Real estate software company MoxiWorks has been building its 150-plus member MoxiCloud network for years to help users solve challenges its products may not address. The latest to be selected is SOCi, a powerful online marketing solution.
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Real estate software company MoxiWorks has selected SOCi, a powerful online marketing solution that works with some of the business world’s most recognized names, as the latest in its 150+ member MoxiCloud network, according to a July 25 press release. The release describes SOCi as “the leading co-marketing cloud for multi-location enterprises.”
The digital marketing company’s software automates everything from social media and display advertising to customer surveys and product reviews, among other marketing tactics. It also tackles online reputation management and SEO strategy.
“This partnership enables brokers and agents to effortlessly post real estate listings — whether they’re new listings, open houses, price reductions, or closings — directly to their social media channels,” MoxiWorks said in the release.
While there are a number of real estate-specific companies that handle such needs, even MoxiWorks itself, SOCi’s advantage is that it brings case studies, feedback and business intelligence from customers like Ford, Jersey Mike’s, KOA, Ace Hardware, Rent-A-Center, SportClips and Marcos Pizza, among many others. External insights can be powerful drivers of improvement for real estate brands.
“Everyone knows how important social media is for promoting not only a real estate listing but an agent and their brand as well,” said Krista Hannahs, MoxiWorks’ Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, in a statement. “We’re excited to have a powerhouse tool like SOCi in our MoxiCloud partner program to offer agents technology that truly simplifies their social media management, especially for large brokerages with multiple franchises and locations.”
Of specific interest to MoxiWorks customers may be SOCi’s Genius Social, an AI-driven social media content planner and assistant. Hyper-localized content and marketing insights can be assembled into sequential posts with a centralized calendar, optimized for long-term engagement and focused on specific zip codes or regions within one.
Because of the deep integration, users are assured that all listing data, copy and relevant marketing assets are pushed through to SOCi’s interface. There’s a full automation option for those with more listings than time, as well as total manual oversight for those who want to be more deliberate with how messaging is disseminated.
Richard Lumsden, senior vice president of business development at SOCi, said in the release that his company’s suite of features can help new agents become market authorities, and established agents scale “without lifting a finger.”
“This powerful partnership ensures maximum efficiency and effectiveness in social media management for brokers and agents,” Lumsden said.
SOCi set up a website on the partnership at www.meetsoci.com/moxiworks-integration. MoxiWorks is based in Seattle and states that it powers more than 800 brokerages and 400,000 agents.
Artificial intelligence software company Restb.ai has released a report on the effectiveness of floor plans on days on market.
At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.
Among other uses, Restb.ai’s computer vision models are powering a new way for consumers to find homes and speeding up the pace at which appraisers greenlight mortgages.
Now Inman has learned it’s putting its AI wisdom to use to document how very specific marketing assets overlap with a home’s ability to sell, and it appears all those terribly staged images of agents pointing at floor plans may finally have their place in your marketing arsenal.
The Restb.ai Special Report series will be a semi-annual breakdown of what the company has learned from reading millions of property photos submitted to its many multiple listing partners. The first examines how the existence of a floor plan impacts days on market (DOM). Do consumers consider them valuable before listing a listing? Yes, according to a July 24 press release.
One hundred thousand photos were used to generate the first report. Listing pages were read between May 1, 2023, and April 30, 2024, across 10 markets, including major cities like Chicago, Phoenix and Houston and mid-size markets like Portland, Oregon, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, the release said. The diversity was key to ensuring the data captured by the AI represented a healthy cross-section of how floor plans influence real estate sales activity.
Results confirmed surface-level conclusions — Chicago had the highest number of floor plans included with listings, St. Louis the least — and that their use is growing. More compelling findings showed that agents who use a floor plan will sell their client’s home in less time, especially in St. Louis, where using one cut DOM by 41 percent. In Chicago, DOM went from an average of 11.3 days to 8.5.
The city of Portland cut its use of floor plans in the time studied, but still, those listing agents who encouraged their use sold a home almost two days faster, on average. The outlier was Las Vegas, where using a floor plan increased DOM by 2 percent. Apparently, buyers there would rather not know how a home is designed.
Restb.ai was the first software provider to sign its initials on the new foundation curing under the real estate industry, a hardening mix of artificial intelligence and quickly evolving machine learning solutions. The company’s AI quickly scans and “reads” still images to learn their contents, which can be translated into actionable data when processed at scale.
“We did do a study on overcast photos, is it dusk, or if it’s snowy, and studied the impact on price. We found that photos taken in overcast conditions were on the market for an average of 12 days longer. So, those companies doing sky-replacement edits … it’s worth it.”
On its new floor plan revelations, Brannen made sure to note that they vary by market, as the data shows.
“Our study highlights how floor plans can enhance the appeal of a listing, but their impact varies based on specific market dynamics. Integrating floor plans into property listings can be a crucial decision for selling agents, offering a competitive edge in markets with a high presence of floor plans,” he said.
On a broader scale, the data showed a steady volume of floor plans can lift an entire market. Markets with at least 10 percent of listings containing floor plans showed an average reduction of 1.4 days in DOM, equating to an 18 percent decrease, the study showed.
Part of the relationship involves Local Logic providing iGo with a site license for NeighborhoodIntel, a recently released property reporting product that generates insights from more can 250 data points per home.
At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.
Part of Local Logic’s growth strategy has been to partner with like-minded technology providers and its latest move is no different, Inman has learned.
The company that provides data resources and tactical marketing tools to help agents become location experts has partnered with iGo, a digital home inspection and home management company, according to a July 24 press release. The partnership is a clever choice for Local Logic, as it gets no more location-specific in real estate than under the crawl space of a home about to sell.
Part of the relationship involves Local Logic providing iGo with a site license for NeighborhoodIntel, a recently released property reporting product that generates insights from more can 250 data points per home.
“IGo provides technology and services to home inspection companies, including HomeBinder, a system powered by home inspection data that helps home purchasers more easily manage moving and maintaining their homes with a personalized experience,” the release stated.
In 2023, iGo closed on more than $5.5 million in Series A funding and promptly acquired two industry software providers, HomeBinder and Repair Pricer, Inman reported.
HomeBinder is focused on helping people move, integrating a home’s physical characteristics and inspection data to help home purchasers more easily manage moving and maintaining their homes. It was reviewed by Inman in 2022 and noted for its Home Seller report, easy connection to local vendors, and ability to collect all of the closing documents and requisite loan data shortly after closing.
Vincent-Charles Hodder, co-founder and CEO of Local Logic, said in the press release that his company’s offerings overlap intuitively with iGo’s offer to the industry.
“Collaboration with iGo underscores our commitment to leveraging location intelligence to improve real estate transactions,” Hodder said. “By integrating NeighborhoodIntel into iGo’s services, we are equipping homebuyers with critical information to make more informed decisions about where they live.”
Local Logic has relationships in place on multiple industry fronts, including with MLS software provider VestaPlus, HomeGenius and, as of last month, AI disability resource Lundy.
“We are relentless about delivering an amazing consumer experience,” said John Russell, chief executive officer and co-founder of iGo, in a statement on the partnership. “By including NeighborhoodIntel reports with HomeBinder, we are able to provide homebuyers with unparalleled insights into their potential new neighborhoods, significantly enhancing their home buying experience.”
Local Logic landed $13 million in a Series B round in 2023, money that the company said will put toward general operations and services expansion to help the space “better understand the impact of location,” according to the announcement.
At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.
Among all the hard things about being a real estate agent, is there anything harder than being yourself?
In real estate marketing, it doesn’t matter how many views a social media post or short-form video earns if the subject being watched isn’t showing us who’s really behind the smartphone. The stream won’t make it past season one.
Cracking the authenticity code is what gives Tyler Mount, CEO of Henry Street Creative, a reason to wake up every morning. The frequent speaker, coach and consultant is unapologetically himself and almost uncomfortably comfortable with who he is and what he’s good at — a rare trait in anyone, but one that becomes invaluable when its benefits are applied to helping people find their brand.
Mount will be at Inman Connect Las Vegas sharing his expertise on all things branding, marketing and, if we’re lucky, how to be yourself. He might very well be the only Connect speaker who is halfway to an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), holding three Tony Awards and a Grammy for his theater production work, including the musical “Once on this Island.”
Mount is also the youngest individual producer to be nominated in all four theater production categories, but his work as a digital strategist is equally impressive, having managed campaigns for President Joe Biden’s presidential election, NBC, IBM and the Tony Awards themselves.
The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Inman: Choosing marketing and creative work is one thing, but why in real estate? What’s unique about the industry’s needs?
Mount: I’ve always had a love of real estate. I worked in it in college, in Austin with some top agents and was very lucky to be mentored under them. I worked in entertainment and editorial for a while when back in New York, but then, when I wanted to own my own business, it just happened that way.
I leaned back into that love for real estate, working for a prominent developer, then with Ryan Serhant’s office, but I love working with the leaders of our industry because I find a huge disconnect between a real estate agent and their idea of what a business is, and how they treat their own business.
My work is not curing cancer, it’s not rocket science, but it is bigger than business: it’s their livelihood. If I can sit and talk and gossip with someone for 45 minutes back to back all day and it changes the trajectory of their career, their constant overwhelm, that’s time well spent.
One big hurdle is the transactional nature of real estate. It’s hard to convince agents that marketing is worth it; they only see money going out. How do you handle that objection?
I always set expectations very clearly. Anyone who wants an ROI on my services in three months gets told that they’re with the wrong company, and that it’s never happening.
Let’s be very clear. Anyone who tells you it’s happening is either lying to you or unethical — both types of people we don’t want to work with. If we’re lucky, we’ll see ROI in the first six months. Building your brand and equity takes a very long time, and once that has been established, that is far from you getting leads from it.
I’m an ROI-centric business owner; I’m only employed when I’m ROI-positive. Me charging a shit-ton of money upfront doesn’t behoove me at all because they’ll never work with me again. I am not cheap, but I am value-based. If you work with me for one year, you’ll pay less than one average commission check. If we can’t sell one home together, you shouldn’t be a real estate agent and I certainly shouldn’t have my job.
Why do you think authenticity is so hard for some in the industry?
We have to think of authenticity not in the way we think real estate agents or brokers or lenders should. ’Should’ is one of the most toxic words in business. Whoever said that real estate agents should wear suits and say ‘yes sir, yes ma’am’ and wear pearl necklaces? It’s just not the case.
Authenticity is not black and white. The real issue is that it’s not a business issue, it’s an interpersonal, mental and psychological issue because from a young age, we are influenced by our friends, our family, and most importantly, society, to be what they all think we should be. As children, we are constantly acting a certain way to avoid ridicule and hostility to fit in. The majority of our adult lives is then spent trying to figure out what is truth and what was put on as a front to protect us.
So in business, that carries on. People don’t want to look like idiots in business, they want to appear successful, so we act a certain way. For a lot of novice agents, that means wearing a suit and tie at every listing because that’s what agents should look like.
Even as a speaker, I’m professional. My number one goal is to be really fucking pleasant to work with. But if you need me to wear a suit and tie, and hate me cursing, then I’m probably not the right person for you. I don’t want to police myself. If you want Tyler, you get Tyler.
The more you act authentically and the more often you get hired, the more you realize who you are, unapologetically.
What advertising campaigns or concepts — in any industry — do you like right now?
We’re moving away from traditional product marketing. We are leaning into user-generated content, into any content that feels like it’s not an advertisement.
Ryan Reynolds has this concept called “fastvertising” and it’s genius because he takes real-life events and builds on them. If something is happening in the Zeitgeist, he can iterate on it with his content team and post on it this evening. That kind of topicality is really important, and it gives the impression that your brand is really smart, and you have a really smart content team.
Any other plans for Vegas?
Well, I have this weird infatuation with Vegas. I go every year for my birthday and stay no longer than 48 hours. I don’t want to be there longer, but I am shameless. I always win big. I’m not betting thousands, but hundreds, and like in life, if you want to win big, you have to bet big.
And I love Golden Steer, the best steakhouse on the planet. We always have a great time; that’s the goal. It’s not about winning. It’s about having a good time.
MaverickRE is an artificial intelligence solution for helping train and analyze the performance of real estate sales professionals.
At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.
MaverickRE is an AI sales coaching and brokerage performance solution
Platforms: Web Ideal for: All agents, teams, brokerages
Top selling points:
• AI sales call training • Call monitoring and grading • Automated performance analytics • In-depth lead analysis • Top-down brokerage reporting
Top concern(s):
Ylopo’s been flying on its own for years with a number of very innovative assets under its banner, and it’s possible its latest product finally leads to its acquisition. Great for the company but, for some reason, fearful for users.
What you should know
MaverickRE is a stand-alone sister company to Ylopo, known for its lead generation and SEO-heavy marketing innovations. The new product is for use by brokerages and teams, and thus the agents within them, to learn how to be better at business.
Using artificial intelligence that tags along on every form of outreach, the application produces granular reports on everything related to creating and doing business. The system listens for keywords, turns of phrase, long pauses, reactions, response times and mixes its opinion of that with the lead’s location preferences, wants, needs, objections, budget and overall sentiment to produce rich analyses of possible success and to provide an ongoing blueprint for how to continually engage the buyer or seller.
Screenshot
It measures the percentage of dead-air per call, the time it took to reach an objection and the subsequent time to hanging up, the rate of appointments set and provides an overall per-call grade.
It extracts 16 metadata fields to populate its call reports, connecting each lead or client to their agent in a sharp, minimalist data experience for any sales manager or broker to quickly peruse. It can offer admin-level views to see how each agent is performing and even uses word clouds to summarize common objections.
Along with typical agent leaderboards and lead source analysis features, all of which can be partitioned by team or brokerage branch, MaverickRE’s other core value proposition is its AI-based sales training.
Ylopo unveiled Raiya, its vocal sales automation, at Inman Connect in January of this year. Technologically, it’s impressive stuff. The underlying model is being put to further use within MaverickRE as a role-player, designed to help new and growing agents with a talkative, realistic sales training partner.
Users can select a scenario, such as pitching a “confused buyer” or a “disinterested seller,” start the player, and respond in real time, live with the bot. Email performance reports are generated after each call and naturally, the AI will get more realistic over time, and as of this writing, there are 60 scenarios included spanning an array of sales challenges specific to divorce, a relocation, a death on the property and the need for a 1031 Exchange.
Its lead routing functionality is pretty innovative. It can dynamically route an incoming call or message to the person best suited for it based on location, budget, need, property type and even the agent’s track record with leads from that specific source.
There’s no question that the industry’s top leaders — brokerage founders, NAR executives, etc. — have been failing their new agents for decades, from allowing them to rely on NAR’s long-standing presence in government to create easy paths to success and perpetuate the assumption that no home can be sold without an agent somewhere in the deal to now leaving them to blister in the heat of a stagnant market while consumers come for their livelihood.
Remember, a license to sell does not equate to the ability to sell.
Brokerages have long relied on self-starters to muddle their way through it or the long-dead in-house mentorship model, blaming the drop-out rate solely on how hard it is to find new business, ignoring their own staggering lack of willingness to invest in who they hire.
The point is, the industry needs to look inward and examine how it handles its new blood. Can an AI training system fix everything? Of course not. But for the forward-thinking brokerage or team leader who considers themselves accountable, MaverickRE is a very worthwhile investment in the future of your people.
You either want your team to succeed, or you don’t.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
