they're usually people that want to give back and. And get a lot from sharing information and sharing what they've learned with others, and then seeing others take their, take those ideas and innovate with them. So most people would be open to it, but I think this being as specific as possible for those meetups, and then of course, trying to grab them and book it ahead of time, as opposed to grabbing their arm and saying, are you free right now? Because 9, 9, 7 of those folks are booked up solid when they go to these conferences. Yeah. And I think they got there also. You know, they were networking. They were once the person at the event trying to meet people and then they kind of worked their way up and now everyone wants to meet them. So w whereas I would love to sit here and talk about the conferences all day, too, though. I want to kind of bring it back to red out. And one of the things, you know, I think I just read that press release. We were kind of talking about it before. Talking about this in-house video production, and I'm a little bit familiar with this with Mika Dustin's work. But talk to me a little bit about how red Oak and maybe this was an insight you got from a conference years ago. Like, you know, maybe it was an idea that you had gotten, but talk to me about this in-house video production and how red Oaks really kind of like changing media and marketing materials, both for the agents and the consumers. Yeah, we, well, first of all, say I give all my video influence to my friend, Raj Casar with the boutique down in Southern California. He was getting on me for video probably 10 years before I started doing video. So he was. So far ahead of his time, when he's talking about video, it's like, what do you mean this internet thing? So he got to do video and he hired these huge production teams. I brought in Mika, who I'd known for years. We'd worked together about 22 years ago. And I brought him in, he had done beautiful work. He was an incredible cinematographer. It wasn't like your typical. Real estate video, you know, kind of grown and just kind of going in. And he, what he was, was a storyteller and he infused story into everything he did. And, and when we brought him on, we were, we brought him on for several reasons. But part of it was because of his ability to tell a story through the lens of his camera. And and it was, you know, it was, I think it was a risky thing for a real estate company to be like, yeah, we're going to bring it. Frankly, not a videographer, but like almost like a cinematographer director into our staff. You know, it's super artsy and, and really like a totally different approach. We lucked out because I hired him literally. Six weeks before we got locked up in the pandemic role, totally pivoted into, we got him, you know, once we became essential, he was able to get into the homes and create these stories for the listings that we couldn't really get people in without it being super complex. We won't go into that. Everyone knows how difficult it was. Those first six months, I was able to just go out there and shoot stories of all of our listings. And we were a brokerage that really spun on its heels. And we just made that available for, for everything to our agents. And at that time we did it all free of charge. It was just like, get our product out, get our consumers, get our sellers. Homes in front of buyers. And and then we got really good at it. You know, we just, we had a lot of fun with it. It was, it was, it was at a time where everything was so forgiving that we were able to take risks that probably wouldn't have taken, have we not been smack in the middle of the pandemic, but we were like, whatever, what are we going to lose? We're going to be dead next week. Go big on the video. So yeah, we just had. He came in and did that. And now it's evolved into, you know, how do we share the brand with, you know, potential recruits? How do we share the brand with other businesses? How do we share the brand with consumers? How do we, how do we introduce our agents? Not just our listings to consumers and it just, you know, we have a, I mean, the guy. Booked solid. He also does a lot of us, like for culture. We have our company kickoff and every year he does a really incredible company culture video. That's always a surprise. We just came up with the concept the other night and and we we'll share that here. I'm not sharing it. Won't look an idea, but but you know, he's, he's just super creative and there's things that he can do. Like, it's kind of like having Quentin Tarantino on your staff and I he's just he's. And he comes up with great ideas and and he was like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And then he pushes himself and he comes out with this great product. But what's interesting about even what he does is for our kickoff is it really kind of brings the tribe of right out together. It reminded infuses humor in infusing. Legacy stories and futuristic stories and brings all the characters and individuality of our agents out. And I kind of reminds you of like, why you, why you're with this team and why you, what your values are as a company and it's, and it's so not corporate because honestly, I think we'd all get fired if this company, so we have a lot of fun with it. That's a, that's a fun thing about directing him as the CEO and owner. I don't have anyone to report up to about violations in our videos, but it's been a great thing. I mean, what I would say in all seriousness is video is you got to think way bigger than just listings. Video is our agent. It's it's our staff team. It's our, it's our listings. It's our buyers. It's teaching people. What goes on behind the deal it's culture. I mean, the great part is now two years into it. We are infusing it into almost every single one of our platforms. We train with it. We do our new agent training through it. We're actually rolling out our next office and we are building out a whole high-tech green room just to get more. In-depth. You touched on something interesting there. And you just kind of, I don't know if you breezed over it, but you said like recruiting and using it as part of that, maybe recruiting model. So that kind of brings me to a question of like, how has that, I mean, how has the brokerage kind of shifted? Cause that's you have video baked into it now, correct. Like video. I mean, that is something that is not like you're, that's not a suggestion to agents. That's something that says when your listings you should use, use, use our in-house guy use Mika because. Just as much a part of this transaction now, as you know, someone 10 years ago was saying like, you have to use your phone or, you know, shoot your own photos. So how has that, I mean, how has that brokerage model, or I guess, how has your business kind of changing and adapting, you know, after last year, like you said, you spun on your heels. You were, you were very agile, your,

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT Hi everybody. And welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann. I'm the CEO of Travis. We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate provider of custom brokerage technology to medium and large sized brokerages in the United States, Canada, and around the world. In addition, I'm the managing partner for Travis capital. We're a private equity fund focused on the PropTech and. On today's episode, we have Greg burns. Greg is the co-founder and CEO of drop offer a company that if you were at the inbound conference recently, you probably saw all over the place. It's an app that helps dial you into off-market listings. And we'll learn more about how that happens, cause I'm sure our listeners will be intrigued by that lead in on top of being the CEO of drop-off or Griggs, a licensed realtor with compass and previously had his license with Sotheby's and elite Pacific property. Great. Thanks so much for joining us. Eric is so great to be here with you and your listeners. Well, let's dive in. And, and first of all, I'd like to know, and I always ask people that have been in the industry for awhile, and it definitely seemed like you've been in the real estate brokerage industry for awhile. What got you into real estate? Yeah, I've always loved architecture. I remember when I was a young child just drawing floor plans and kind of building my dream house and that actually evolved into. A bit of a career in construction. I was a project manager for an ultra high end builder, and I really got to know what it took to build these homes. And granted, I was pushing the pencil. I wasn't necessarily, you know, swinging and hammer, but I understood the value of each nail. I understood the finished detail that goes into all these homes. And you would slave, you know, you would, let's put it this way. You would spend months and months and months building these homes. And at the end of the day, I just will never forget where a real estate agent would come in. Spend about 30 days, you know, marketing it and ultimately selling it and making like three times as much money as I did for this, these efforts that we were doing to build these homes. So I quickly realized like, oh, maybe I'm at the wrong part of this transaction. And I quickly went and got my real estate license and leveraged my, my knowledge about these homes, especially in the high end world to, you know, jump kind of feet first into the. Ultra high end real estate world. Quickly kind of rise to the top because I was able to explain this the golden thread, right? What, what into some of these really special homes. And it was, it was really a great it was an added tool for me when I'm going to listing presentations to be able to start firing off all these finishes and the details that went into these homes before the homeowner would even go and you know, start exceeding. Explaining some of these, these finishes that went into these homes and that really allowed me to pick up listings quickly and start selling some of these really beautiful, beautiful homes. And it it quickly led to this ability to. Established myself as an agent and then move on. And we started establishing ourselves as brokerages. And that was first as a small company, small company called elite Pacific, and then ultimately led and led to the ability to bring compass Hawaii over here, which has been, been nothing short of fantasy. And, and so obviously you're an agent with compass which, you know, I, I will say we have probably about half of our listeners are, are intrigued and would like to, to dig into that more than we probably will today. And other half of our listeners are like, gosh, darn it. Compass that are out there. So what, you know, I have to ask the question of, of what was it that drew you to compass and said, Hey, let's, let's launch it here in wine. There were a couple of reasons. Let's just start at the top. Like we were interviewing other companies to come over here because we had, I had a team that was prepared to make a big move. And at the end of the day, you know, after meeting Robert Rapkin and just seeing now from again, from the top down, what a genuine individual, he was, how hard working of a man, he was to get the company to where it is today, you know, meant a lot. And then to obviously see the impact that they were doing on the main. It was very obvious to us here in the islands. One thing that we also realized too, is we're probably the number one sought after referral market for compass. So there was an opportunity that existed there for us to get that referral pipeline moving rather quickly. So it was, it was with all those combined with the fact that Hawaii real estate and the way we market here is like going back in. And I always used to, you know, take the advantage of, or you utilized the fact of jumping on the airplane and going to events like in men, I would be able to bring back knowledge here that people really thought it was all my kind of inception, but it is in fact, you know, just myself traveling to the mainland and learning more about it. But that being said, Compass was able to do was bring a lot of this technology that was more common on the mainland, but quite revolutionary over here to really impress a lot of the client or sorry, the agents here to understand that technology really is here to help you be more efficient and more successful. And so compass was a great platform for that because the tech tools do exist, especially for, like I said, for agents here in Hawaii. It was a, there was an extreme advantage with some of the tech that was being provided. Yeah, it seems like a Hawaii like a few places around it's it's know, always a little slow to adopt everything. It seems like it takes an extra few years to, to cross the ocean and get down to you guys. Right. Exactly. It that's exactly it, but you can, you can take advantage of that. Right. And that was something that really helped me out as an agent is I realized that quickly. So I would go over. And I'll never forget, you know, going to invent events and I'd wear like a Hawaiian men's leg and people would immediately ask about it. And I get to immediately talk about Hawaii by the end of the event, I'd be, you know, Mr. Hawaii and that's you're replaceable when it comes to, you know, referrals. For sure. And, and it sounds like that was a huge opportunity for you to bring bring compass over there. Cause I'm sure they wanted a compass, a division to be able to send people over to. So it sounded like that was a huge win and definitely part of it. And, and I've got to ask too about the pandemic. It seems like you guys were locked down, but then it kind of opened up and it seemed like the flood gates opened with people wanting to buy. Properties in Hawaii. Is that, is that accurate? Oh, you're absolutely on point with that, you know, it's, it was really an interesting time in real estate over here in Hawaii. We, when the, when the pandemic first too, we were terrified, frankly, you know, we thought that nobody was going anywhere and everybody was just going to stay put we, we quickly realized what happened was. Yes. People had to stay home and work from home, but where home was became more irrelevant. And what we saw was this, this massive shift of west coast markets, mostly let's call it like Denver west, realize that, Hey, you know what? I can write. And live in Hawaii and there will be no issue with that from my employer or no, from, from peers or whatever it might be. They realize that it's it's possible now. And with, you know, even if a young children, they, they had some great schools here that could be considered as options that were actually stayed open. So many of our private schools didn't close. So an example would be like, The school that my children go to started about a year and a half. Well, sorry. About a year and a half ago had about 150 kids total pre or post pandemic. We're now over 300 kids. So it's doubled in its size because we had this. Really a mass movement of families that are willing to live here in Hawaii and work here from Hawaii and raise a family here in Hawaii. Now that might not be there forever plan, but for the next several years they realize it's doable and you know, they're, they're really their families are excelling over here. It's a great lifestyle for, for their, for everybody in the family. Yeah, it certainly seems. And, and frankly, I did the same thing. I bought a place in, at a beach when the pandemic hit, because I said, Hey, look, this isn't going to be two weeks. Like everybody wants to initially talking about you know, where do I want to spend the next year of my life at? And I said, you know, let's, let's go to the beach because at least on the beach, you can walk and do whatever, you know, whatever you want to outside as opposed to, you know, in a big city where everything was locked down and fact. And in two of the cities where Travis has offices, Chicago, and Denver things, even restaurants were closed down until into 2021 where all you could do was delivery. And I think I would have gone stir crazy. And if I had had to done that for, for a year, Where I couldn't get out of the house, couldn't do anything et cetera. And it seems like Hawaii offered that, that great opportunity. And certainly it looks like real estate was was a big winner, a good choice for people to make during the pandemic. Right? No question. And you've got to keep in mind too, with the focus being Denver over as our main driver of the market this last year and a half. Like a lot of, a lot of those buyers were looking at Hawaii real estate and looking at it as actually an inexpensive. W now, granted, we can't say that for the whole country, but a lot of these Californians, you know Washingtonians let's say British Columbia, they were able to buy property here at what they would consider like a discount. So they did, they did just that they came over. A lot of our property here that were, that was property that loud, like elbow room. It wasn't necessarily like vacation rental property or condos. It was the property that gave them some acreage, you know, gave him the ability to kind of wander their own property and not bump into anybody. So that, that is the product that did exceptionally well. We, we experienced a little bit of a, kind of a a. Oh, a slower rollout back to normality. And in the regard that Canada, which is one of our largest buying markets over here, Just was allowed to come back to Hawaii within the last couple of weeks. To me, that's the next rush that we're going to see in real estate here in Hawaii, likely to be that Canadian market, looking at the cation rental properties, these condos ones that actually can generate revenue. I think that's where we're going to see kind of this next push in our real estate market. Yeah. And, and where I'm at in Florida kind of sounds pretty similar in that too, in that, you know, there's plenty of people that's snowbird down here and the Canadians, the opening, the border up you know, certainly is coming at a time where you know, Canadians can come down. And spend time at th at their places. Many of them had places already in Florida and they couldn't even access it. And we're stuck with this asset and now they at least get to enjoy it. And who knows you know, they bring, bring tourism dollars and everything like that to Florida. And, and of course, to a hotel. As well, very similar, very similar stories. In that regard, you get a lot from Asia too, though. Don't you do? Depending on the island though. So Oahu tends to have really the most of the Asian market appeal. A lot of that is because Oahu, which is where Waikiki is. Market to them and make it much easier for them to enjoy their time there. And what I mean by that is the Japanese. As an example, many of them don't have driver's licenses. So renting cars over here is practically impossible for them to do so. A lot of the outer islands don't cater to that. Whereas on a wahoo, they have the actual Japanese board of tourism has have their own buses that travel. And so it makes their experience their much more enjoyable. So we certainly see the, the, the, I would say most of the Asian market still gravitate towards a wahoo where Maui is very much a when it comes to international buyers. Very strong with the Canadian buyers. And then, you know, some of the other islands like Hawaii and the big island, those do very well with like high net worth mainland us. That's where Larry Ellison and mark Zuckerberg are fighting over they're massive multi hundred million dollar properties. Right. It's interesting. Yeah. So Ellison bought the island about 97% of the island of Lanai which sits just outside you, you look at it when you're. And he's turned, what was, you know, kind of a little sleepy retreat resort for locals into you know, ultra exclusive getaway for, for the high net worth individuals. Well, okay. I could sit here and talk about Hawaii real estate and I probably could sit there and talk. Why real estate all day and be very interested in it, but call Greg, if you have a referral, I'm sure he'd appreciate. You're happy to help. Happy to help, but let's talk about your new startup. So drop offer, drop offer was founded earlier this year. If I, if I remember correctly. Yes, you're actually the prior. Your prior. Okay. So 2020. So here, here you are in Hawaii and I'm sure, even in 2020, and even 2021, the big problem that every agent had was there was no inventory, right? So Greg and a co-founder get the idea to go. And I think the language you use is unlock the off-market inventory, right? Turn the off market on it's kind of. Yeah. So, so tell me, give, give me the give me, let's start with the 50,000 foot view of what drop offer does, and then let's, let's start with. Yeah. So, you know, again, so drop off or does just that we turn the off market on. We allow agents and their clients to submit offers directly to off-market homeowners through multiple delivery methods, one being smart postcard, also offering targeted web ads as well as emails. So what we're doing is we're opening up inventory know thick to really. Take it back to where it began from, was myself walking down the streets and door knocking on behalf of my clients. I had buyers that were willing to spend top dollar, if I could just find them inventory. And this frankly was pre pandemic, right. This has always been an issue for the most part. And so I was. I was literally going, knocking on doors, seeing if there was any interest by these homeowners. And although I wouldn't certainly wasn't batting a thousand. I was definitely having success in doing so, but the amount of time Eric, that it took was like exhausting. I would spend all day and gets to just get a response. And so I knew that there just had to be a better way. Like I said, Hey, I knew it was a success. The successful. To generate sales. I just knew it took a lot of time to do. So with Keck and understanding the process cause I was doing it so often, I was introduced to my co-founder Kemani Clark and together with his background in intellectual property, as well as computer science, you know, we devise a system that what used to take me like really days to do is now can be done in a matter of. And it still has this impact on that homeowner to really stop, make them think about, yeah. You know what I have been thinking about selling my house and here's a quick private way to do it, I'm listening. And so it's really taking those pain points that I had as an. Realizing that there was, I'm not the only one with these pain points and developing technology around it that allowed the agent to be much more efficient with his time. And at the end of the day, make more dollars per hour. But that's not the only thing that's important. One of the, think the big things for agents now is, and I've mentioned this before, but it's to be that trusted advisor and there's no better way to be a trusted advisor than if you're educating your clients. And so to be able to provide inventory that they did not know of, you are becoming that educator again, which as an agent and in the last 15 years, we really lost a lot of that power of education. And so to be able to bring that back. Have your clients really appreciate what you're doing for them. You should get back into that role of trusted advisor. And that is that's probably the most powerful position for an agent. For sure. So, so obviously based upon kind of what you're saying, though, it begs the question of how is the door-knocking creates that connection door knocking creates the, you know, it's hard to, to It's it's her to disengage from somebody once you've opened the door, right? Like I get people that come to my door every day, not every day, but once a week, at least trying to sell me solar for my house. And you know, it's, it's tough. To say, get off my lawn, you know? So you, you engage with them for 20 or 30 seconds. And if there's any interest there, you know, if they're good at what they do, they'll, they'll, you know, try to pull it out of you and extend a 32nd connection into you know, maybe half an hour connection. Right, right. When you send postcards or mail or ads or anything like that, you can't quite get that level of connection. And in fact, you know what I see frequently and this happens all the time in the. In the, in a space that it's, it's just a little it's I've never seen any agent be able to do this without feeling scummy is the death market. You know what I'm saying? Like when somebody dies trying to connect with their with their loved ones to do that when my mom passed away last year And I still got from a KW agent up until about two months ago, every week or two, I would get a letter asking to buy the house, even though I had sold it to a family friend long ago. Right. But yeah, but how do you make that connection where it's not just, you know, thrown away or not paid attention to what is it about drop offer? Narrows it down or connects with the potential seller and gets them to be more interested than just these random letters and broadcasting that's done traditionally in the way of getting. One of the things that we've done, because we understood the same thing. You lose that connection, that face-to-face connection. When you bring tech into this process, but what we're able to do is we kind of bring back or we pause that, that homeowner. Process of like throwing the postcard into the trash or not clicking on any of our ads is we're actually utilizing the image of your home and it causes pause and, you know, it brings intrigued. And so with that and proper messaging, you know, we're, we're confident that our, our...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: Hi everybody. And welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann and I'm the CEO of Travis. We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and provider of custom brokerage technology to medium and large sized brokerages in the United States, Canada, and even around the world. In addition, I'm the managing partner of Travis' capital, a private equity fund focused on the prop tech industry. On today's episode, we have Michael Lucarelli. Now Michael is the co-founder and CEO of rent spree at leasing management tool that has been focused on the MLS industry recently. And I'll, we'll be sure to dive a little more into that, Michael. Thanks so much for joining us today and thank you so much, Eric. Really glad to be here and excited to chat with you today. Yeah, so let's dive in. So, you know, the first question that I pretty much ask all of our guests is how did you get into real estate and real estate tech? Yeah. So going back a couple of years ago is when I first actually moved. So I'm from the east coast and I moved to California. It was about 2014 or so. And so a lot of what I experienced was first originating as a renter. And so I had done it quite a bit of moving around up until that point and just saw how there's really a massive number of people that are renting. And the U S again, kind of looking at it from the renter lens and that it was just a completely fragmented process where when you're a renter, you're kind of thrown through these loops where you have to submit your application to many different properties if to pay fees over and over again, you don't really hear back. There's a question of information security with your sensitive information. So I saw all that on the renter side and then kind of combining that a little bit. I actually ended up getting my real estate license and hung it at a local Remax. And so I really put both pieces together where on one hand I was renting and saw that. And then I was working in the Remax office and I saw actually a ton of agents that were working with rentals or at least trying to, and at this office. Considering how many people were working with rentals on a regular basis? I was surprised that there was no tools. There was no resources, even like the broker didn't really have any feedback or advice to give to agents on how to handle these types of rental transactions when agents were working with lease listings and representing renters. And so I just saw a huge gap in an opportunity and given how large renting is in the us. Just like saw big chance for me to kind of come in and create a standardization that can streamline these processes for renters. But of course, also now a lot of what we do is focusing on agents, brokerages landlords, property managers, MLS. So from a high level, you know, just to, so that everybody is listening. And can you give us a high level understanding of exactly what rents Bree does for either the broker or the consumer? Yeah. W what rent-free does, is it really looks at You know, like these rental transactions, and this is not necessarily something designed for property managers. Although we do have property management companies that use rent-free it's really for agents that are mainly focusing on selling and buying, but they may have from time to time the opportunity to work on a rental, whether they have a lease listing and they're representing a landlord, or they might represent a renter. And so Given how many people, how many people are kind of working on those types of transactions and spree really seeks to streamline that process as much as possible, because we know that typically. Agents and brokers don't tend to earn as much on rental commission. And so when you have these situations where agents and brokers are possibly spending a little bit of too much time on these types of transactions and not earning a whole lot, it doesn't really make financial sense in certain cases. And so rent-free aims to streamline these rental transactions as much as possible so that it becomes kind of worthwhile. Maybe if you're not spending a whole lot of time on a rental, you can get it done within a couple hours instead of a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Then some of those smaller commission checks make a lot of sense. And so the way that rents actually works is it handles really the entire process that an agent needs to go through in order to close a lease listing. So everything from bedding, the tenants. So we do online applications that are automatically set up. So renters can apply online using in some cases like our standard rental applications. Or even Association forms. We also provide instant access to screening reports through TransUnion. So I'm talking about credit checks, background checks, eviction reports. They also verify income. Check references all that kind of stuff. So basically gathering all the information that's needed to vet a tenant, and then beyond that as well. We give a great way that these agents that are vetting these tenants, they can basically make a decision and then send a lease out for signature. So really like from listing to lease is kinda what I like to say in terms of what rent-free handles for these rental transactions. And like I said, the main thing is just to streamline and create some efficiency there so that it makes it a lot more worthwhile for agents that work on rentals. I and I, from a personal experience and you're, you're out in California. Correct. So from a personal experience, when I first moved out we were getting, Travis started up back in 2009. I moved out to California and was in a hotel looking for a place to rent in the Newport beach area. And I'm out looking around and I probably call 15. Folks and I focused on ones that were listed in the MLS and you know, a few that were on Craigslist because I wasn't seeing a whole lot of animals and got out there, made a, made a bunch of phone calls. And I will say I probably got two out of 15 people to call me back. And I always tell this story at events about the most important app on your phone is the phone app to agents. And I had an agent call me back eight months later, literally and said, I heard you're interested in 1, 2, 3, any street. You know, are, are are you still looking, would you like to go see it? I said, I signed a lease two months ago and I said, well, you know, is there a reason you're just getting to this now? And, oh, what's a lease listing. I, I, I just don't care about it. Right. And so he, you know, that's, that's the somewhat of the problem in the space. And so obviously it looks like you guys are, are, are trying to make it easier for agents. Now that begs the question is, you know, there's other mega organizations out there, like for example, Yardi is a big one, Y a R D I, for those listening, if you haven't heard of it, they're kind of one of the big players in this space. And they, they do all sorts of things. But like, for example, you know, you're, it seems like your client and their. Are two different things, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're definitely different. And I would say for Yardi in particular, they would cater more towards let's say like institutional property management firms like large multi-million dollar managers even like re and so those kind of targets that Yardi and others, like it a provide tools for they account for about 50% of the rental market in the U S. The other 50% tends to be more like your mom and pop landlords, mama pop landlord, small property managers. And this is actually the half of the market that they're not really given any kind of standardized tools and they're most likely to need assistance and kind of working with their rentals. And so that's where like, those people are very likely to maybe ask an agent for help either, either because they don't know how to handle the rental process or screening. Or maybe, perhaps they don't have time and they need help from an agent or a broker to kind of get those services done. And so rents for free really does focus a little bit differently on that segment of the market. And because we focus on that segment segment of the market, which is more like the mom and pop side, We cater very well to them because we don't hate our tool is free. So we don't charge landlords or agents or managers, anything to use it. You can set up and start using our tool within 60 seconds, which if you compare to those like Yardi, Yardi is 10 thousands, or maybe tens of thousands of dollars. With months to set up the software. So it's really something that is very quick and convenient for agents and smaller landlords, to be able to just get up and running and really get their transactions completed without. So, you know, the, the, the numbers that you're giving there of what percentage of the spaces under served from, from what you're saying is there's, there's a lot because, you know, I think right before we were talking right before we started recording this, this episode, you were telling me that roughly a third of all. Homes or households in the United States are currently renting. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's correct. So roughly one third of the housing units in the U S are rental housing. And so it's a big market. It's very much underserved. And like I said, you know, even within that, looking at the long tail. So for example, on the institutional side, there may be, let's say hundreds or thousands of different property management companies out there. Or kind of serving and then maybe using Yardi's out there, but there's millions of landlords. And so these are the people that they don't have any kinds of tools available for them. And so it is a large market and it's growing. And so you can look back dating to about even like the seventies. When renting really kind of started growing in popularity at that time. And it's been really on a sustained upward swing ever since that time. And there are certain events that happen in the economy that accelerate the adoption of renting such as the financial crisis of 2000. Just changing habits, people liking a little bit more mobility, a little bit of flexibility, moving around jobs a little bit more. And so all these factors really kind of contribute to a change in what we're seeing with our real estate landscape in the U S where it's not so much where people are necessarily looking to, or able to purchase a home. Anytime they like people are often choosing to rent. I mean, Because they want to, or because they need to. And so it's a, it's a good opportunity to really you know, cater to this type of market and really look at how the trends in the U S are changing and how agents and brokers can embrace that change. So, you know, just some quick napkin fear, not even napkin math, but what you're, what you're saying is that there's an opportunity for, for something like one sixth of all households in the United States to be connected up with an agent we're, you know, they're not served by a mega organization that you already might use. And, and it seems like from what you're saying, that there's a population to be served there by realtors and maybe some easy commissions. If they can use a tool like yours to get them from, from, you know, to that, to that lease kind of position. But that they're being underserved right now, or that realtors are under serving them. And so, you know, it seems like there's a huge opportunity. And in that percentage, that one, six of households, percentage that not only could you get them for that, but maybe migrate them to a commission down the road. Yes. Yes. Yes. So you're going to definitely get that maybe small rental commission where, Hey, it could be, you know, a couple of hundred to a couple thousand dollars at most for that. And that's certainly great. And there's definitely value, especially, like I said, it kind of goes back to maybe you're not making a lot, but if you can spend. A lot less time on it then, Hey, maybe you take it. Maybe if you're a newer agent getting started or maybe if there's some gaps in income if you can work with a quick rental, it closes a lot faster than a for sale property. So, Hey, that can be a nice little quick win. So it kind of keeps on going or sustain a new agent, but then like you said we know. In the future. It's not that people are necessarily like, like I said, choosing to rent and not purchase a home. They may be renting in the interim while they save up and then they're going to be renting for on average, a longer time period than ever was done in the past. And so just kind of a misconception out there that people are no longer buying and that they're renting instead. But really the truth is, is that people are tending to actually purchase a home. About seven years later than they normally would have in the past. And like I said, there's a variety of factors that kind of contribute to that. But the question that agents and brokers should be asking themselves is how can we position ourselves to those renters so that when the time comes, when they're ready to purchase a home, that renter can kind of come back and tap into the agent that might've helped them with. With their rental transaction. So it's a great opportunity to keep those relationships. Is anything in rent spree help them with that? Like, is there a list of all my past transactions, if I'm an agent and I sign up with you or if I'm a broker and sign up for all of my agents and account with you guys, is there some way to go back and see everybody that I've helped? You can see everyone that goes back there that kind of goes into the system. And so it'll help you kind of keep track of everything in there. And we're making some really kind of cool enhancements that can. Further streamline that process. So we'll be making some changes that will let's say, allow you to kinda message renters a little bit, see when they might be likely to maybe make a housing change so you can make sure that you're kind of there and knowing when to follow up with renters and the whole thing with rent. Is that when you work with a rental, you're not necessarily only just getting into contact with the two renters who may end up actually renting the property. He may have come into contact with dozens of prospective tenants as well, who maybe have shown interest in this rental or maybe have applied, but they didn't get the place. And so these are all also very important interactions that if you're on top of things, you can kind of tap into these individuals as well. Encompassed them all as part of your network. So I think that's a great benefit. And if you're smart, you're definitely gonna be thinking about those types of. But then beyond that as well, we, we, we know that one of the reasons why you know, a renter might come back to an agent when it's time to purchase a home, it really comes down to the service that that renter receives and they associate that service with their agent. And so if you're an agent and you do a great job servicing or renter, making that transaction super easy and smooth, then you're going to make a strong impression. And that's, what's going to lead to that recurring business later on down the road. And so that's also where, Hey, you have a professional process in place. You have this tool that streamlines everything. It makes it super easy and painless for the renter. While that renter's going to be more likely to come back and associate a positive experience with the agent who helped them out. Gotcha. And I, I agree with that. Totally. In fact, one of the things that I've, we've long pushed on the tribal side of things is you know, to connect with those folks because renters are usually going to buy something at some point, especially if you educate them. But the problem that I see a lot of times, Agent's face is this the forgetfulness to follow up with past clients? Everybody wants to work the new lead that came in the door yesterday, but nobody ever works the past clients. So it sounded like, it sounds like you're working on some tools to help them maybe automate some of that. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's, I think the key point really that you get that you brought up that, Hey, everyone knows that they should keep in contact with past clients, but it's. You know, it takes time to do that. You have to really invest in a tool or invest your time to track those people and put some kind of infrastructure in place. And so we're going to try to make it as easy as possible that at least on the renter rental side of things, that's for the renters that you kind of work with as an agent we'll try to make it really easy for you to kind of keep in contact with those individuals through our platform. So that's something that we're going to be launching pretty soon, and we're really excited to be able to offer. Because those are the types of things that really make a difference to agents and can really streamline their overall process and Hey, and the end of the day, bring them a lot more. Yeah, for for sure. Especially when there's, you know, we're talking a huge percentage of, of housing out there that is, is underserved. In, especially in this space, that's there, it seems like. So now let's, let's talk a little bit about your growth because holy cow I'll be real honest as of last year. I probably don't think if you said rent spree to me, I would have said. I'm going to assume it's something to do with Reynolds, but I've never heard of it before. And now it seems like this year, all I hear is just press release after press release. After press release of, of mostly MLS is integrating with you guys. What, what shook loose this year? Yeah. You know when we had launched, we had also you know, we, we provide services mainly and we will work with larger real estate organizations. So we've been working with some really large organizations adding back for a couple of years now. So we've been working with Sierra molests, which is the California regional multiple listing service the largest MLS in the country since about 2017 or so. And we just launched with a couple other large MLS. So we we're now up to. 30 different multiple listing services that we partner with. And so we actually have a really interesting integration into the MLS. So, like I said, it's really comes down to this idea of streamlining these processes as much as possible for agents. And so I think what's really attributed to our growth has been partnering with these large, you know, some of the multiple listing services, large brokers, and we can actually embed. This rental process into the tools and softwares that agents and brokers are already using. And so by doing things like that, that's where Hey, like you can really compress down the transaction time to get these things done. And so we've been working with, like I said, 30 MLS is that are launched and most of those have been launched in the past year, just because we hit on something we know at work. And we've been building a lot of momentum and getting a lot of positive user feedback and it's been great to kind of see that. So it's really exciting time for us. Yeah. For for sure. So, so it seems like MLS is, are just seeing more value in getting into that space, or do you think that they've been missing this space for, for a long time and they're finally waking up to the, the, the...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: Hi everyone. And welcome to another episode of brokerage insider. This is the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and real estate technology. My name is Britt Chester. I'm the host of today's episode. I'm also the director of client success here at TRIBUS. We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and provider of custom brokerage technology to small, medium, and large brokerages all over the world today on the show, we're going to be talking about marketing and specifically digital marketing, and we're joined by Nick Markman. Principal product strategists at vocalize. Nick, welcome to the show. Hey, Britt. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I think digital marketing is a really exciting topic right now, as we enter this kind of like, I don't want to say post COVID, but this, this next phase. But before we get into it, Nick, tell us a little bit about a vocalize as well as a little bit about your. Yeah, absolutely. So a vocalize we're collaborative marketing platform. So we basically enable local, small and medium businesses to easily execute sophisticated digital marketing. And we do that by partnering with their, either their national brand, like their. Where we partner with technology platforms, you know, like try this or other CRM website providers. And through that collaboration of partnering with the what we call the sponsoring partner and the data that they have and, you know, getting a marketing platform, that's integrated with the tools that those agents and brokers are using. We're able to accomplish marketing outcomes on behalf of the, those users that they wouldn't be able to achieve with. That collaboration and also saved them a lot of time. You know, we'll talk about this, you know, I think throughout the conversation, but the reality is that, you know, local and small businesses some of them may be great marketers, certainly. But to be an expert in, in digital marketing, certainly requires a lot of time and resources to truly be an expert at. And a lot of those businesses that they just don't have that, right? If you're an agent or a broker, you're going to be spending most of your time selling houses and managing your relationships. So our ideas that we want to be that digital marketing easy button that allows them to still get all the performance that they want from digital marketing leads, revenue. But by spending a lot less time doing so. And doing so in a, in a really seamless way where they don't really need to set anything not bright. So by doing that, we've seen, for example, in real estate agents and brokers go from spending nine hours a week, marketing their business to nine minutes. And we've seen dramatic performance results as well, seeing 400% stronger performance than when they're doing it on. Yeah. I mean, I, I know real estate agents are there's, there's so much of an ask on a real estate agent today, right? Like there's so much expectation as to the service that they're, that they're meant to provide. And, and whenever I'm, you know, working one-on-one with either agents or brokerages, it's always a matter of looking at, you know, how much time do we have in the week and how. Can we really allocate to not just learning and understanding digital marketing, but also deploying that and seeing a solid return there. So I think, you know, tools, you know, I know at Tribus we've, we've partnered with a vocalize and I think that this partnership has been, you know, just in its infancy right now. One of our, one of our more exciting ones, just because it provides new opportunities for us. To, to put their face out there to put their name out there, to put their properties out there. So we'll, let's, we'll get into that here in a little bit. But before we do, I'd love to kind of jump back to the, the the, the benchmark, right? Like the mile marker in all of history right now that everyone talks about and looking at the trends pre. Right. Like what did digital marketing, what did that landscape kind of look like inside of real estate before? You know, the, the, the great, the great flattener. So Nick, from your view, and then from that of a vocalize, what were some of the trends that y'all were seeing and that y'all were kind of focusing on prior to this, this big change. Yeah, absolutely. I'd say, you know, there's certainly a thread there that is the same when you compare pre and post. And I totally hear you. It's safe to say we're post COVID. It's not, not accurate right beforehand. I think there was a lot less variety of. Marketing touch points, ways of communication. Honestly, I, you know, as I think about certainly real estate, that landscape pre COVID, it's really commoditize, you know, a lot of listing ads, which we still see, that's what, you know, bread and butter stuff, very important in the listing ads. But COVID, and you know, the shift from high. In-person touch points to primarily digital or online ways of communication really was a, I think, a forcing function and innovation in terms of how agents and how the industry was using digital marketing and just digital channels in general. So I, I think you, I think that was one big change is that, that lack of variety. Whereas now you see a lot more seller leads, home valuation you know, video ads, 3d tours. It was a little more stagnated is probably too severe, but it is a little more standardized, I think. So, so there was some good, certainly that, that, that came out just in terms of. But innovation of using some of these tools and services. Another thing that I, I would add there, you know, in this as both a kind of COVID theme, as well as just what we have seen in the. Real estate market. You, you know, when you take a look at things like the low inventory levels, that was starting to happen, certainly pre COVID, but was not where it is at certainly now. So it was a lot stronger focus. I think, you know, pre COVID on, on that buyer lead generation, we saw more of that. Whereas now it's a lot more blended or even a heavier focus or interest in seller leads. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember I was sitting I was at an IMiD connect event in January of. 2020. And I was interviewing all these agents and you know, marketing executives and admins, and I was attending all these you know, these sessions and listening to everybody make their predictions for 2020. And you know, I, I go back and I look at some of that footage and I look at some of those interviews and I think about those sessions and it was like, wow, we were all entirely blindsided. Right. I think like a real obvious comparison, like you said, that that humans touchpoint, right? Open houses you know, before we're a staple and now they're, they're almost like a, and I don't want to, I would never call an open house, like a novelty, but it's like, we've got a virtual tour, a port, a drone video. Everything had to get migrated very quickly to the internet, right? Like suddenly like everyone, is there, all of your, your internet traffic started spiking. I mean, I think we saw. So much just traffic there. So, so I guess kind of that, that leads perfectly into the next question. Like, you know, what did, what did COVID do to real estate marketing and like digital branding and how are we like, kind of like shifting with that because it's changing every single day. Right. And, and I, I love the innovation in this industry and I love the opportunities for interview innovation as well, but I guess, how are we kind of like shifting with that, with the agent marketing like that one-to-one. You know, what does, what does that transition kind of look like from, from your standard? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think overall certainly from the marketing perspective whether it's digital or other channels, you know, COVID and some of the changes that came out of that I think were, were largely positive. I'll caveat that by saying this has been an incredibly tough time. So as I talk about that the upside or the positive that we results, we're saying by no means, are we saying it's been easy for agents right on the ground. Obviously this has been hard for everyone, but, but truly in terms of the innovation of ways to communicate with your customers that we've already talked about, and I'll go in a little deeper, but also just on the performance side it was unprecedented times in, in a positive way. I actually think as we reflect on the past, What year and a half to two years. So I'm just doubling down on, on again, what we mentioned, you know, it was real estate and especially agent interactions with clients has been such a heavy in-person form of communication. So that was immediately stripped away. So we saw these digital channels, especially things, you know, like Facebook, Instagram, Which are so visual and can be great channels for assets like videos via adoption and usage of those platforms really increased in innovative way. So we've already talked about, you know, 3d tools obviously was huge and you see that both from the platform side and the Zillows and the realtor dot coms of the world, and that reports all making a heavier focus on that kind of content. But we saw the best performing agents also. Pulling that through to how they market, even if it's just them recording a video of themselves, walking through a house, and then sending that out over email, posting that on, on Facebook, running a video ad or even doing, you know, market updates in that format. You know, we think of a lot of these channels that you can still have. Personal touch in terms of how your broadcasting you're communicating your brand, but also who you can target. Right. I can get in front of my customers pretty easily. I can target my local area with this message or this, this listing. So again, that, that forcing function of, of being innovative in how agents and brokers, they're talking to their customers. As one thing. And then on the performance side, you know from a vocalizes perspective we're, we're in a, you know, a lot of industries, real estate is, is, is certainly a key one for us. And so as soon as you know, COVID really started rewinding back to March, 2020, We wanted to start really looking at the data. Right. We have an interesting purview where we have, you know, millions of ads we can analyze and, and a lot of spend behind that. And so starting in March, we did monthly and quarterly updates, just looking at the performance going on in the industry and just some interesting things that, that all share that came out of that. I think the overall theme, as I mentioned, right. It was an unprecedented time in terms of strong performance in these channels. So just a few things, things that I'll share real quick here. So one thing that we noticed when you looked at 2019 to 2020 CPMs which that means cost per a thousand impressions, basically a metric of how much your need to pay for your Media. You can almost think of it as like a gasp. Or some degree for your food for your ads gets used so often. So thank you Pedics for that explanation. Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's definitely one of those, you know, maybe lesser known metrics, but basically just the call, you know, how expensive are your ads basically that decrease every 20% year over year 2019 to 2020. So just the ability for agents brokers to. In front of people, more affordably, get more eyes on their ads and their messages for, you know, fewer dollars. We saw a dramatic change there but then also on the intent and performance side, when we look at things like lead generation I think the most shocking thing that we saw and we saw this just to continue to increase month over month throughout COVID, but lead conversion rates. So if you think of someone that clicks on your. And then someone that submits a lead, what percentage of the people that click on your ad actually go to submit a lead that's the lead conversion rate that increased 658% from March, 2020 to March, 2021. So people that were interacting with these ads and digital formats. More than we'd ever seen in any of our data. We're submitting leads at an increasingly higher rate. So just was a sign of really strong consumer intent in terms of not just seeing an ad and clicking on it. But I actually, you know, I'm interested in this. I want to submit my information. I want to start this conversation. I'm in a relationship with. Yeah. And I think that's definitely reflected across the industry as well. Right? I mean, I think people who might've been shopping for homes you know, one year in advance in March, April and may of last year, they bought in June and July. And I think that's a direct result. Of of those ads and have that, like, you know, that, that increase in marketing and, and agents and brokerages kind of, you know, realizing like how quickly we have to shift. And we have to adapt this model. If we're not able to get in front of our agents face to face, we have to meet them where they are. And so I think that that was like, that's a very that's a pretty exciting metric because it, you know, it speaks exactly to what we're talking about, right? Like the, the value of marketing is to get in front of where your audiences and. That that is reflected in the stats. So it's the lead conversion rate increase 600, I think he said 658%. No, I think we can look at last year's sales. And you know, I think everyone was a little scared in March and April, but we saw a spike in real estate. You know, we saw more listings, home values increased across the country and, you know, everyone was selling it more people were buying. And so I think that's, you know a direct reflection of that. It also kind of makes me think about like, what is, and when we, when we, I say post COVID and I hate to say that because. It's more just like COVID acceptance at this point. And like, you know, like from there and then moving forward, but I wonder what is going to be like, what, what is the backside of this look like if we were at the top of that curve you know, what is the backside look like in the sense of like the next 3, 6, 9 months? Right. And, and how can we. And how can agents and how can brokerages really start to kind of prepare for, for what that's going to be? Because there are people that might've been in their pipeline that were looking one and two years down the road that bought last year, and now they're no longer in that pipeline. And so how can we or how can agents really start. You know, prepare for that. And what should their marketing plans kind of look like? Because, you know, we're seeing, I'm getting a lot of questions about, you know, SEO and you know, I want more, more traffic on the site and, you know, we, we could talk all day about SEO and SEO strategies. Really, I want to know, like, what can we do? You know, how can we prepare for this and how can we kind of get that strong foundation? Both with marketing, with our, and with our digital presence. So I guess, you know, Nick, from your view, and then from that of a vocalize, what, what are your kind of like best practices that we can kind of start to implement now? And what tools do we start using? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the word, you know, foundation that you just threw out is, is super appropriate because we've been talking a lot about marketing and the marketing aspect of agent or real estate business successful agents and successful tools have that company. Deeply integrated with everything else that the agent or business is using to run their day to day. It's not on, on an island, right? So having your marketing and advertising, that's integrated with your CRM, that's connected to your website. That's set up in a way that you have that foundation, that infrastructure for driving your business so that marketing can actually. Help drive real business results in a way that is valuable to you, but also in a way that you're not spending tons of time, you know, downloading leads from Facebook or Google and manually uploading those to your CRM. You don't want to worry about that. Hassle as agents, we're already doing this, the best tools do this today. And that's what gets us so excited about. You know, our partnership with Tribus and the engage platform in particular is it does exactly that, right? Try this engage is integrated with, with your core products, there's CRM, is there, it has all your listings. It's easy to, to, to pop in there. And run your listing, automate your ads, have everything updated in real time, in a way that you know, saves you a ton of time and hassle, and you don't have to set up Facebook ad accounts and Google accounts and worry about that. Everything is, is deeply, deeply integrated. And we see that trajectory in the industry is increasing there's. There's already tools that do it today, but agents are going to start demanding that if they aren't. You know, no one likes meeting to use five different log-ins, you know, multiple different tools just to run their day to day. They want a one-stop shop. How can I manage my leads, manage my listings, advertise and promote my business. And, and we think of Tribus as being an awesome example of a tool that can. Yeah. I mean, and I think you, again, kind of jumping back to that word foundation and I liked what you said about like being deeply integrated. Because I, something I run into sometimes is that, you know, like you know, agents will be talking about marketing and we'll think like, You buy an ad and we're done, like, I washed my hands. I I've put the ad out there, but it's important that all of those things are working together. And so it's almost like, you know, the ad is, is a component of not just your, you know, not just your, your marketing or, or, you know, if we're pushing a past sale or if we're trying to find buyers, whatever the ad, whatever our goal of that ad is. But it has to be working with your CRM, with your website and all of that messaging kind of has to be cohesive. That's something that I, that I always encourage them. I'm a big proponent, you know, my background's in journalism. So I'm a big proponent for content creation whether it's blogging or social media organic and paid, you know, all of those things because to me those are, those are that's killing 2, 3, 4 birds with one stone. If you, if you write a blog or if you're, you know doing that content and you are putting it out organically and you're buying an ad like that, that just pays dividends so much down the road because. You can use it, your, your, your lift is the content creation, and then you're deploying it across your entire network. So you're sending it out to your CRM, you know, via email marketing. You're sending it out to your social networks organically you're paying and, and targeting audiences with those ads. And that kind of, you know, again brings us to that next point about like the value of, of an importance of those audiences. I think. A lot of, a lot of times we run into like, you know, we're, we're boosting these and promoting these on Facebook, but there's a difference between a boosting and promoting an ads. Can you kind of talk about, you know, what the difference is there? The...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host Britt Chester director of client success at Travis. And today we have veteran agent and broker Wade . McColey Wade. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Wait, where are you? Where are you joining us from? Where are you based? We are located in green bay, Wisconsin. And how was the weather in green bay right now? Rainy. It's been very nice, but it is raining now, but we, we appreciate even the warm, rainy days after a few months of I can definitely imagine that wait, you've got quite the resume, you know, when we were just kind of talking a little bit, we'd got, got Realty high, you got cash certified. Tell me a little bit about your history getting into real estate and just kind of give our listeners and audience, you know, a little bit of your back. Sure. Well, I Fell in love with real estate pretty early on in my, in my, in my life. And one of the things that intrigued me so much about real estate is formerly before that I was in a rock band and Doing a little bit of small touring and realize that boy, this is a tough way to make a living. Cause we weren't, you're going to become the rolling stones by any means. And had a brother-in-law that was in real estate and kind of watched it and thought, okay, this looks interesting. And he approached me and I got into real estate fairly young when I was about 2021. And just absolutely fell in love with it and maybe a little bit for the wrong reason, but I thought houses were cool and really, really enjoy the fact when it, when the light bell went off for me light bulb went off for me. It was really about the fact that I didn't know anywhere where I could make. The kind of money that I wanted to make. And what I mean by that is in real estate, there's really no ceiling. I mean, you, you set your own ceiling and real estate, you can make as much or as little as you want by just, you know, getting really efficient, working hard, having good systems. So that's what launched me into it. I was, I started a couple of different real estate companies sold those was number three for close transactions for a major franchise. And just, that led me to all kinds of really cool opportunities. And that's another thing that I always loved about real estate was the opportunities that it can lead you into if you become really good and known as being really good. So that led me into. The banking industry, which I helped co-found Nikolay national bank and it's now publicly traded a $7 billion company. That's done extremely well, a lot of talent around that, that wasn't just me by any means. But then when the crash came in 2009, 2010, I saw really quickly that community banks and banks needed a system to help promote their properties in a new way globally. So fast forward through that, we worked with banks in 38 states. I'm always hiring local agents as our reps. We still do that work today. Then got a opportunity to work for the federal, with the federal government selling assets for the federal government and that morphed into. Realty I've been cash defied today. Yeah. And I was able to look around on Realty hive. I think, you know, one of the things, and we had mentioned this before you're licensed in nearly all 50 states. And, you know, again, that, that thing that stands out is, is that continuing ed continuing education and, and what all that takes. But can I talk about, you know, why, why you're licensed in so many places and then how that kind of speaks to Realty hive and, and the business. Yeah, what happens is it's, it's kind of a two-way street in this sense. Consumers come to us because they want utilization of our platform. In fact, When we have a consumer comes to us or an agent brings a property to us to help them with, we have an over 85% adoption rate. So what we have people really like and want. So it's a two-way street in that same. Meaning that agents will bring properties to us. And we will also bring properties to agents that still holds true in the banking industry. We do work with a number of banks all across the United States and we'll get a one-off property in Utah. The reason for the licensing is just from. A standpoint of making sure that we have all the basis covered. But if a call came in to us from Utah, we're licensed in Utah as an example we can answer a couple of quick questions for that particular buyer, but then that buyer. Quickly spun over to that local agent that we've hired to work on that asset for us. So it's just a protection thing more than anything we're using local agents everywhere that we work. Now, talk to me a little bit about the, the Realty hive platform. You say people come because they want that access to that platform. Can you kind of walk me through what the, what the model of Realty hive is? And really what the value is, both for agents coming to you as well as institutes. Yeah, the, and we have as an example entire companies that we partner with I'm thinking about office in beliefs that we just brought on and they have about 325 properties listed currently. And we're pretty, we can pretty much customize. How we work with a particular agent, but most, most usually a company and they need outreach into the United States and Canada. And we, we do that every day. So we provide that to them to find them more buyers on their properties, but what the real the real. DNA of Realty hive is, is back when we were doing a lot of work for the federal government and the banks, what we very quickly found out is an auction format is very successful in creating bias. There's, there's a couple things that are really bad about it. And, and I've seen him in full effect with doing some of the ballroom events we did for the FDAC, but most importantly, there's some really good parts. So when we create a Realty hive, what we did is created this high bred model to create the most activity. Keep the seller and the agent in control of the final sales price and not have to work towards a certain specific date. So by marketing the properties, marketing them in a very unique and specific way and putting them within this. Platform of a hybrid. We call it a time limited event, not an auction. What it does is just creates a lot more activity on properties and we have all kinds of samples of that properties that have been on the market seven, 800 days that we've come in, assisted an agent. And that agent got an accepted offer in a hundred days. Now being the new third agent in that transaction, there's multiple wins there for those. Particular people that utilize our platform. So as an example, and I'll just give you this specific case. This agency, young agent works for a great company. They, that great company has all kinds of tools, but the question got asked of the third agent, you know, fairly, fairly new to the business. Tell me what you're going to do that the last two agents didn't do well, that's a pretty tough question because. As agents, we can talk around that. And but you know, what I really like to do is dive into the details. And if, if I dive into those details, there's very little difference. And I don't mean to offend anybody when I say that, but there's very little difference of what they're doing from the standpoint of marketing and signage and MLS and et cetera. There's differences. There's no doubt. But in this case, this young agent said, Hey, I've got this affiliation with this global marketing platform. They do time limited events. Would you like to hear about it? And this particular seller said, yeah, let me, let me jump on the phone. So the agent gets one of our business development reps on the phone. We present to the city. Remember 85% plus adoption rate. The guy in the house says, I love it. I've never seen anything like this. I want to do it. Now. What happened there is really multifaceted. Okay. And what I mean by that is yes. The property came in. Yes. We marketed. We put it in a timeline of that property sold. Wonderful. But what really happened was that agent got a. That's what really happened because he had to show a differential. So agents are using us as a listing tool, so to speak, they will use us to extend a listing. So, you know, the hardest two conversations you got to have in real estate. We need to reduce your price and we need to extend your listing, the hard conversations, right? And in what we've developed with Realty hive is this way to work that into both of those conversations. So that either way the agent wins, right. If they're trying to get a price reduction, they can say, well, we typically would do a price reduction at this term and listing with this amount of activity, I would suggest we reduce the price to add. Or I want to give you another option, which is this time limited. So either way the agent wins, right. I just want to, sorry to interrupt time-limited event. Is that, is that different than calling it an auction? And is there a reason? I mean, because to me those, the two sound very, they sound the same, but I mean it's time limited event. Just kind of like change it in in its compliance or, or what is the kind of, what is the, the mindset there? Really good in-depth question. We have tested this four years running the same property under two different languages. They both get almost identical reaction. The difference is that when an agent has to go to a seller and bring up the word auction, it's usually a negative situation. So every seller is willing to say, you know what, for the certain amount of time I'm willing to, in a sense, kind of look at the marketplace and look at all of the offers available within the certain timeframe. Thai I E time limited. So when we switched from doing what I call old school auction formats and switched it to this new retail version, the acceptance rate from the everyday retail seller is off the charts. So buyers love auction. Sellers necessarily don't love auctions. The, the other part that came up with that is there were a lot of auctions back in the downturn that were done for financial institutions and secondary underwriter providers of, of mortgages. And there was a lot of negative connotation to that auction companies were cutting the agents out every chance they got. Approach the banking industry back then from the standpoint of why do we want to do that? A you're typically don't want to fire sell your product and B we want to be all inclusive. So the idea from day one was that we were not going to do this in a way that was against the real estate agents. We were welcoming the real estate agent. And it's proved very well for us. I mean, I, you know, auction in my experience, you know, which has been, you know, heavily focused. In residential real estate. You know, my exposure to auctions has been definitely more in the luxury sector, right. And, and the, you know, I think of a company like concierge auctions, they come to mind. And that's, you know, really where, where my kind of knowledge stops in these, in these time limited sales and in this auction kind of format, are you seeing that same kind of adoption at the. Kind of residential, you know, middle market level or is that a little bit more unique? And, and I asked just, you know, again, kind of going on the site, I see we've got a lot of international properties. There are some residential listings and kind of residential lands spots, but what's the, what's the adoption like, you know, just from the you know, from that, that residential, single family home level. Well, it's it's most of what we do. There are again, this is the best way to think about it as it's like a retail version of it. So a it's very inexpensive compared to some of the companies you spoke about. I'm a seller and there's a major difference in philosophy. And that philosophy is what's winning out with what we're doing with the consumers and the brokers. And what I mean by that is. If you take a high end property of $5 million and you tell a seller, they have to commit to taking $2 million or they have to commit to an absolute Ark. I'm assuming. And I'm going to assume that they don't have shell bitters in the audience, making sure that it doesn't, that it gets up to a certain point, but they. Then pay the agent 6%, 5%, whatever that may be. And then the auction company might take five or 10% now it's buyer's premium, but the problem is the sellers really still paying it in the price. So to, to have a an event that costs a seller 10 to 15%, let's just say is a big number and the ability. That most sellers can't agree to that that kind of strike price. Most people don't want to do that. Some can do it obviously. So when we did it, we wanted it to be very much all inclusive. So in our events, there is the seller has control over the price at all moments. And that's a very important aspect because. If on an on event day, you get X. If we sit for two more days, we might get a bigger number for that seller. So the sellers always in control of calling, when they're going to say that's, it let's take it. The other thing is we're charging only when the property sells and it's as low as 1%. For us to run the platform. So if you think about it, what we're doing is we're creating this art open architecture platform that agents and brokerages can come in and use when they want, when they see fit. So it's almost like they own their own time-limited event or auction company. It's not white paper because the recognition of our traffic is greater than me calling it. You know, Travis XYZ. So in that respect, that is that is proven out really well. And because of all those things it's been designed for that typical seller that's, you know, if you go in and list the house right now, and this is a really cool statistic, by the way. So we have the ability to pull in 90% of the MLS is and analyze the data. When we do that, we found that 18% of the properties that are residential only in the U S that are listed, have been on the market over double the average days on the model. So, what is that is telling you in the hottest real estate market ever, there is still stuff that is taking too long, and that could be just because of price. That could be because of marketing. That could be of exp exposure in that marketing, but by taking it and wrapping it into a new package, so to speak and promoting it in a different way, then you get really cool and different, exciting reasons. So it was, was Realty and I've launched. When was, when, when did you start Realty dive? Well, the premise of it, we started back in 2010 when we were working with the banks and after that a little bit, the federal government on a bunch of jobs and about two years ago, probably two and a half years ago now is when we, we kind of took it out of my name, so to speak and made it into a more branded, a generic name called Realty hive. So process has been going on for you know, 10, 11 years, but yeah. New or the launch of the company itself has been just for the last, let's just say two and a half to three. Okay. And then what kind of, you know, you're saying y'all have access to, you know, 90% of the MLS is, and then there's the, the, the, the thing that comes to mind for me right now is how hot this market is, right? Like days on market in I'm in Denver, Colorado, our days on market has pretty much halved. Our median home price has gone up a hundred thousand dollars, you know, year over year. So, you know, I'm immediately, you know, not skeptical. You know, I'm wondering like how that, that, that time limited format kind of fits into, into this market. And maybe it just, it doesn't right now, or maybe it does, like, how do you, how are you breaking into those markets that, you know, can't keep inventory on the shelf? Or is it kind of like using, like you said that as data back decisions to say, yes, there are, there are properties that are moving very quickly, but there are also properties that are not moving quickly and we provide that solution. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. And then what you have to do then is step back and look at it on a global scale. Right? So the U S is hot right now. There are lots of areas in the world that are. You know, as an example beliefs, the average days on the market and beliefs is over a year. We're very close with a particular major company in assisting them in Europe. And we're in conversations of that right now. And when you look at Europe, there are certain segments of Italy that are extremely hot, and there are certain segments that are certainly not in the same, and there's different markets that you can go into easier than others. And there's some language barriers and so forth. But even if you were to take Denver, I would challenge this. First of all, as a real estate agent we tend to. You know, gravitate towards what's happening and, and rightfully so, what I call that is buttering your bread, right? If you go out and you're looking at a medium price range, about $500,000 property, guess what? All the competition's there from the standpoint of a listing agent, this is coming from the, the aspect of looking at it as a real estate agent, all the competition there, there's probably downward pressure on commissions because of the competition. But there are other segments that I challenge anyone. If they take Denver and they run a report on the MLS in Denver, they include all the different types of real estate, commercial, vacant land, et cetera. They're going to find their properties that are on the market way longer than the average days on the market. So going back from the agent standpoint, where we fit in with this is on the first step is. If you want to go after that stuff, you need to have a tool where the tool, if you want to expand your business into different areas for sale by owners, expired listings, whatever that may be, you have to have a different conversation. Otherwise, the conversation typically becomes about commodity pricing commissions. That's why you see so many of these companies popping up right. We'll do it for 1%, 2%, whatever it may be. You have to have a tool that really makes you stand out. And then the other part. And so first of all is how does Denver is there are properties that are not moving in that market. And, and that's where you help. On the other side of that coin, we do have agents. We just had an agent come to us in Florida and it's like outside Disneyland. Immensely hot. The question that she proposed to us was let's put this property on your site. We think it's 300, I'm going from memory. So these numbers are rough. 300. But what we want to do is we want to put a list price on it of 3 25 and we'll have an opening of 300. So they thought it was worth 300, but put 3 25 on it. As our list price, we did...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. It's always exciting to learn how and why people choose to enter the real estate industry. For Samantha Heyer, a broker associate with MODUS Real Estate in Denver, Colorado, the decision came last year during one of the most transitional periods in history. Heyer entered real estate following a successful career in the communications and PR industry primarily focused in healthcare. This experience - managing brand exposure, media relations, public relations - gave Heyer the tools and network needed to hit the ground running in Denver's hot real estate market. On this episode of Brokerage Insider, Heyer talks about her decision to enter the real estate industry during the pandemic, and what it's like to navigate one of the most coveted markets right now. TRANSCRIPT: 📍 Welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interviewed the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host Britt Chester. And I'm the director of client success here at Travis. We're one of the largest independent PropTech companies in real estate and providers of technology to real estate companies around the world. Today, we're joined by Samantha, hire a realtor with modus real estate here in Denver and actually right down the street from where I live. Samantha, how are you doing today? Great. How are you excited to be here? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for joining us on brokerage insider. You know, I think one of the first things we just kind of like to start with is why don't you let our audience know you know, what you do at modus and give us a little bit of background, how you got into Realty. Yep. So I'm a broker associate at modus real estate. We're based in the Sunnyside neighborhood. So Northwest Denver I've been with modus about eight months. When I made a career change into real estate, I previously for 10 years worked for a PR agency based out of New York city, but we also had offices in other places. And so when my husband and I moved to Denver about six years ago, Kept that job and was working out of Denver remotely and supporting clients and teams sort of all over the country. So I had a lot of project management experience communications navigating, you know, crisis and issues and things of that nature. It was all based in the healthcare industry. So did a lot of more. Consumer health or science work. But the crux of it was really client service and I was ready for a change and I wanted to feel a part of. Our new home in Denver and Colorado, and really sort of, you know, in gross myself in the community here. And my twin sister, Catherine happens to be a realtor in New York city. And she's been doing that now about two years. And so we talk almost every day and you know, when the pandemic hit, I was, you know, spending a lot of time at home and it really got me thinking, okay, I'm ready for a change. And what could it be? And I decided that real estate would be a really exciting change and would definitely throw me into the community and make me feel a part of Denver. So she sort of gave me the extra push I needed to do it. And then her and I also partnered on sort of a related, but separate business, helping other entrepreneurs who want to start a business, then we help them start a business specifically in real estate and travel. Very cool. Well, that was definitely a lot. Let's kind of talk about, you know, what was your first kind of thoughts when you were approaching, you know, real estate as a possible career change? You know, I think there's a, there's a lot to take in there because everyone has a different experience and exposure to real estate. So. You know, when you, when you first started investigating it and researching it I imagine, you know, coming from a communications and PR background, your research process is probably pretty extensive. What were some of your, your first kind of impressions? And, and what were you kind of looking at first? Yeah, I think I was, you know, even before I thought of it as a career, I always just enjoyed real estate or, or renovations or, you know, home improvement. And and when we started looking at homes two years ago in Denver was when it sort of piqued my interest. You know, Denver is such a popular place to move. There's a lot of people moving from the east coast and the west coast. And so it's creating a lot of change which is really exciting. And so when we started looking at homes, I started even doing a little, you know, research then into the real estate market. And. Since then when I was actually, you know, diving into real estate school and starting to think about it as a career, I definitely, you know, was reading about the market in Denver, but just in general, sort of like how someone gets started. And I feel like, you know, a lot of what you read is sort of a little daunting. And I talked to you know friends of mine who are realtors. Our friends, realtors, who they used. I spoke to the realtor we use when we bought her home and everyone just sort of says like, listen, like be prepared to make no money for six months. Like you ready to get up every morning and, you know, pound your network and make sure you are putting yourself out there. And all of that hard work definitely pays off, but it's, you know, people will also throw stats at you about, you know, the number of realtors there are in Denver. The number of them who are successful and what it takes to be successful, which none of that really deterred me or freaked me out. Because I've been putting in a lot of challenging situations in my previous career whether there was a challenging client or, you know a crisis situation or something that we had to act on quickly, and I've been able to overcome challenges like that and problem solve. So. I was confident that, you know, I was ready for change and this was going to be something that I could really dig into, I could make my own. And you can sort of work as hard as you want, or as little as you want. I, my personality is to sort of dig in and be a hard worker. So I just make sure that I start every day with a list of things I need to do or and sort of have goals for that month so that I can keep myself. Accountable. Definitely. I mean, I think it's always really important to understand too. And this is something that I really love talking about, but how real estate agents are. It, you know, you are an independent contractor and therefore you are the CEO of a small business. Right. Like, you've got to be marketing. You are, you know, client care, client support. I mean, there's just so much that goes into it. So I'm always curious to know, like, how are you bringing and you, and you did to just touch on this, but how are you bringing some of that past experience into real estate? How are you kind of adapting those tools and those skills that you build up in that communications industry to real estate and to your clients? Yes. So I, you know, I was, I worked for the same PR agency for my entire career. So. A lot of their work styles sort of what's ingrained in me. And I was surrounded by a lot of super smart and great people. And I had great mentors and I feel like, you know, organization and time management were key and knowing when like you need help. Well then who are the people who can help? The only change now with real estate is I don't have help. It's just me. Which is fine. It's been a refreshing change to not have to keep track of necessarily like other people's to do lists or people I was managing. But now it's, you know, figuring out what do I need to tackle today and what can wait for another day. And I have become ingrained in using CRM. Those, which that was new to me. I did not use them in PR and PR everything was like based around my emails and just flagging emails and keeping a detailed to-do list. So now I just take a similar approach, but I'm keeping a database of clients and connections and setting reminders for myself so that I don't lose track of something. Six months out from buying a home while I'm focused on the people who are looking right now. But a big part of it for me is making sure that I'm responsive and I make every person feel like they're the most important person. And in that moment because you know, you could be juggling multiple clients in the same weekend. And so I just try to. Ahead of booking showings and giving people my availability and sort of working around schedules. I think the biggest thing for my PR career that I remember is you never wanna leave a client hanging and have, you know, a whole day go by and you're not responding to a simple email. So I really. Try to keep up with my emails, whether it's, you know, responding to things first thing in the morning, and then checking again later in the day to catch anything from while I was out at showing so that people feel like they can count on me and get ahold of me. And, you know, so it's just different, not being in front of a computer all day and sort of adding in the, on the go environment that real estate brings. What were some of the biggest and I'll say obstacles, but oh yeah. So, you know, replace that with challenges. So what were some of the challenges that you've encountered you know, entering this new career that you didn't really expect? What were some of the things I don't know, I don't, and I don't want to say curve balls. I'm thinking you're entering the industry to is an incredible time right now. You know, I I'll, I'll be excited. Maybe we can connect in a few years. And talk about how you came into real estate at the craziest time possible. What are some of the, you know, kind of the, the unknown challenges that you've experienced and how you worked through them and, and kind of grown and grow. Yeah. So I think, you know, when I first started my mentor at modus who supports me in a sort of like my right hand as I get up to speed you know, he suggested that I start to put together a list of everyone. I know doesn't necessarily just have to keep people I know in Denver, but people who I know who would be supportive of me in this change and would be able to think of me, refer people to me. Et cetera. So when I started pulling that together, became a little daunting that like, yes, I do know a lot of people, but like, how am I going to reach out to these people appropriately? Some of them were people I haven't spoken to in a long time. And you, and I don't want to know come off too salesy and make them feel like I'm only reaching out to them because I want to, you know, work with them and eventually get a paycheck from. And so navigating that was harder than I thought, but then, you know, twofold, you know, Also expect to a certain degree that your friends will give you a chance. And I don't expect that, you know, all of my friends are going to work with me just because now I'm in real estate, but I expect that they would give me the chance to like, have the coffee meetings, sit me down, ask me how I would handle it, what I would do for them and give me a shot to compete against someone else who maybe they're talking to, who has more years experience or they feel like is a better fit. So I think overcoming that or the expectation. You know, people I know who already know me would give me that shot. And I think now I just, you know, focus on what I can bring to the table and share the successes I have had as a way to sort of navigate those conversations. And then, you know, In addition to that, I think it's just always constantly finding people to meet and talk to, and it doesn't necessarily have to be because they're looking for a home, but I'm trying to create a community here for myself and sort of join meetups or clubs or things for activities that I enjoy I'm involved in as a way to widen my network because previously I wasn't working with anyone in Denver, so I haven't been exposed to. The community and in this way, yeah. Definitely. And, and I think that that networking part is incredibly important in real estate. And that's why, you know, I kind of looked back getting your, or getting into the industry, you know, eight months ago or even last year, it's like networking was primarily virtual last year. So so I think, you know, again, you you've entered it in a strange way. What's your, you know, kind of take, you know, within your first year of doing this, what's your take on the Denver market? You know, I think we've seen in, like you, you mentioned so many people are moving here, so we're seeing this massive influx of people we're seeing home prices increase at it at alarming rates. But what's your kind of take on the market right now. And then what's, you know, what kind of conversations are you having with your. Yeah. So when I started at the end of last year, things were definitely crazy, but I think when we hit 20, 21, it even got crazier and people who I had been talking to have worked in the industry, you know, eight, 15 years, 10 years, whatever it is, you know, have said that they've never been. Seen it this crazy, and they've never been writing contracts and the way they have to write them in order to win and even the best, you know, written contract or the most competitive contracts they've written are not winning there's someone who is stronger. And so it's definitely been challenging. I think when I was writing contracts for people in January, February, March, At least for the price point. And the areas that I was looking with people was more wild or there were more offers on the table then than there are when I'm writing offers now. And so I think since the Memorial day holiday, I've noticed a, like a little dip. And so I won't say it's drastic, but like a slight change, like definitely a drop in the number of showings, which will lead to less offers. So. Is a little bit less competition for buyers, but it's still is keeping the prices, you know, high or going above list in most cases for the seller side. But you know, the inventory is historically low at around 2000 homes, I think right now. And so it would need to at least triple to even right. And, you know, there isn't a sign yet that that's happening. I think it's like softening slightly, but we haven't seen like such an uptick in listings that would lead you to believe that I could start telling clients that, you know, if you wait a month, there might be more inventory for you to look at and things will even out because I, I don't think that that's, it's going to happen that quickly. In terms of, you know, when people keep talking about the bubble and are we in a bubble, I just, I think the market's going to stay pretty hot through the rest of this year. I don't like to necessarily predict or talk longer term than that. And you know, with rates still being pretty low, I mean, they'll probably go up, but in the grand scheme of things, they're still low. And so for people who. Hovering or thinking about it. Or they have a lease coming up in the next three or six months. Like I would encourage them to look and at least give it a try. Like you never know until you try or at least have a conversation with a mortgage lender and sort of understand at least where you would be at. The education is definitely key because I think people are hearing on the news or through friends that, you know, the inventory's low and the market's crazy. And so it keeps people sort of out of the game. I've been successful with, you know, several first-time home buyers who sort of got their feet wet, understood what they had to do. And they did it. And after a few tries, you know, we were able to go under contract. So I always sort of encouraged people to try to see the other side of thing or find the, find the positive. Like you could be spending, you know, a certain amount on rent every month. And you could spend that same amount on a home depending on what you're looking for in a way. And so sometimes when people look at it like that, they're like, okay, well maybe we should. Actually make the investments that, of just spending rent. Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's so much out there when, when, you know, if you're a prospective home buyer if you just go Google the process, I loved what, what you said. It just seems so daunting. One, because you're bombarded with so much information and too, you know, the possibility, you know, You know, a year ago, if you were looking in the 400 to $500,000 range and I'm speaking, you know, to Denver, well, those houses are in the 600 to $700,000 range and getting more simple cash offers with escalation clauses. And it just seems. That, you know, when you look at it and take it at face value, it seems like it's just not really a possibility, but again, like, like what you said, and I, and I love emphasizing this. It's like just meet with an agent, meet with a realtor and start that conversation. So you can begin to see that. Even though things are a little bit daunting. It's, it's not out of the realm of possibility. It might not be what you want it, you know, one year ago or two years ago or what was available, but that doesn't change the possibilities of it. And I think that's a really important tool. Exactly. And I think, you know, a lot of what's being put out right now from DMR and in the, all the stats is, you know, every month, the home that you could have afforded for $500,000 in the Denver Metro. Becomes not attainable the next month because of the new comps and the appreciation and all of the new homes that are closing. And so sometimes I try to show people those stats or information to show them that, you know, if they really do have enough money saved to do it now, but they're just sort of scared or unsure. That, you know, whatever you whatever's on your wishlist might not be affordable in six months if this keeps up. And so sometimes looking at it like that helps too, because, you know, no one expected a pandemic was going to come. And I think a lot of people who are in apartments and want to be in apartments anymore. And so mom knows we're not as popular. And people fled like the key downtown neighborhoods cause they wanted outdoor space. Now that's starting to. Sort of turnaround and I think there's more competition again on, you know, condos. So for people who are renting an apartment and, you know, really want to buy a house, cause they don't want to, I spend $400,000 on the condo or whatever it is, you know, I try to tell them like, maybe it's more worth buying the condo right now having the investment and worrying about the house later. I think. First time home buyers are very hung up on a certain picture where we want our forever home or whatever it is, but really your first home is just an investment. It's a starting point. And because the Denver market is so nuts right now in a good way. And the appreciation that you can have in just a couple of years, you could be out of the condo. So just trying to help people. Weigh options. I think a lot of people who...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. TRANSCRIPT: 📍 Hi everybody. And welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann and I'm the CEO of Travis. We're one of the largest independent property technology companies in real estate and provider accustom, brokerage technology to medium and large brokerages in the United States, Canada. And now even around the world. In addition, I'm the managing partner, Travis capital, a private equity fund focused on the property technology. On today's episode, we have Matt Shaw, the mats, the CEO of a property technology company called blimp homes. Blimp is a mobile only real estate tech company that helps agents connect their clients and other parties in the transaction. So, Matt, thanks for joining us today. Thanks very much. Great. Well, I'm excited to dig in and learn a little bit more about your company to be honest you know, until we, we chatted here about you coming on the show, I hadn't heard of you guys before, so I'm really interested in learning more about what you guys do. I did get a chance to play with your app. And so for all those folks listening, you know, feel free to jump into the app store either Google or Apple app stores. You're on both and you can go download the blimp homes app and play with it. But first let's talk a little bit about your history and how you got into real estate, because that's something I'm always very interested in. Now, when I, when I took a quick peak, it looks like you come from a history in the banking world, the the FinTech world. And then recently you kind of got into the blockchain world. So what, what caused you to have a jump into. Yes. Thanks very much. Well, my background, as you, as you rightly say, is a bit varied. And I, I started my career in investment banking. I was the best bank for over 20 years, but I was always very much involved on I would say the cutting edge side, you know, the innovation side. So I was very deeply involved for instance, in building the capital markets in the central and Eastern Europe. And that led me to, to, to, to down various avenues eventually into investing in real estate personally. Really that was probably my first foray into the real estate space. I mean, I guess growing up in London you know, everybody is slightly obsessed with property and you know, certainly, you know, my, my experience was trying to get on the property ladder at a young age. Going through a bit of a boom and bust and then, and then eventually sort of investing in other properties abroad you know, partly because of my banking background, I traveled around quite a bit. So I've lived in several countries and ended up, you know, buying properties and obviously UK, but also France, Cyprus, Switzerland, Canada, and, and also the U S and I think. My experience in the U S was one of the reasons where she really piqued my interest to, to get into this. Well, you know, obviously if you've, if you've done that level of investing in ownership of properties, I can see where, where you'd be interested. But do you, do you or anybody around you have any formal brokerage side of the business? Cause it, the reason I asked the question is that I, a lot of times, you know, people that start in this world, you usually have come from, they were an agent before a broker before a family member was an agent or a broker for before accepting. But from what you just said, it didn't sound like that was the case. So you were an investor and, and owned property and then decided to jump in and help solve a problem. Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah. So that's my personal experience, but of course other people in the team have got deep experience in this space. One of our co-founders Ben Clark was I think a member of the founding team very early on at Zillow, for instance, and has a long experience in the real estate data space. And some of our advisors have had the illustrious careers in real estate as well, but you're right. My main experience really is I suppose, really an interest in systems and, and problem solving. And then also as a consumer. And I think, you know, my, again, my experience in the U S was quite quite significant from, from, you know, its impact on me. I mean, I think that every country. Has its own quirks. I mean, the UK, for instance, you're buying a home in, in, in, in England is quite strange in some ways quite quirky. And you know, every country has its own nuances. And I think that what really got me interested in, in real estate on the technical tech technology side was was when I started buying a couple of homes in India. Gotcha. Well, you know, let's jump in and talk a little bit about blimp then. And how and what the problem is that you're solving, because it does seem to solve somewhat of a, of an issue in the industry, from what I saw. So tell us a little bit about blimp. Tell us about maybe how you got started on the specifics of solving the problem and w where you saw the problem and then a, about the company. Yeah. So so as I say, I initially bought a property in the U S and I was really surprised about the, you know, how much friction there is in buying real estate in the U S I guess my, my key takeaway was you know, being saved by an amazing realtor, you know, so a realtor really quarterback, quarterback the whole transaction. At the time I really was, you know, finding my feet and, you know, I, I, this is probably many people who have a similar experience, you know, you really rely on a great realtor, but I also noticed that some of the communication channels. Well you know, very legacy and you know, old fashioned. So I had an amazing realtor who went above and beyond, you know, any sort of call of duty to the point where I left him some keys and he coordinated, you know, some repairs and, you know, things which, you know, we shouldn't really ask a realtor to do, but but equally he communicated with me. Many different channels. So he would send me a bunch of links, which I would look at. And then I would then try to remember which of those links I liked. So I ended up clicking twice and then making handwritten notes. We would speak by phone. He would send me texts and so forth. So it was, it was quite a disparate communication channel. And I think that I, I sort of realized that maybe there is a, a way where the consumer could be guided through a transaction in a more logical fashion where they can understand, you know, all of the tasks in front of you, all the core services, which you need to engage and above all, perhaps finding all these core services in one place. I think there's some reasons why. Some of the legacy systems have a lot of friction for consumers is because, you know, you have different channels, you know, different core services competing for consumer attention, essentially. And so in some ways, you know, the consumer is getting dragged from one, you, you know you know, sales funnel to another in, you know, which doesn't enhance the consumer experience. So I think. What really struck me from my experience and what the problem, one of the key problems we're trying to solve is really helping the guide the consumer. It's truly the prime prime buying process in a way, which is, you know, logical. There are no surprises. So again, I'm a, I'm a, you know, a Brit living in Canada and I bought a home in, in the U S and I'll be really honest. I didn't actually know what title insurance was at that point. So that was, I sort of surprised at the end, but again, it was all smoothly navigated thanks to my thanks to my age. But I think the idea really is that the consumers can navigate this process in a more seamless way. It feels like one end to end transaction, not a series of, you know, sort of disparate transactions. You know, I need my mortgage now. I need my insurance. Now they might talk to the insurance and so forth. So it seems like a seamless end to end transaction. And equally for the, for the professionals, you have the consumer in one place where they're basically saying, well, I understand that this is at this point in the process, I really realize I do need to put in place insurance. So I do need to find an insurance solution as an example, so that you know, in this example, the, the consumer is a willing participant in, in actively seeking those services. So I think it really, the idea really is to solve those. Those friction points for the consumer, but equally solve some problems for the professionals in terms of how do you reach those reach those consumers. And then I think also overlaid onto this. There is an incentive and reward system to incentivize both professionals and Well, I think we'll get to that part and talking about the crypto side which is certainly an interesting part of what you're doing. And just a little bit, I have a number of questions for you about that, that portion of it. But I want to step back for a second because, you know, you said something kind of interesting. And, and if for frequent listeners of the show you'll know that we, we had a series of shows that we did about international real estate and how different it was to the United States and even in Canada As somebody who's not from the United States and is used to how things are done in other countries. What do you think are the biggest differences that are there between, you know, maybe purchasing a home in the United States versus in London? I know you mentioned the title insurance thing. Certainly we can start there, but, but what else have you seen? That's different. That's probably, yeah. You put your finger probably on one of the biggest differences, you know, in England, for instance, This is probably an example of, I think in the U S does it much better, but in, in, in England, you know, if you, if you find a house you'd like to buy and you, you basically reached an agreement with the seller. And by the way, the, in, in, typically in England, the, an agent only represents the seller. It's actually quite unusual to have an agent representing a buyer that's normally just sort of you know, pop styles or something like this, or people who are extremely busy hire an agent to help them find a home. So typically you just have an agent representing one side of the transaction, and let's just say you found a home, which you arranged to buy. And let's for the sake of argument, say it's a million pound home in London. Quite a small house, to be honest in London these days. And all parties are agreed. You then go through a process where the, the lawyers check back through the, the land registry to make sure they're in those sorts of strange aspects which could impact the title. And since a lot of these houses have very, very old, you know, I remember I bought a house in England, I think was built in 1850 or, and it had a previous condition on the land that you weren't allowed to graze sheep on the land as an example. So it goes really, really way, way back some of these items and, and other strange things about how, you know, you can't use the house for certain activities and things like this. But the key thing that takes typically takes about three weeks for the lawyer to check all these old covenants and rights of way to make sure that no one can walk across your land and things like this. And during that three week period somebody else could come along and just outbid you. So the there's a word in England in a new school cause something which just means that, you know, somebody just comes along in that three week closing period that says, well, 1.1 million and you've lost the you've lost the house. And in a, in a weak market buyers do the, do the opposite. You know, they, they, they, they reduce that bit at the last minute and, you know, quite often the person has no alternative, but to accept that low bid. So I think, you know, the title side is handled quite differently. You clear all the title You know, deficiency, deficiencies and do all the analysis during the closing process, but you haven't actually bought the home. So of course that's very, very different from the U S and I have to say, I think the U S is a much more satisfactory system, you know? So, you know obviously when, when somebody goes under contract here, you know, that does seem to be better. I I'm very glad in the United States and Canada, for that matter, we don't have dumping. And that's going to be a, maybe a new, a new word in my vernacular here of making sure you don't. Because dumped. But that, you know, that is a PR that does seem like a problem where you have almost no security in, in the deal. Because I know, you know, when, when I've purchased homes for example, I purchased a home last year and two weeks later I purchased it right at the beginning of the pandemic on purpose because I recognize the data that showed the real estate was going. Rebound very quickly. And I got a crazy deal and I definitely would've gotten gazumped because somebody else would have definitely come along. Had it been a different rule and seeing that the property was for sale made a higher bid because of the seller, you know, wanting to sell quickly worried about the pandemic. So definitely seems like a better model there also, you know, that what you said about buyer's agent. It's still shocking to me. I have a friend in Georgia, not the state, the country and he is has been actively going around to different countries, trying to essentially push the concept of the value of a buyer's agent in representing the buyer and making sure that they had, you know, somebody fighting for their behalf on their behalf. And it seems like that's not the way it is on a lot of places. So. You know, let's, let's you know, talk a little bit about the the, the, the app and what we're doing here, because in playing with it, it seems like the idea, the main idea is, is we're connecting up a number of, of Hardy stakeholders in the system. Right? So being the idea is I can go in. As an agent set up a transaction and then invite multiple people in. So, you know, it kind of begs the question of You know, is it, is the idea that there's this one place for all of communication, because I think today a lot of this is just done over text messages. You know, the agent goes in there, I messages app on their phone and texts the lender and said, Hey, what's the status? And then they click and text the, the buyer or the seller and just kind of give them an update on what's going on. So is the idea here to have more of a centralized location for that? Or, or what's the long-term goal? Maybe, maybe you've got something that you're working on. That's adding on to that that will provide more functional. Yeah, I think I mean, I think the idea of communicating through text, it, it, it definitely works to a certain, certain, a certain point, but here's an example. My daughters were looking for a house to rent actually in, in California you know, a year or two ago. And they were sharing, you know, properties with us, you know, do we think this is a good run or not? And they were, they were obviously sharing it with the other, the other. Students who are looking to live in the same house. So, you know, there's multiple people on this and literally people were saying, sending texts around, you know you know, and people are, people are pulling in listings from, you know, different, different you know, Zillow listings and so forth. And then people would say, well, What did you think of the one which I marked with an exclamation point or what do you think about the one I put a heart next to? So once you get into sort of multiple parties looking to look at properties and share their share their thoughts on the property, it actually gets complicated quite, quite quickly. And email doesn't solve it very well either. As I say, you know, if you get a series of links you know, somehow the human brain. Well, maybe it's just my brain, but if somebody sends me 10 links and open them all, and it's four houses, I'd quite like to see for some reason, I'm I sort of have to go back and remember which, which, what, which those were. So I think one of the, one of the. Key advantages of our, of our app is that people, even before they select a realtor, for instance, to help them, consumers could just simply share listings and exchange views. You can pull in listings from different sources and basically just chat about them. So it's a little bit, you know, a little bit like slack for real estate, if you like. And I think this is, this is, you know, a superior experience to. So texting, and then, then they can then invite the consumer can invite you know, the various professionals. They need to help them probably very likely guided by, you know, their realtor. So for instance, you know, they can then bring in you know, somebody on the mortgage side, somebody on the insurance insurance side and so forth, and then they can have, you know, multiple chance of course. Some of the communication is, is just in private chats. You know, what, what is discussed between the mortgage broker and the consumer would not be for instance, necessarily shown to the realtor. Although some, sometimes that's a very, very key sort of you know, communication channel with those three parties very often they're very cool to it, but there's some information which shouldn't be shared. So for instance, uploading documents or just sharing, sharing, more confidential things So it really puts the power back in the hands of the consumer in terms of they understand the transaction. They can look at lots of different puppet properties, share properties, discuss them. I mean, a very typical flow would be. You know, they would, they would have shared, you know, three or four properties among themselves. For instance, you know, if there's more than one party buying, then they bring a realtor into the, into the mix and say, look, these are the homes. This is the type of home I've been looking at. And and you know, probably these days let's say, and every time we looked at it, it's already gone, but this could you now help us. And then, and then the realtor would then say, well, here's 10 others, which we think you should take a look at. And then you start this you know, rich communication, which is, you know, very, very good for all parties. And I think on the task side, there's a task management side. Again, you know, I was the stupid Bret from Canada who didn't really understand, fully understand the process in the U S but if I'd had that tool, which basically said that at these stages, in the transaction, you're going to need these professionals to support you that have been very, very helpful. And you know, would, it would have led to less surprises on my side. So I think it's, it's really, it's very much trying to work with, with the industry, working with professionals sending that a good agent is really...

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. The real estate industry is effectively made up of hundreds of thousands of individual agents who are all, in a sense, their own small business managers. It takes tenacity, grit, marketing prowess and flexibility to make it in this industry, and that's especially true when you're talking about the red hot, super competitive market in New York City. Amy Herman Schechter of SERHANT knows first-hand what it takes. She's built quite a name for herself, whether it's navigating the complicated market of New York co-ops, or helping forever-New Yorkers land a brilliant investment property in the Hamptons, she's done it all. You may have even seen her in a cameo on an episode of Million Dollar Listing New York, which, oddly enough, is how she came to work with Ryan Serhant the rest of the agents and brokers hanging their tag under his prestigious brokerage. Listen here as Amy Herman Schechter breaks down what it was like starting in real estate in a post-9/11 New York, and what she's bringing to the table now with 20 years under her belt and a wealth of industry insider knowledge. TRANSCRIPT: 📍 Hi, everyone. Welcome to brokerage insider the podcast where we interviewed the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host Britt Chester, and I'm the director of client success here at Travis. We're one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and providers of custom real estate technology to real estate companies around the world. Today, we're joined by Amy Herman. Schechter one of team sear, haunts leading Manhattan realtors. And one has been named one of New York. City's top 100 real estate agents by the wall street journal. Amy. Thanks for doing my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I think to start, why don't you give our listeners a little bit of an introduction to yourself as well as how you got into real estate? You know, a little who, what, when, where and why. So I actually started in real estate back in 2002, which is now just about two decades ago. I came from a celebrity and tourism PR background. So I was working with celebrity clients as well as hotels restaurants. Sports heroes and I got into real estate when I was 24. And so now, you know, my age and at the time I was fascinated by the way, people, especially new Yorkers lived. I'm sure most people can remember. It was back in the days of gossip girl meets. Sex and the city life. And I was one of those girls running around town, checking out the latest restaurants dating, and I loved seeing how people live. And my father and actually the guy I was dating his father at the time said, you know, why don't you go into sales? You really should like get into sales. You're so persuasive. We feel like you could sell ice to Eskimos and maybe that would suit you in something like real estate. Cause they know I didn't really care to push a product. It wasn't really, that's not my jam. So The rest is kind of history. I took the exam. It was actually half as difficult in terms of the hours at the time. So you only needed 40 hours. I studied, I took the state exam and then I started in the business and I was like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get clients? How am I even going to sell my first home? And it did take me a good 18 months to figure it all out. I started in the rental market and I realized rentals are not for me. I definitely was. You know, I think what happened was, is that rentals were, are a quick fix and you, you know, short, a quick job and you get paid quickly, but I actually really. Found that I thrived on figuring out where are people going to be for the long-term. How do you navigate this process? How do you get a mortgage who's agreed attorney to come with us along the way, design team to renovate. And I love all those aspects. And I started just really, as a buyer's agent. By the time I was 26 I moved offices to work underneath a person who actually specialized in purchasing and helping brokers thrive in like a buying environment, as opposed to the rental coach that I had had for the start of my career. And it was in the same company. I stayed there for 13 years. And then at some point in my career, I met a little guy named Ryan, sir hat, and we met on a huge transaction downtown and I represented the buyer. He represented the seller. We reenacted it for million dollar listing, New York, and the rest is kind of history. I'm with Ryan Everson. I think that speaks to a really good point. Number one, I think the state has changed a lot, probably in the last 20 years that you could probably provide a lot of insights there, air, but, but also how moving from rentals to really helping buyers and sellers navigate that process and building that relationship. I think that speaks to just how much real estate is still and always will be a relationship focused business. It it's, there's so much that goes into this transaction, but there's also. The part where, you know, you are helping them navigate a major, major purchase. New York being kind of a unique market in that. Some of them are going to be second home. Some are third but summer, you know, these, these, these people's forever homes. And so kind of talk about if you can, you know, if we're going to look back to 2002, maybe the 2008 know you've seen the rise of relationships, you know, Building those organically as well as building those online. And you know, I think the last 20 years has been a big part there. Can you just kind of talk about what that journey's been like, you know, what, what's it like, there's going to look back into that, that post 2000 post Y2K era to now, how has real estate really kind of like changed? And, and what, what keeps you in it? So that's actually a great question. We I've seen the ebb and flow. So right when I got into the business that was post nine 11, right. In 2001. And that was the crisis, obviously that New York was having at the time. And then we come upon 2007 and 2008, which was the financial crisis. And so I lived through these times where people were before Corona virus, where people were terrified. What's happening next with my job. Where am I with my assets? Do I need to sell and buy? Did I just make a mistake purchasing and do I need to resell this thing? I, I closed on on a Friday that following Monday, are they taking my job away? When they're merging these two companies? I had all of that in my. You know, 20 years experience. And some of it was very frightening because I mean, watching people, their quality of life shift, you know, in a moment with no notice kind of, I mean, there was obviously rumbling. Especially during the financial crisis, but, you know, especially starting with nine 11, when I actually lost my tourism clients and the hotels and the destinations were all bleeding. And the airline that I worked with, everyone said, oh my gosh, we're not traveling or we're not, you know, we're only doing business travel. And when that happens and I got jumped right into real estate, there were some great opportunities. Yes for people. And, but you need it to have the right real estate broker to navigate around and understand what the marketplace was doing. And there was really only a short it was a very abbreviated opportunity, right? Between like 2001 and 2003. And I was in there, but I was doing rentals. So it was like, I wasn't in that sort of, I'm able to coach this buyer or teach them this, you know, figure out how to navigate. Then when I, when I, the navigation of then to sales marketplace, between, like you said, 2003 and 2008 was all about the new development. All the new condos were coming into the marketplace. This city used to be 60, 70% co-op apartments, and now everything was changing. And you needed to know the developer that was creating the newest building you needed to walk through. You needed to sell people opportunities from a floor plan and make them believe this was the best opportunity they could ever have and tomorrow is going to be gone. And that was your job at the time. It wasn't walking through places. It wasn't even, you know, there, there were, there were a lot of times where you just needed to know, okay. This is the newest building, where this is happening, where the D you need it to actually even talk to the rep of the developer and have that inside track. And so I was really good at conjuring. People's inner sort of weaknesses of saying, okay, this is top secret information, but you can have it, but just don't give it to anyone else. Suffer, maybe a buyer. And, you know, obviously everyone's playing with everyone's sort of highs and lows, but the quality of life that people were having when they were feeling like they invest in this new building and then they turned it around and sold and created this empire for their, you know, a little child, it was an amazing thing you would buy for one to sell for one seven, that was the market. And then everything changed in 2007 and eight. And Lehman brothers. Of course, my brother actually worked for them at the time. So I was very familiar in the mortgage backed securities group. So I knew everything was happening as it was happening from his perspective, from the news perspective, from my client's perspective. And we had to change. That was a very scary time where we, as brokers were afraid, we were like, okay, Are we selling these people's assets? Is this like a mutual fund gone bad? Like, what are we doing? How are we anticipating the person's next move? How were we there as a partner and a friend? Because we want to be their lifelong realtor, as opposed to saying, sell, lose money, get out of Dodge. You, you lost your job or are we helping them through coaching them to get another job in this very difficult marketplace? So I became sort of like a Jack of all trades. I had to be a fixer. And that was one of those moments where you have to have your toolbox open with all your bag of tricks and be like, okay, this is for this. This is for that. And this is how we're going to make this work. And I actually had to figure out that I needed all people who were not getting mortgages to buy my client's properties that had just closed because the mortgage is the appraiser would go in and they would say it's worth X, Y, or Z. And I didn't really want that to be happening. If someone just was closing for one five, and they were trying to sell for one, five or one six to kind of try to break even I, and we were in a down-market. Viral. So I had to start figuring out how to do, okay. This can only be a cash purchase or, okay. This has to be remarketed as maybe a two bedroom. We have to put a wall up even though it's 1100 square feet. So it was all about the challenges and creating an excitement around something that was very, very challenging. So that was how sort of that ran. And I had a lot of bankers who entrusted their work with me, and that was a huge blessing. It was like one after another, after another. And that's actually how I kind of launched my larger part of my sales career was during that time coming to the rescue of a lot of these guys, I love that you kind of, you kind of talk about that getting that inside track with developers, and like you said, everyone's kind of, everyone's kind of playing that game with each other, but that goes back. It sounds like to your, to your PR days, right? Absolutely. This is secret information. We'll have this as you should make sure it works. And then of course, it's to their advantage that they gave you the information they're selling. It it's, it's all a sale, but it really is. Figuring out. What's what I'm figuring out. What's actually good information as your secret information. You know, and going from there, I worked in PR last year with real estate companies, like for a PR company and it was it was great, but it's also about like, you've got this, this valuable information. That's. Yeah, you have to know how to make it valuable. Right. You have to create that value. And you do that by contacting the right people and kind of like giving that, that information, a journey in a sense, but something else you talked about that I, maybe there's a little bit of a comparison there, like where the market that we're seeing maybe even outside of New York now you've dealt. I think you have some experience in both Miami as well as the Hamptons, is that correct? Yes. How did you expand out of New York into those markets? Those are, I think Miami in New York might have some comparisons. Hampton's obviously having a great connection there, but how did you kind of expand out and, and what, what kind of brought that up? Well, I have a great partner that once I saw people were navigating toward Florida, I basically picked up two or three contacts that I had as great contacts. Long-term life contacts when a great friend of my husband's and one, a friend of mine. Since growing up who have their Florida licenses. And I said, let's partner because I have a lot of people who are going to be coming your way to avoid the state tax and also to grab some sunshine, because especially in the time of COVID, a lot of people were wanting to have that outdoor lifestyle throughout and have. The freedom and flexibility of being able to still socialize and be with people when everything was kind of shutting down in various other colds, or, you know, more closed off cities where the, there was higher population density. So Miami Palm beach, all of those areas became sledded with my clients wanting second homes. And or relocating. So I said, I have to ride with the times, this is not like a moment to be like, oh, I don't have anybody in Miami or Palm beach to help me. Who's located there. It was more like, okay, who is the savvy person who can close everybody and let's work together and make this happen. Let's figure out where people want to be. Community-wise. And I had a couple of people that I had already moved down there, pre COVID and they were really happy. You know, whether it was in Boba or Northern Miami Aventura. And we, I understand the neighborhoods because I've been traveling myself to Miami often, since I'm a kid, it was the very first place I ever visited. The very first place we took my daughter. We spent, you know, four weeks in Miami when she was little, we used to go for a length of time. And I really, we stayed at the founds in blue. So I really love it out there. And I think, you know, I can survive there all year long, but I love the snowbirds and I love everybody wants a second home. And if you're relocating there, I want to be your person that you come to asking me for help. So that is how that happened. The Hamptons is actually even more, I guess, interesting because I grew up in long islands and I said, I'll never go back to Lynn islands. I won't even have anything to do with lung islands. I am done with long island. Since I was 18. However, I really love the beach and I love swimming and I have a little girl who's seven. And at this point in her life and our lives, we really wanted some extra space. It's hard sometimes in the city to, you know, get your contains. Everyone's sort of in their boxes. And if you're not in a box, You do have to have like 20 million and up, you know, net worth. So that said, we said, why don't we grab a little investment property? I'm very into investments and investment properties. We also own our place on the upper east side. And I said, let me put my money where my mouth is. And then just as a result of that, People started calling me actually crazy amount of phone calls and interest and incredible resources that I have working with Ryan. We said, let me start taking on all of these Hampton's clients. I'm licensed to New York, which obviously we're discussing right now. And yeah. Hamptons is New York. So why don't I work these deals? And that's when I started actually really building out my whole team and saying, okay, well, if I'm in the Hamptons, I need someone in New York. If I'm in New York, I need someone in the Hamptons. And it was, it's just been incredible. It's been an incredible 12 months that the last 12 months I thought we would have made lemonade out of lemons. And that's, that's what I was a great lead into the next question. Cause you mentioned like what it's like building those, those lifelong relationships with your clients. Right. And, and so it makes me wonder, like, how are you coaching them last year? You know, if they, were they coming to you and saying, you know, we want to sell or get out, or were you kind of looking at it? Like we want to, you want to hold this property for right now, this will pass. You know, it's obviously COVID was unprecedented, but but you know tragedy and catastrophe is not unprecedented. Historically. We, we we've been through it. It's it's we see it's going to be cyclical. If it goes down now we'll always come back up. How are you kind of coaching your clients last year? In, in their best interests, because I think everyone's interests are going to be different. Are you looking to, to really relocate full-time and not come back? Do you just want to take, to keep your properties here in New York and then, you know, look outside and you're. Maybe move to Florida for a little bit over six months and, you know, take advantage of the tax benefits there. What was some of the coaching tactics that you employed last year? So we had a lot of coaching that we were sharing as myself Ryan, my team members. We were really figuring out what people wanted. And a lot of people, this is the problem with last year. A lot of people didn't actually know what they wanted. They were confused. And a lot of their financial advisors were even saying, can you just wait please until 2021? So take any action because we need to sort of see where things. You know, fall. And I was definitely interested in the people who were leaving the city to basically help them sell their homes and do everything I could to get them resettled that I, every single one of them. And they will tell you this. I said, are we really losing you? And I actually gave them like my spiel of why they should stay in New York. And I said, are you really going to, like, not being able to walk outside to your nearest little bodega or to grab your favorite coffee, whether it's at Ralph's or via Cadrona or, or some rose. And you, you just want to like, have to get in your car and drive to like a local store. Starbucks, are you sure this is the lifestyle you're looking for and why are you thinking about this? And they'd be like, well, we're just like a free to go outside our apartment. We're this we're that we just don't have enough space. We're trapped in what we feel is a box. There's no way outside. We're leaving our home once a week. And I did look and see that my friends in Newport beach in Miami, everyone seems to be having a great time. Everyone's still living life. And we were like, it was. An

This week, CEO Eric Stegemann and Director of Client Success Britt Chester discuss the news of the week in real estate, including: The National Association of Realtors sets a new membership record Leading Real Estate Companies of the World holds a large in-person event post COVID - are events back? iBuyer Data Junky, Mike DelPrete joins cash backed offer company Homeward

This week, CEO Eric Stegemann and Director of Client Success, Britt Chester discuss: Returning your agents and staff to the office effectively Building culture back with your agents and staff Low inventory and what you can do about it Getting builders to build faster

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player. When it launched more than 5 years ago, Opendoor seemed like another rehash of HomeVestors of America - the Ug buys ugly houses company. With offers that were far off value, it was easy for Realtors to dismiss the company. However, over 5 years, Opendoor has dramatically increased their data and made their offers very competitive. In some markets, Opendoor is offering at or above market value and charging fees as low as 3% total. Does this mean doom and gloom? Not according to Tyler Hixson, Head of Growth and Strategy at Opendoor Brokerage. Tyler presents numerous ways that traditional brokerages can work directly with Opendoor to not only help their clients, but to get paid for doing it!