Lessons from building Arizona’s fastest-growing luxury brokerage

Lessons from building Arizona’s fastest-growing luxury brokerage

Sharing knowledge, lifting others and celebrating victories creates an inviting foundation for unparalleled growth, new Inman contributor Chris Morrison writes.

Real estate is changing fast, and so must you. Inman Connect San Diego is where you turn uncertainty into strategy — with real talk, real tools and the connections that matter. If you’re serious about staying ahead of the game, this is where you need to be. Register now!

In an industry where tradition often supersedes innovation, we have seen something remarkable, where top-producing agents are making bold moves, departing institutional firms for a boutique luxury brand that barely existed only a few years ago.

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When building out your own team or bolstering your individual presence, we are sharing some valuable lessons. These are principles that can guide you on your journey, and we hope you find similar success. 

The ingredients

Every final product begins with a great recipe. And while the ingredients may seem simple, how they come together can be magical.

  1. Be selective with your people
  2. Invest in technology that solves real problems
  3. Create a genuine culture of collaboration
  4. Lead and inspire; don’t just manage
  5. Maintain consistent, high-quality branding across all platforms

1. Be selective: Quality over quantity

For decades, the luxury real estate brokerage and team model has operated on a faulty premise: Recruit as many agents as possible, provide basic tools and hope for the best. Most brokerages and teams boast about having one or two top performers while carrying underperforming agents. It’s a flawed model that creates internal competition rather than collaboration, ultimately diluting a brand’s reputation.

Build something different by being extraordinarily selective. An agent with the wrong standards can irreparably damage your culture and reputation. When building your team, remember: quality over quantity.

We’re obsessed with quality over quantity. Our agent recruitment method is intentional, focusing on agents who not only meet the initial criteria but also align with our values.

Each agent on our team is a “hitter” — influential innovators and relationship builders who understand that real estate is about more than transactions; it’s about transformative experiences. They have integrity, consistently exceed expectations and are dedicated to preserving an extraordinary standard that benefits everyone.

This disciplined focus allowed us to grow to a billion dollars in sales within just 18 months. When building your team, remember that selective recruitment creates a foundation for exponential growth.

2. Technology with a purpose

The industry is saturated with flashy tech solutions that solve problems no one has. The key is to start by identifying the actual friction points agents experience every day — and then invest in or develop tools to solve those specific challenges.

For example, we use technology to identify 500 to 1,500 real estate professionals who have sold homes near a specific property and send a beautifully designed, targeted email campaign. This replaces the need for generic blasts to irrelevant agents and increases the likelihood of connecting with the right buyer pool. The result? Innovative outreach that respects both time and inboxes.

Technology should always reduce friction, not create more of it. Successful adoption doesn’t just come from having the right tools, but also from investing time in onboarding, training and ongoing refinement.

3. Culture as a competitive advantage

Instill a culture of integrity and mutual support where collaboration surpasses internal competition and where agents actively work alongside other agents, sharing insights, strategies and opportunities.

Maintain transparency and open communication about the team’s direction, including challenges and opportunities. 

Hold frequent team meetings to share the latest listings, deals and best practices. And most importantly, always look to celebrate successes!

4. Lead and inspire

Recognizing the individual strength of each agent and providing personalized support help with retention. Articulate your clear vision for the firm, and ensure that each agent understands how they fit in that vision. If an agent requires professional development, then invest in their success. Above all else, exhibit the standards and work ethic you expect from others.

5. Build and maintain consistent, high-quality branding across all platforms

Presentation is everything, especially in marketing properties for sale. By developing marketing templates and aligning brand guidelines across your team, you create a strong and consistent brand. Invest in professional photography and curating your social media presence. Lastly, but not least, engage your clients in exclusive appreciation experiences, such as private property tours.

Your future team

Long-term success in our industry is measured by the relationships you build and the excellence you uphold. Sharing knowledge, lifting others and celebrating victories creates an inviting foundation for unparalleled growth. By thoughtfully combining these ingredients, you will craft an environment where your exceptional team can prosper. 

Chris Morrison is the founding partner of RETSY, Arizona’s fastest-growing luxury real estate firm, headquartered in Scottsdale. Connect with Chris and his team on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Headlines: Redfin Sees a “Brighter” Homebuying Season Coming, Will It Happen?

Mortgage rates are finally falling, and Redfin is predicting a “brighter” housing market. Who’s leading the charge in new homebuyers? Surprisingly, the generation nobody expected—Gen Z. How are they doing it, and why are their homeownership rates so much higher than Millennials and Gen Xers at the same age? We’re digging into it and sharing our forecasts of what the coming housing market will look like.

But to understand where we’re headed, we have to peak inside the personal finances of Americans. In this episode, we’re breaking down the average American’s wallet, how much money they have, their credit card debt, and whether they’ll be able to weather the financial storm of rising costs coming at them. How can Americans cope with higher insurance, taxes, and home prices?

Why is Redfin so optimistic about the 2025 spring homebuying market? And what are we seeing right now in our own markets in terms of buyer demand? Have lower mortgage rates finally crossed the threshold where Americans feel comfortable buying a house? We’ll touch on all of today’s latest headlines in this show!

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Dave:
We have finally got lower mortgage rates, but is that actually going to help America’s housing affordability problem? What’s the state of the average American’s wallet right now and how does Gen Z stack up to previous generations in terms of home ownership? The answer for that one actually might surprise you. Hey everyone, it’s Dave Meyer and this is on the Market, and today we’re bringing you the headlines. We’ve got my friend James Dainard, Kathy Fettke, and Henry Washington all here to join us to discuss the latest real estate news and what it means for each of our portfolios. Henry, how have you been, ma’am?

Henry:
I’ve been fantastic, man. How are you?

Dave:
I’m tired, to be honest. I am in Seattle right now and had dinner with James last night, but I’m not used to these 7:00 AM recordings. I’m used to 11:00 PM recording, so I’m a little thrown off. So if this episode sucks, it’s my fault. Kathy, how are you doing? I am

Kathy:
Good. I’m used to these 7:00 AM

Dave:
Ones. Yeah, you’re bright and chipper and I appreciate it. Thank you. And James, what’s going on?

James:
Not much. I’m still waking up too. Me and Dave were out a little bit later. All of a sudden we’re like, oh, we got early rise. We got to get out of here.

Dave:
We shut down this steak restaurant, not because we were drinking and getting rowdy, we were just hanging out

Henry:
Because they closed at 10.

Dave:
Yes. I mean, I do think we closed at 10 15 and we were by far the last people there. Yeah,

James:
We weren’t really wild that we were nerding out. We were talking about numbers and passive income.

Dave:
Wild spreadsheet talk took us late into the night. It was great. Well, we do have some great headlines for today’s show. We’re going to talk a lot about sort of the broader real estate news. We’ll talk about some lifestyle things and I’m excited to get into one of our headlines which really talks about the state of the average American’s wallet. We talk a lot about macro economics here, but today we’re going to talk a little bit more about microeconomics, which would be a lot of fun. So let’s just jump into our headlines. Our first headline is America’s Home Affordability Crisis has a solution and Lower Rates, isn’t it? As you all probably know by now, at the September meeting, the Federal Reserve cut their interest rate by half a percentage point and not at that meeting. But in the months leading up to that meeting, we did see mortgage rates start to come down, which is really encouraging for the housing market, but at the same time, home prices just keep going up. So there’s sort of this offsetting effect where affordability actually isn’t getting all that much better, even though mortgage rates definitely need to go down for that long-term solution. So Kathy, curious what you think. What are these long-term solutions to affordability if mortgage rates aren’t it?

Kathy:
Yeah, the problem with lower mortgage rates is it’s going to exacerbate the problem. We’re going to probably see more people being able to afford to come in the market when they’re still not the kind of supply that’s needed. So if anything, it’s going to get worse unfortunately, in terms of demand versus the supply that’s out there. So that leaves you with, you’ve got two metrics, right? Supply demand. If there’s not enough supply and too much demand, you got to create more supply. And we know there’s, our presidential candidates are talking about that. That’s great. The fact that it’s even in the news now from politicians saying we got to do something to create more supply. Hopefully they’ll figure something out If it’s more tax credits to builders, better loans, the fact that the Fed did cut rates does make it a little tiny bit better for builders to be able to get the construction loads and bring down costs, at least there. But costs are up everywhere for builders and labor costs and material costs. So it’s, the numbers aren’t working out for a lot of builders, so hopefully politicians come in and help with this situation somehow.

Dave:
Yeah, the press conference after where Jerome Powell was talking about this was like, yeah, supply is the real issue and then we moved on it.

Kathy:
They don’t know how to solve it. They don’t know how do you build something that can’t be built for what it costs to bring in affordable housing? It’s really hard to do. I think you guys know in California it’s been a huge fail. I think they built an apartment building for homeless, it was a million dollars per unit. That’s not obviously sustainable, so I’m not sure anybody knows how to fix the problem and bring on more supply except for real estate investors.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s true. Well, I’m in Seattle visiting family and hung out with James like we were saying last night, but I’ve been noticing the Upzoning a lot here, which if you haven’t heard that term, it’s one potential solution to supply where single family lots are now allowed to add either a single or even two ADUs. And I don’t know James, I just see it driving around everywhere. Do you think it’s having an impact in Seattle?

James:
No, I think it’s definitely having an impact, creating more housing in Seattle. I know LA has a boom going on right now too, where people are trying to build a lot of ADUs. Ddus. The big issue is it’s not creating affordable housing though. Because the big issue like Kathy said, is the costs are just too high. Not only are the building costs up, they continue to creep up, but cost of money’s way up and cost of land is way up. And so what it does is they’re getting built, but the average price in the Seattle metro market, those things are selling for around eight to $900 a foot.

Dave:
Oh my god.

James:
And so like a two bed, two bath, 1,150 square foot unit on a good lot with a garage can get you. I saw one sell recently for over $950,000. What

Henry:
For a

James:
Box? Insane. So it’s not a creating the affordable housing. And the issue is you could do it in some submarkets like Tacoma where the average pricing would be 400,000, a lot cheaper. You can’t build it and make any money though because the average cost to build that unit is about 300 to 350 grand

Dave:
With

James:
Land costs, debt costs, you are in the red, and so you can’t make it. Pencils a rental. You can’t make it pencil as a development to sell. And so it’s just hard. It’s not creating the product that they’re hoping it will create. I in this article, they’re like, oh yeah, we came up with a solution. We’re just going to build more houses.

Henry:
Yeah, okay,

James:
We’re going to motivate you to build houses. We awesome, but you can’t build ’em cheap enough to get affordable housing. So we got to figure out how to drive those costs down. The one thing I did in the article, how it notated was that the construction, how do you get costs down? Well, it’s a supply and demand thing. We have seen, even though it has crept up nationwide, there’s a lot more people looking for work right now in the new construction space, not as much in the renovation space. From my experience with the new construction, and it did say open jobs in the construction space were at 250,000, whereas they were at 400,000 before. And I don’t know if that was part of the whole jobs reporting mess, but the jobs are being filled, but it’s like people don’t have the work in the volume. And so we have seen, I definitely have seen pricing drops, siting, framing, roofing windows. Those costs have dropped for us probably 10 to 20% in the last 12 months. Oh, that’s good. So maybe supply and demand, lack of jobs being bid out permits are rolling out a lot slower right now. There’s less stuff to build. We’re starting to see some construction break and that’s maybe how we get the affordable housing going.

Dave:
Yeah, I wouldn’t describe an eight or $900,000 A DU as affordable housing, Henry. It’s not like your market’s super cheap, but what would 800 grand buy you at Northwest Arkansas?

Henry:
Whew, man. 800 grand. That is probably like a 3000 to 4,000 square foot home, four to six bedrooms, bonus space. It’s a pretty decent size home now. Affordability, I mean it is come down now. You used to be able to get quite the spread for 800,000, but it’s come down a little bit,

Dave:
But I mean it seems like if you took that money to the Midwest, you could buy a fourplex for that at least maybe more eight plex.

Henry:
Yeah, more than that for sure.

Dave:
Yeah, so hopefully there are some positive trends. And I do think at least generally if rates do come down, we’re seeing the rate of appreciation go down. So if home prices stop growing so quickly and rates keep coming down to maybe in the mid fives at some point in the next year or so, that should improve affordability. And I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but when you look at these tables where it shows how much a half point helps the housing market, it’s a lot. It’s usually for half a point, a couple million households become able to qualify for mortgages. And so I think there’s hope that it’s going to get better. Does that mean we’re going to have an abundance of affordable housing? Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

Kathy:
Well, yeah, I mean the stats that I’ve seen is you’ve got about 15 million people in the millennial group just at that household formation age in their early thirties. And if a couple million people are now able to afford homes, you’ve still got 13 million trying to create those households. How are they going to do it? There are reports saying that there’s 7 million homes needed in the affordable range. So it’s a huge issue.

Dave:
Hopefully things are starting to move in the right direction. At least to me, this seems so unsustainable.

James:
I love how the politicians are like, oh yeah, bill Morehouse investors fix this. And then they’re like, oh, by the way, if you increase your rents more than 5%, we want to tax you or take away some of the tax. It’s like they take from one and then they expect you to build the house. It makes no

Henry:
Sense. We want you to build this and then we want you to pay us taxes on the ghost income you create through the appreciation.

Kathy:
Well, one thing that really bugs me about this, but it’s a positive for BiggerPockets and for this community, is that people are going in and buying older homes, dilapidated homes and renovating them and bringing on new supply that way. That can be a cheaper way to bring on more affordable housing. And yet you’ll see headlines just recently of oh, 25% of inventory was bought by investors, how those naughty bad investors. So I do think education is needed and that’s what we’re doing here, trying to get the word out that investors are doing a good thing by buying those houses, fixing them up and putting ’em on the market is more affordable than a new home would be. Right. James and Henry

James:
We’re not so bad. We’re not so bad.

Dave:
That’s a great point, Kathy. And in addition, we are going to be covering some ideas and sort of diving deep into two of these issues, both the housing supply issue and the housing affordability issue the next couple of weeks, we’re doing entire episodes on them, so definitely make sure to check them out because on top of just the headlines, we do want to talk about what’s happening on the ground, what some of the proposals going through, government examples from municipalities that are doing this well, and we’ll be sharing all that in the next couple of weeks. So definitely make sure to check those out. Okay. Time for our first brief word from our sponsors, but don’t go anywhere. Predictions from Fannie Mae and Redfin on where home sales volume’s going next year on the other side.
Welcome back to On the Market. We are breaking down the latest headlines. Let’s move on to our second headline, which reads Real estate news. Redfin predicts Brighter Market next Spring expands team, but also we saw another headline that said Fannie Mae, existing Hope Sales Odd Pace to hit nearly 30 year low despite lower rates. So we’re hearing sort of conflicting news about what’s going on with transaction volume and we of course talk a lot about on the show about home prices, but transaction volume is really a very good indicator for the health of the housing market. It’s a big important element of GDP. All of our friends and listeners who rely on transaction volume like real estate agent mortgage lenders are probably very curious to know what’s going to happen here. So Henry, what’s your take on this? Do you think that we’re going to start to see the market thaw a little bit as we head into 2025?

Henry:
Yeah, I mean I do. We’re still seeing transactions happen. There are a subset of people who still want to move. Yes, there’s a lock in effect happening, but we have to remember that people don’t just move for one reason. People have to move for work. People have to move because they’ve got to get closer to family. People have to move because they’re trying to get away from family. There’s other factors that are causing people to want to move. And so I do think we’re going to see a bump after the holidays just naturally we get a bump in the market at that time. But if rates are sub 6%, I find it hard to believe that we won’t see more transactions.

Dave:
What do you think, James? You think that we’re on pace for more?

James:
It’s been very strange. Right now we have about 34 listings going on for dispose of flip product, which is usually pretty looked at. We’re on the higher price point on the market, but it’s fully renovated. And right now we have about 30% pending. Typically we run about 55 to 65% pending. The thing that I have noticed is the bodies haven’t increased since rates have fallen. It’s not that we’re not selling, we’re not transacting like Henry says, but the average showings, there’s been a couple that have been around the median home price numbers and that’s usually your sweet spot. As rates fell, I was thinking we were going to get a surge in activity and it has been flatlined, we’re still getting one to two show winds a week. And so I think the people still buying, there’s still only so many people out there that can really transact even with rates and housing costs as high as there is.
So there’s going to be some sort of middle point, whether it’s a little pullback in pricing as rates come down, there will be a sweet spot. And I do think there is more buyers coming to market. I think it was last week reported that 11% more mortgage applications got applied for. And then the interesting thing is about the whole lock-in effect though 20% more refi requests. And so I think everyone’s thinking it’s going to loosen up inventory, but what if it doesn’t? Because now everyone who was at seven and a half to eight is just locking in and they’re not moving either. But so those are things to watch. But as of right now, I’m not seeing any bodies increase and eventually it will come, but to my surprise right about now, the market picks up a little bit. Rates are lower, we’re technically cheaper than we were in the first quarter of 2024 and we’re not seeing the bodies.

Dave:
People keep saying this and it makes sense to me that we’ve just sort of exhausted the number of people who want to buy at a high six rate. And I know we’re at low six, but I think it’s just people who are willing to pay sort of any price despite rates have probably moved by now. And now we’re just into a pool of potential buyers that are a little bit more hesitant at least. But I am optimistic that we’re going to start to see a bit of an increase next year. It’s got to get better. It’s hard to imagine it getting worse, at least to be. So I think it’s going to start to get better. And then I actually, I put this on Instagram the other day, but the amount of work from home is really declining.
And very famously we saw Andy chassis, the CEO of Amazon call all their employers back to work five days a week this week. And I found this data that showed that in 2021, about 18% of workers worked from home, at least part-time, 2022 it went down to 15% and now it’s down to 13.8%. So it’s steadily declining. And it just makes me wonder if people who move during the pandemic are going to start to have to move back. And although that’s not the wide open market that we’d all hope for where there’s plenty of inventory and plenty of demand, it could at least push some people back into the market because things are improving a little bit and it’s required for their lifestyle.

Henry:
That’s one of the things that’s happening here in northwest Arkansas. Walmart has made that call about two months ago, and so we’ve started to see people trickle back in to northwest Arkansas, and that is stimulating the housing market, especially in that mid tier home. So the more expensive luxury homes still take a while to sell, but kind of that second tier home, when you’re upgrading from your first three bed, two bath up to your four bed, three bath kind of home, that median range, we’re starting to see more buyers enter that market. As we have high income earners who are coming back to the market,

Dave:
It’s probably, I would imagine also as a landlord, a pretty good sign for vacancy rates and flips because some people might be moving back and not ready or financially unable to buy a house, but it will increase demand for rentals as well.

Henry:
And it’s increasing demand for short-term rentals as you have people who are coming back here and having to spend time looking for a home or having to spend time waiting until a home gets built. We’ve seen our short-term rentals get booked for longer stays for people who are either moving back to the area or having houses built.

Dave:
Alright, well let’s move on to our third headline, which was taken from the Wall Street Journal. It was called The State of America’s Wallet. I really enjoyed this article, but basically it goes through different personal finance metrics through sometimes contradictory and sometimes confusing elements of what’s going on with Americans. So some of the highlights are that compared to 2019, credit card debt is at an all time high. Just to be candid, it’s at over $1.1 trillion. But if you actually break that down on an individual basis, Americans are now earning more than inflation. So we have real wage growth for the first time in a couple of years. Americas have higher earnings bank balances and compared to their disposable income, the debt ratio on that credit card debt is actually a little bit lower. There’s a bunch of other interesting stuff in there though. So Kathy, curious, what do you make of the state of the average American’s finances right now?

Kathy:
Well, from what I’ve seen from charts, and again, there is no average American, right? Yeah,

Dave:
That’s true

Kathy:
From what I’ve seen is the savings rate has gone down, but that’s partly because there’s been more opportunity to put it elsewhere. Why would you just have it sitting in a savings account when you could have it in a money market account or buy some treasuries and make some money on it? So the money for many people is still there, it’s just invested. But with that said, there is the credit card issue, and it’s the same with housing taking an average. It just doesn’t make sense when you’re talking nationally. There are people who are on more fixed incomes, they maybe aren’t as educated, they maybe have more blue collar jobs and inflation has come down. But just the growth rate, a lot of people are like inflation came down. That doesn’t mean prices came down. It just means the rate of those prices going up has slowed down.
So for people on fixed incomes, it’s tough time. There’s so much increase in prices from housing to insurance. I mean we’ve talked about this at length. You go to the grocery store and you come out with a bag of groceries, it’s like, what did I get for this price? So I think there’s still sticker shock for a lot of people, but that’s more on the fixed income area. Then you’ve got a whole nother group that is doing great. They are seeing wage growth, they are seeing opportunity and have certainly benefited from asset growth whether in the stock market or in housing. So it’s the tale two worlds and to me makes no sense to just give averages out there. There are people suffering and there are people really benefiting from things that have happened. But based on the last story of why is the market frozen with housing, I mean, look at where we are. We’re at a very uncertain time. The election is freaking people out. It could go either way. Here we are again at a stalemate like who’s going to win? And I think that that causes the pause of people just kind of not knowing what to do right now.

Dave:
Definitely I agree that’s slowing down the housing market and I think historical precedent shows that we’ll probably see an uptick in real estate transaction regardless of who wins. People stop buying just before the election and then once there’s some more certainty they start buying again. So that would be interesting. The one thing that’s just really stuck out to me in this article, the car ownership expenses, just how expensive it’s gotten to own a car. Everyone knows that prices went up, but this shows that since 2019 insurance, we talk about housing insurance all the time, car insurance has gone up 50%. Explain that to me. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Are people getting in 50% more crashes? I don’t know. Meanwhile, repairs and maintenance are up 40%, so it just feels like getting kicked when you’re down. It’s the situation where you have new cars are more expensive, used cars are way more expensive, maintenance is more expensive, insurance is more expensive. It’s just like all these little things really add up to reduce your spending power and makes you understand why. Even though at the broadest level we do see GDP growth, why people aren’t feeling great about the economy because these little things that really impact their lives, it’s been relentless. It’s terrible.

James:
I mean, I actually thought this article was somewhat of a positive compared to, I’ve kind of looked at it, I’ve had kind of more of a negative outlook on this, but I’m like, okay, well 4 0 1 ks are rising a little bit. People, maybe the credit card debt isn’t as bad for the individual, but there’s a certain breaking point where I’m still like, these costs are just snowballing insurance utility costs are brutal right now too. Property taxes, as people trade out their houses, those things reset. All these things start snowballing and pinching the consumer. It’s kind of came to this slow and I feel like we’re flattening out because of these expenses just because people have to think about it and they value their lifestyle more and they’re like, well, these things are costing more. I’m just going to stay where I’m at and until I think some of these costs start getting some relief and I don’t know how they’re going to get some of these costs down, like insurance, that’s not going to go down.

Henry:
Nope, never.

James:
Who knows? It could keep dramatically increasing the amount of claims that were out there the last two years. We might be just in the beginning of this increase. And so these things are pinching and it’s causing the slowdown across the board and they do need to figure out how can you get other out the Fed cutting their rates that’s going to help with credit card rates. We got to get people spending. I did think a couple of ’em, the stats, I’m like, well, individual 4 0 1 ks are rising and maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it was. I thought America was going broke 12 months ago.

Dave:
Yeah, I agree that the 401k, I thought the credit card debt was really encouraging. And just to clarify, right, there is a ton of credit card debt, but you have to remember that with all the money printing that went on over the last few years, the value of the dollar has declined. And so the value of that credit card debt is actually not as bad as it sounds like it would be because if you look at credit card debt as a percentage of disposable income or as a percentage of monetary supply, like the total amount of dollars that are out there, it’s actually better because there’s way more dollars out there right now. And yes, 1.1 trillion of them are in credit card debt, but that’s actually not any real worse percentage wise than it has been over the last couple of generations. It just feels like a mixed bag.
And you actually see that if you look at the consumer sentiment charts, this is something that gets put out by the University of Michigan. They just measure how consumers are feeling about economy. It looks like one of those EKGs at the hospital. People are like, it’s good, it’s terrible, it’s good, it’s terrible. And every month it just kind of changes. No one really can get a good read on the trend direction at least. Alright, we have to take one last short break, but when we come back we’re going to talk about how Gen Z stacks up in the home ownership race. And the answer’s probably going to surprise you. Stay with us.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On the Market. Alright, let’s move on to our last headline today, which is how Gen Z outpaces past generations in the home ownership rate. And this was surprising to me that Gen Z has taken the lead in the home ownership rate. So basically there’s a survey and it shows what different generations their home ownership rate was at the age of 24 years old. So for Gen Z at 24-year-old Gen Z member, 28% of them own a home, which was kind of high. I was pretty surprised by that. For millennials that rate was 24.5% and Gen X had the lowest at 23.5%. And I’m just curious, Henry, since you’re a resident Gen Z expert here, tell us what all you youngins are talking about with the housing market today.

Henry:
I think this is, in my opinion, this is just a function of the access to information at a younger age. And specifically we’re talking about financial education, right? Financial education wasn’t something that was taught to the general public in a school system. It still really isn’t. But people at a younger age are growing up with technology in their hands at a younger age. And there are more people like us Yahoos out there teaching people about how to build wealth, about how to make money. There’s plenty of financial educators on TikTok teaching people that you can build wealth and you couple that with everything else that we talked about on this podcast. You couple the fact that the knowledge is out there on top of the fact that they understand that housing is not really affordable, life is not really affordable. I have to do something to create more income so that I can have the lifestyle that I want. And so it’s forcing them to think, what can I do with this money to make me more money so that I can afford a home so that I can afford to do the things that I want to do so that I don’t have to worry about going to the grocery store and not being able to afford the things that I want. So you’ve got the circumstance plus the information and then people are taking action with it at a younger age.

Kathy:
I totally agree with you, Henry, that people have more information today, more education, but this article is talking about 2021.
If you have access to information and you’re looking at it and saying, wow, it’s cheaper for me to own than to rent. These young people are smart enough to do that. I just don’t know if that’s going to continue based on where we are today, where the payment is double, maybe what some of those younger people got into. I hope that now that rates are a little bit lower and people have access to information and can say, if I’m going to stay in this place and get all the other benefits of homeownership, which is paying down that loan and hopefully seeing appreciation over time and getting some tax benefits. If you put that all together that it makes sense maybe to have that higher payment or if it’s just more expensive to rent than to own. But that is not the case today. It’s way, way cheaper to rent than to own. And it’s maybe not the best financial decision for some people if they’re going to be paying double to own than to just rent a nice apartment somewhere they could invest elsewhere. So I will be curious to see what the data says after 2022 new data.

Dave:
I have the same exact question, Kathy. I was thinking Gen Z sort of came into this era, at least for the survey like young twenties during a fantastic time to buy real estate and now the pendulum has swung totally in the other direction and now it’s an extremely difficult time to buy real estate. And if you look at some of the data, the job market is particularly tough on young people right now. And so I think it’ll be interesting to see if they’ll be able to keep up. Hopefully as the market gets a little bit better, we’ll be able to see these young people buying homes. Just a critical part of the housing market and the entire economy building wealth and stability. Long-term is for young people to be able to buy homes.

James:
And I think I really like what Henry said. People were at home, they were bored, they educated themselves and that’s why, and luckily there’s things like BiggerPockets and they can actually get good information. When I was their age, there was not all that information. I would Google and look for documents and news articles. But the one thing I will say, I talked to a lot of these Gen Zs that are the short-term rental investors and the ones that bought some of their own homes. They are trying to figure it out. And I give them a little bit of resilience because they is harder, but they’re not throwing in the towel. They are still trying to do different things. They’re raising money. And so I think that’s the one really positive and silver lining to that is they saw the success, they felt the success, and they are still trying to figure it out and create the new plan. And that’s the cool thing because I would’ve thought they would’ve kind of thrown in the towel a little bit more, but they are shift in, they’re moving, they’re really trying to figure it out. And that’s the cool thing.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s very encouraging. So I mean it’s also very counter to the mainstream media narrative that everything about Gen Z’s finances is screwed up. And I’m sure there are a lot of unique challenges, but clearly there are some bright spots too and some opportunities for young folks to get into the housing market as well.

Kathy:
And they’ve kind of lived in a time when they haven’t really seen home prices go down for a while and they are seeing the stock market having not really gone down for a while. So I would imagine it would feel like, oh man, I got to get in because prices are going to keep going up. And based on the lack of supply, that could be true that prices could continue to go up until there’s more supply. Obviously in areas where there’s oversupply like Austin and I think Nashville and Denver prices are coming down a little bit, but still so high. Still so high. So I would imagine the mindset is a little different than maybe a millennial who saw their parents lose their homes, saw prices come down dramatically. It maybe wasn’t as urgent. I need to get into this market. Watching people lose so much money.

James:
I’m excited for is when Jen Alpha starts buying, and then we’re going to start hearing like this cashflow is riz this cashflow, and we’re going to hear all these terms coming out.

Dave:
I’m retiring at that point. I can’t learn all those new words.

Henry:
Yeah, because right now it’s pretty mid, so pretty soon. Pretty soon it’ll be better.

Dave:
Alright, well thank you all so much for joining us, James, Henry, Kathy, I think the next time I’m going to see you guys is in Mexico. Is that right?

Kathy:
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. It’ll

Dave:
Be fun. Let’s

Kathy:
Go. Bep con’s going to be lit. I have Gen Z kids, right? I have to learn this

Dave:
Stuff. There you go. Well hopefully we’ll see you all there. Come check us out. We’re going to actually, this year we’re doing a podcast meet and greet part of BP Con where we’re just kind of hanging out and chatting with listeners of the show. So if you are a listener of On the Market, come check us out. I don’t know the date and the time on the top of my head, but it’ll be on the agenda. Come hang out with Kathy Henry, James, and myself in Mexico. It should be a really good time. Thank you all so much for listening. We’ll see you soon for another episode of On The Market. On The Market was created by me, Dave Meyer and Kaylin Bennett. The show is produced by Kaylin Bennett, with editing by Exodus Media. Copywriting is by Calico content and we want to extend a big thank you to everyone at BiggerPockets for making this show possible.

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In This Episode We Cover

  • How Gen Z became the leading young homeowner generation
  • Lower rates, but still struggling affordability and the real solution to our housing problem
  • Optimistic news from Redfin about the 2025 spring housing market and the big JUMP in mortgage applications
  • The average American’s personal finances and whether they’ll be able to eat the cost of recent inflation
  • The downfall of work-from-home and why more Americans may be moving (and buying houses) soon
  • And So Much More!

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

More Americans think mortgage rates and home prices will drop

Whether it’s refining your business model, mastering new technologies, or discovering strategies to capitalize on the next market surge, Inman Connect New York will prepare you to take bold steps forward. The Next Chapter is about to begin. Be part of it. Join us and thousands of real estate leaders Jan. 22-24, 2025.

A growing number of Americans expect mortgage rates and home prices to come down in the year ahead, but fewer than one in five consumers polled by Fannie Mae last month thought August was a good time to buy a home.

Fannie Mae’s latest monthly National Housing Survey, fielded Aug. 1-19 to 1,044 households, showed the net share of consumers who think mortgage rates will go down over the next 12 months shot up 16 percentage points to a new survey high.

Most Americans still think home prices will keep rising or stay the same in the year ahead. But the net share who think home prices will go up fell by eight percentage points from July to August — an indication that consumers understand home price appreciation is decelerating in many markets and that prices have peaked in others.

Despite growing optimism about the future, only 17 percent of renters and homeowners surveyed in August thought last month was a good time to buy a home — unchanged from July, and not much better than the all-time low of 14 percent seen in May.

Mark Palim

“Despite significantly greater optimism that mortgage rates and home prices will move in a more favorable direction for potential homebuyers, most consumers remain apprehensive about the housing market and continue to point to the lack of affordability and supply as the chief reasons for their pessimism,” Fannie Mae Deputy Chief Economist Mark Palim said in a statement.

While 65 percent thought it was a good time to sell, they were much less likely to say that if they lived in the South (56 percent), where inventories of homes for sale are on the rise in many markets, than in the Northeast (80 percent), Midwest (70 percent) or West (66 percent).

Palim chalked regional differences to wide geographic variation in new home construction activity.

“In the regions that had a stronger construction response following the pandemic, our latest survey data suggest that sellers may be losing some of their negotiating power due to the increased supply,” Palim said. “That said, we also know from previous research that some potential homebuyers may be feeling additional pressure to move for non-financial reasons.”

Declining mortgage rates are likely to bring more listings onto the market as homeowners feel less constrained by the “lock-in effect” — the reluctance to sell a home mortgaged at a bargain basement rate.

Source: Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, August, 2024.

Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI), which distills six questions from the National Housing Survey into a single number, ticked up 0.6 points from July to August, to 72.1, up 5.2 points from a year ago.

Only two of six components of the HPSI improved — mortgage rate outlook and job loss concern (Fannie Mae considers a decline in sentiment about the prospects for future home price appreciation as a negative).

“On a national level, housing sentiment was largely unchanged in August despite some positive developments for affordability, including a meaningful decline in actual mortgage rates and an uptick in home listings in certain markets, particularly in the Sunbelt,” Palim said.

Data tracked by Optimal Blue showed rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans hitting a 2024 low of 6.22 percent Friday following the release of weak jobs reports last week.

While mortgage rates have now dropped more than a full percentage point from a 2024 high of 7.27 percent on April 25, economic forecasters see more room for rates to fall as the Federal Reserve pivots from fighting inflation to protecting jobs.

Economists at Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association believe the Federal Reserve is on the verge of launching a rate-cutting campaign on Sept. 18 that will help bring rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages below 6 percent by the fourth quarter of 2025.

While mortgage rates have been falling steadily for three months, it’s taken a while for consumers to get the message.

Source: Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, August, 2024.

One in four consumers surveyed in August (26 percent) said they expected mortgage rates to go up in the year ahead, down from 31 percent in July and 47 percent last October, when rates were hitting post-pandemic highs.

With the percentage of respondents who said they expect mortgage rates to go down in the next 12 months jumping 10 percentage points, to 39 percent, the net share of those expecting rates to go down rose to 13 percent — the highest level in survey records dating to 2010.

Source: Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, August, 2024.

Most Americans agree that home prices will either fall (25 percent) or stay the same (37 percent) over the next 12 months. While 37 percent of consumers surveyed in August still thought home prices would keep going up in the year ahead, that’s down from 41 percent in July.

The net share of consumers who say home prices will go up decreased eight percentage points to 13 percent.

Source: Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, August, 2024.

With the percentage of respondents saying August was a good time to buy remaining unchanged from 17 percent in July, and the percentage who say it was a bad time to buy increasing to 83 percent, the net share of those who said August was a good time to buy decreased one percentage point month over month to -65 percent.

Source: Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, August, 2024.

While there was considerable variation by region, the net share who said August was a good time to sell was unchanged from July. With 65 percent saying August was a good time to sell and 34 percent saying it was a bad time, the net share saying it was a good time to sell was 31 percent.

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Email Matt Carter

ICYMI at Inman Connect Las Vegas: Broker edition

Discover key brokerage takeaways from Inman Connect Las Vegas that will help you enhance you practices, leverage technology and navigate the evolving real estate landscape.

Inman Connect is moving from Las Vegas to San Diego in 2025 and it’ll be bigger, better, and bolder than ever before. Join us for Inman Connect San Diego on July 30-Aug. 1, 2025 with the brightest minds in real estate to shape the future of the industry. Reserve your spot today for an exclusive discount.

Inman Connect Las Vegas (ICLV) offered a wealth of insights, innovative strategies and inspiring stories from industry leaders. For brokers looking to stay ahead in a competitive market, the event presented a unique opportunity to gather actionable knowledge and network with the best in the business.

If you missed it (or would like a refresher after taking it all in at the event), here are some of the most compelling segments and key takeaways to help brokers like you enhance your practices, leverage cutting-edge technology, and navigate the evolving landscape of real estate with confidence and foresight.

Discover how you can apply these lessons to drive success and growth in your brokerage.


Affordability

To mortgage or not to mortgage? That is the question (for brokers)

HomeLight founder and CEO Drew Uher (center) and Fathom Holdings CEO Marco Fregenal discuss the mortgage business with Clelia Peters at Inman Connect Las Vegas Thursday. Photo by: AJ Canaria Creative Services

HomeLight CEO Drew Uher says he’s glad to be out of the mortgage business. Fathom CEO Marco Fregenal sees value of being in lending “in a very selective way.”


Affordability: It’s not just high mortgage rates and home prices

The rising cost of construction, insurance and property taxes are creating obstacles for homebuyers that require help from real estate agents and mortgage lenders: LoanDepot CEO Frank Martell.


RFK Jr. at ICLV: Homeownership is the engine of the middle class

The Kennedy family heir and presidential contender also argued Thursday at Inman Connect Las Vegas that democracy depends on people maintaining “a posture of fierce skepticism.”


Leadership

NAR President Kevin Sears sends message of resilience at ICLV

NAR President Kevin Sears speaks at Inman Connect Las Vegas on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Photo by AJ Canaria Creative Services

“I hope — at the end of the day, at the end of the 2-year term — to be able to look back and say there was some stability and calm,” Sears told hundreds of ICLV attendees, many of them NAR members.


Trust in real estate hits ‘all time low:’ Coldwell Banker Realty CEO

Kamini Lane spoke to the crowd at Thursday’s Inman Connect Las Vegas on industry perception and the prevalence of part-time “slashies.”


The CEOs growing their businesses by using in-house systems

CEOs from RealtyONE, HomeSmart and LPT Realty have somehow managed to grow their businesses during this time of transition, largely by listening to their constituents and creating customized solutions, they told ICLV attendees.


Experts

Brad Inman: Be decisive, practice self-care and be present

Brad Inman at Inman Connect Las Vegas 2024 | Photo by: AJ Canaria Creative Services

To get through the industry’s perfect storm, the Inman News founder told ICLV attendees to “think big [and] act big, because the goddamn problem is very big.”


Nick Mallory talks building your brand and keeping it S.I.M.P.L.E.

Nick Mallory, brand director with Boneyard Beer and VP of Ackley Brands, told real estate pros at Inman Connect Las Vegas on Tuesday that the need to stand out isn’t exclusive to beer brewers.


DelPrete ‘secret shopper’ sting reveals agents lose hosts of leads

With the help of a firm employing more than 100 undercover researchers, the real estate tech strategist tested agents at roughly 30 brokerages. They found that more than 1 in 3 inquiries never received a response from the agent.


Commissions

To maximize broker profitability, ask yourself these questions

Clelia Peters; Joe Skousen, Inside Real Estate; Chris Heller, OJO | Photos by AJ Canaria Creative Services

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, Joe Skousen and Chris Heller discussed what to do — and not do — to drive bigger profit margins.


Redfin CEO talks lapdogs, wolves and riding out commission shifts

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman described an increasingly complicated commission landscape and the shift brokerages and portals must make to bolster agents’ entrepreneurial spirit.


Agents

Agents need to prepare for failure, harness opportunities, group says

From left: Gary Gold, Ivan Sher, Christophe Choo, Roh Habibi | Photo by: AJ Canaria Creative Services

“Success is a very strange beast and it often comes before total annihilation,” said Beverly Hills broker Gary Gold at Inman Luxury Connect.


Tough market? Focus on fundamentals, lean into learning

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, brokerage leaders shared tactics and wisdom on how to deal with tough market issues and keep agents up to speed and motivated.


Buyer consultations will be easier than you think: Keith Robinson

NextHome chief strategy officer’s 20-minute presentation at Inman Connect Las Vegas could be just the ticket to feeling more at ease with changes coming Aug. 17.


Invest in yourself to generate listings in any market

Jackie Soto led a panel at Inman Connect Las Vegas on Tuesday titled “Top Tips for Generating More Listings in a Crowded Market.”


Portals

Realtor.com CEO: Take Homes.com claims with a grain of salt

Inman Special Projects Editor Jim Dalrymple II and Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales at Inman Connect Las Vegas 2024. Photo by: AJ Canaria Creative Services

In his second Inman Connect appearance of the year, Realtor.com CEO Damian Eales addressed an intensifying rivalry with Homes.com and what his company is doing to lead the charge on preserving buyer agency amid upcoming commission changes.


Rival portal execs team up against a common foe: MLS red tape

Executives at Redfin and Zillow made the case at Inman Broker Connect that consumers would benefit from more universal standards of data sharing by MLSs. But the path to such a future is rocky, they said.


Zillow CEO Barton: We’re moving beyond the ‘Portal 1.0’ experience

In his first Inman Connect appearance since 2021, Zillow CEO Rich Barton discussed accelerating tech innovation and the next evolution of the residential portal experience.


Jessi Healey is a freelance writer and social media manager specializing in real estate. Find her on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Threads.

Compass posts gains in revenue and agent count in Q2 earnings

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Uncertainty in the housing market has failed to slow down Compass this year, with a new earnings report showing the brokerage’s revenue, transactions and agent count all made significant gains in the second quarter — results CEO Robert Reffkin described as a best-ever performance.

In an earnings report Wednesday, Compass revealed it brought in $1.7 billion in revenue between April and June. That’s a 14 percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2023. The company attributed the higher revenue to an 11.4 percent increase in transactions — a number the brokerage achieved even though, the report notes, “transactions declined by 3.3 percent for the entire residential real estate market.”

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The jump in revenue also helped Compass turn a profit of $20.7 million during Q2 — a turnaround from the $47.8 million net loss the company suffered during the same period a year earlier.

The new report also shows that at the end of the second quarter, Compass had a total of 16,997 principal agents. That’s up considerably from the 13,698 it had at the end of Q2 2023. The company noted in the report that it added “543 principal agents organically and approximately 2,375 principal agents from the acquisitions of Latter & Blum and Parks Real Estate in Q2 2024.”

Robert Reffkin

In a call with investors Wednesday afternoon, Reffkin described Q2 by saying “we had the best performance we ever had as a company.” In the report, he added that he was “particularly pleased” with the brokerage’s latest financial results.

“Capitalizing on the structural advantages created by our end-to-end proprietary technology platform, national scale, top agent network and exclusive inventory, we have positioned Compass for what we believe will be significant upside when the market begins to recover,” Reffkin said in the report.

In addition to revenue and transactions, the report further shows that Compass saw free cash flow of $40.4 million in the second quarter. That’s significant because Compass has a long-stated goal of becoming free cash flow positive. The company originally believed it would hit that target last year but, amid a tough market, ultimately missed. However, Q2 is the second consecutive quarter Compass has managed to have positive free cash flow, suggesting it may be on track to hit its goal this year.

During Wednesday’s investor call, Compass Chief Financial Officer Kalani Reelitz confirmed that the company expects to be free cash flow positive for all 2024. However, free cash flow will only be “slightly” positive in Q3 and is likely to be negative in Q4. Reelitz attributed these likely results to seasonality.

Heading into Wednesday’s earnings report, Compass shares were trading in the mid $4 range. That was down slightly for the day and up slightly for the week. But it was up significantly — about 24 percent — from where shares were at the beginning of the year.

Shares fluctuated but ultimately made significant gains in after-hours trading following the publication of Wednesday’s earnings report.

Credit: Google

Compass had a market cap of $2.17 billion as of Wednesday afternoon.

Compass last reported earnings in May. At the time, it revealed that it earned $1.05 billion in revenue between January and March. That number represented a 10 percent jump compared to the first quarter of 2023. In the May report, Compass attributed the higher Q1 revenue to a 7.1 percent increase in transactions.

Aside from financial numbers and agent counts, Wednesday’s report further states that Compass had a national market share of 5.13 percent in the second quarter of the year. The report describes that number as “an increase of 50 basis points compared to Q2 2023 and an increase of 37 basis points sequentially from Q1 2024.”

During his investor call, Reffkin said Compass wants to achieve 30 percent market share in its top 30 markets by 2026. The company calls this plan its “30-30 Vision” and, according to Reffkin, can achieve that objective thanks to various “structural advantages.” Those advantages include a unique tech platform, a national scale, a top agent network, and the “depth and breadth of our inventory,” according to Reffkin.

Reffkin also said Compass plans to make the company the “required destination for real estate,” with “more inventory than third-party websites.”

Compass’ website already includes a portal, which years ago caused some tension between the company and Redfin, which is also a portal-brokerage operator. However, in more recent years, Compass has largely been absent from the discussion of real estate portals and the so-called portal wars — which have become crowded thanks to the entrance of CoStar. Reffkin’s comments, however, suggest that Compass may have an appetite to vie for portal traffic after all.

Asked how close Compass is to achieving 30 percent market share in its top 30 markets, Reffkin said during the call that “we’re more than halfway there.”

Later during the investor call, Reffkin weighed in on antitrust commission lawsuits. Among other things, he said the settlements seem to have shown the benefits of working at a large real estate company, and that Compass is seeing increased interest from agents who want to join the brokerage.

Reffkin also said that since the National Association of Realtors agreed to settle multiple antitrust commission suits, there has not been a noticeable change in the number of sellers offering buyer agent commissions. Most sellers also continue to offer buyer agent commissions of 2 percent or more.

According to Reffkin, these findings suggest the commission suit settlements — and the August deadline for various new NAR rules — will not have a significant deleterious impact on real estate professionals, and that the biggest fears about the situation have “simply not materialized.”

“The data clearly shows,” Reffkin said, “that sellers continue to value incentivizing buyer agents.”

Update: This story was updated after publication with additional information from Compass’ earnings report, and with commentary from the company’s investor call. 

Email Jim Dalrymple II