by Jeff Tucker | Sep 12, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
The commission lawsuits are a wakeup call for real estate, new Inman contributor Mathew Speer writes. Now is the time to raise your standards and truly embrace transparency.
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.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement and other ongoing lawsuits against the real estate industry is a powerful wakeup call for brokerages and agents to rethink how they conduct business. As both professionals and consumers of real estate, agents have a unique opportunity — and responsibility — to evolve their practices for the greater good.
On the last four properties I listed, I embraced full transparency by pre-inspecting the homes, sharing property documents upfront, and allowing buyers to view all received offers.
This approach empowered buyers to purchase with confidence, demonstrating that a higher operating standard and transparency can simplify transactions and create a better way for everyone to buy and sell homes.
The settlement against the real estate industry is a wakeup call for brokerages and agents to rethink how we conduct business.
As both professionals and consumers, we have a unique opportunity — and responsibility — to evolve our practices for the greater good. The key to this evolution lies in restructuring our industry around a consumer-centric business model and committing to full transparency in real estate transactions.
Isn’t there a better way?
Before the lawsuit, I had been seeking a better way for consumers to transact real estate by examining my own practices: How can I be the real estate professional I would want to work with?
From the many commission lawsuits filed, it’s clear that many buyers and sellers are dissatisfied with the current process.
This dissatisfaction prompted me to analyze each transaction from both the buyer’s and seller’s perspectives, striving to simplify the process and prudently reduce costs. After years of research and experimentation, I realized that the solution is straightforward and could significantly enhance the industry’s reputation. More on this later.
Since the lawsuit, I’ve seen little change in how brokerages, coaches, or agents approach their business.
Most have merely focused on getting buyer agency agreements signed at the onset of a working relationship and not advertising co-op commissions on the MLS — essentially doing the bare minimum.
But this is a prime opportunity to restructure how we fundamentally help consumers transact real estate.
Two objectives
When we list a property for sale, we have two key objectives: to earn the seller’s trust and to convince a buyer to purchase the property. So why aren’t we raising our standards in how we market properties and prioritizing what buyers need to feel confident in their purchase?
Our goal should be to empower buyers with all the information they need upfront, building trust and simplifying the transaction process for both parties.
Currently, agents aren’t required to understand the properties they’re selling thoroughly. Some do take the time to gain a deep understanding and market the property with a higher standard, but others treat it merely as a transaction, missing the opportunity to build lifelong relationships that come from truly serving their clients.
This gap in knowledge often leads to distrust, turning transactions into adversarial negotiations that require independent representation for each party. However, by adopting a more informed and transparent approach, we can create a better way forward.
Instead of guarding the methods that I’ve had great success with, I believe in sharing them for the greater good — much like the open-source approach in tech.
In the last four properties I listed, I embraced full transparency by conducting pre-inspections, sharing all relevant documents upfront, and allowing buyers to view key details of all offers.
This approach empowered buyers to purchase with confidence, proving that higher standards and transparency can simplify transactions and create a better experience for everyone.
In the past
Gone are the days when listing agents could simply put a property on the market and rely on others to sell it. That’s a slow and costly process. If a seller hires you to sell their property, take pride in your work by empowering buyers to buy directly. Sell with transparency and integrity.
It’s time for agents to raise their standards and guide sellers to be the kind of sellers they would want to buy from. The market is shifting, and consumers are tired of the outdated ways of buying and selling. This is our chance to elevate our business, embrace a consumer-centered approach, and give the industry the update it desperately needs.
Mathew Speer is an agent at Local Real Estate Advisors in Denver, Colorado. Connect with him on Instagram or LinkedIn.
by Jeff Tucker | Aug 18, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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.
The passive prospecting of having YouTube videos marketing your business while you do other things is unmatched. In this article, Noah Escobar shares the easy-to-follow, step-by-step process he’s utilized to generate over $150,000 in GCI in the past 15 months.
Escobar is a 24-year-old agent who began his career by interning for me at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida and has found early success utilizing three specific types of YouTube videos.
When asked why he decided to start recording and posting on YouTube, he said, “Before I came on as an intern for you, I was doing video production for my church, so I had a little bit of experience with a camera. Once I began my internship and began shooting your videos, I saw how powerful those videos were for your career. Based on that, when I graduated from college and started my sales career, I knew I wanted video to be a large part of how I built my business.”
Escobar started getting serious about video and his YouTube channel in the first quarter of 2023. “I wanted to utilize it to help me with the ‘know, like, trust’ sales funnel process of my business,” he said. “I focus on three specific types of videos. Each of these complements the others and helps me build an awareness of my business. The videos fall into these three categories: community videos, infrastructure update videos, and listing tour videos.”
Escobar has seen steady growth in his channel; his success proves you don’t need a large audience to generate business on YouTube. The key is to stay focused on the types of videos your ideal clients want and are searching for.
YouTube is now the second-largest search engine behind Google. This means most people who are viewing videos on YouTube come there looking for specific information. This is completely different from video views on Instagram or other social platforms that are not as search-driven.
“My first sale from YouTube came from a community video where I was discussing the new homes being built and planned in a specific neighborhood. I was at the beach with my girlfriend, and when we came out of the Gulf, I saw that I had a voicemail. The voicemail said, ‘I saw your video highlighting Watersound Origins. I’m coming to town in a few days, and I’d love for you to show us that neighborhood.’ Within five days of seeing my video, they came into town and were under contract for $1.2 million on a home that had been closed for cash two weeks later. I’ve since closed six homes in that one neighborhood,” Escobar explained.
The video his first client called on only had 600 views. This showed him that it isn’t about the number of views but the quality of the views. He started by shooting the videos himself but quickly pivoted and found a videographer who shoots and edits the videos for him now. He highlighted this fact to make sure anyone considering shooting videos realizes that it can be done, whether they have past video experience or not.
The following is a breakdown of each type of video he shoots and includes slides he provided that detail the flow for each style.
Community videos
The community videos are the top-producing videos for lead generation for him right now. These are videos where he highlights the amenities, location, types of homes, etc., for a specific neighborhood.
By focusing on the keywords people would use when looking for information about these specific neighborhoods, he has been able to rank at or near the top of organic search on YouTube for the communities he has highlighted. He’s found that multiple videos highlighting different phases of a community compound his ability to be seen as the expert for that neighborhood as well.
“When I have multiple videos for a specific neighborhood, the viewers typically watch more than one of my videos. The more time they are watching, the more opportunity I have to build virtual rapport with them,” Escobar explained.
The following is the flow he utilizes and his thought process in each section of these videos:
Infrastructure update videos
Infrastructure update videos have given him the ability to produce content on areas that are under development when most people are wondering what is coming. In these videos, he goes over the project, the amenities and how this project will affect the surrounding areas.
By being the first person to post videos on many of these projects, he has seen most of these videos open up at the top of organic searches for the neighborhood name. His subsequent follow-up videos, as the project develops, add to his authority in search for the new development.
He’s highlighted national builder communities by interviewing their onsite sales members building relationships that have led to referrals due to the value and exposure his videos bring to the builders and the communities. He’s done the same with local builders. These have given him exposure and additional searchable content. This win-win video type has led to listings with builders along with buyer leads.
The following is the flow and thought process he has for the infrastructure update videos:
Listing tour videos
Listing tour videos serve several purposes. The first is to professionally market the listing in a way that attracts a buyer. The second is to showcase himself as a professional marketer leading to additional listing opportunities. The third is to have these videos as examples of the type of marketing he does for clients who list with him. He shares these in his listing appointments to help him highlight his value and close more listings.
When Escobar first started, he had very few listings. To overcome this, he offered to pay for the listing videos for listing agents. He gave the listing agent credit when he introduced the home in the video and then highlighted the home.
This created a win-win-win situation for the seller, the listing agent and for him. The seller received additional, professional exposure of his home to potential buyers. The listing agent was able to provide additional marketing for his/her seller at no cost to them, and Escobar had additional content he could use to attract buyers and show potential listing clients.
The following is the flow he follows and the process he uses to produce these types of videos:
“When I first started in the business, I knew I couldn’t do business without actively prospecting. YouTube videos have given me a way to passively prospect on a consistent basis. Now that I have been doing this for over a year, my videos are being watched day and night.
The analytics YouTube provides show me that I’ve had 240.6 hours of watch time over the past 28 days. When I break this down to an average daily amount, it means people are watching my videos for 8.6 hours per day on average. That is exposure and prospecting that is promoting me and my business at a level I could not maintain if I was having to be on the phone that much,” Escobar said.
If you’ve been on the fence about leaning into producing YouTube videos for your business, now is the time to commit. Follow this blueprint, and you will have success.
To see Noah Escobar’s videos and model your local content after them, check out his YouTube channel.
Jimmy Burgess is the CEO for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida in Northwest Florida. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
by Jeff Tucker | Aug 6, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
RentSpree’s latest reporting product is designed to help property management providers more accurately verify the income of lease applicants.
Innovation is in our DNA at Inman — that’s why we’re excited about August’s Technology and Innovation Month. We’ll kick it off by celebrating the companies and individuals pushing the industry forward with an expanded slate of Inman Innovator Awards at Inman Connect Las Vegas. Then, we’ll continue to celebrate the brightest minds in real estate all month long.
RentSpree’s latest reporting product is designed to help property management providers more accurately verify the income of lease applicants, Inman has learned in an exclusive press release.
The fintech feature, the result of an integration with Finicity, a Mastercard company, links to the individual’s bank account to record transactions over the last 12 to 24 months to pull data directly from the source, a practice that’s been manual, paper-based and dependent on credit agencies since its inception. Applicants often scan or provide actual copies of paystubs and rely on reference phone calls to employers.
“Finicity provides a one-time encrypted connection during which an applicant is prompted to log into their bank account, thereby generating a detailed financial report,” the release stated.
RentSpree provides automation solutions for all stakeholders of the rental industry, including residential sales agents, which it delivers largely through partnerships with multiple listing services. It processes payments, flattens tenant screening, empowers marketing and automates the application process, among other features.
RentSpree co-founder and CEO Michael Lucarelli, fresh from appearing on panels at Inman Connect Las Vegas, said his company’s reporting tools are critical time savers, and this one particular soothes a searing pain point for leasing agents.
“This feature facilitates the rapid verification of an applicant’s income based on actual transactions, providing clear evidence of their capacity to afford the monthly rent,” he said. “It’s extremely challenging to accurately assess the income of rental property applicants.”
Fraud is not uncommon in the income verification process and can lead to an inability to collect lost rent or pursue tenants for damage.
Lucarelli has been putting his company in front of multiple listing services for several years to encourage sales agents to reconsider how they view the rental community. Renters become buyer leads, he often says, and it’s not uncommon for agents to work as property managers or alongside multi-family investors.
RentSpree added tenant credit building to its repertoire earlier in 2024, allowing users to report on-time payments to credit bureau TransUnion.
The need for apartments to rent remains critical to housing Americans. CBRE, a global commercial real estate company, expects vacancy rates to remain healthy in 2024 and into 2025, and stated that “enough demand should keep the average occupancy rate above 94 percent,” the company predicted.
“Multifamily real estate is playing a more important role in alleviating a severe shortage (at least 3.1 million) of single-family homes that is contributing to homeownership challenges, particularly in a high-interest-rate environment. The premium for an average monthly mortgage payment of a newly purchased home vs. average monthly rent is expected to remain above 35 percent in 2024 versus 52 percent in 2023,” CBRE said.
Email Craig C. Rowe
by Jeff Tucker | Jul 27, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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.
Change is a word that can elicit strong reactions. For some, it brings a sense of excitement and possibility, while for others, it stirs feelings of fear and resistance.
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Neuroscience tells us that our brains are wired to seek stability and familiarity, often rewarding us for maintaining the status quo. However, there’s also a growing body of evidence that suggests embracing change can be incredibly rewarding, both psychologically and professionally.
The neuroscience of change
Our brains have evolved to conserve energy, and one way they do this is by encouraging us to stick to routines. Familiar tasks and habits require less cognitive effort and therefore, less energy.
This is why change can sometimes feel uncomfortable — our brains are literally wired to avoid it. But here’s the catch: change can also trigger the release of dopamine, the “feel-good” neurotransmitter, especially when the change is associated with achieving new goals or learning new skills.
For individuals like me, who thrive on new experiences and challenges, this dopamine hit can be incredibly motivating.
René Rodriguez, a dynamic keynote speaker and author of Amplify Your Influence, aptly states, “Our brains are hardwired to avoid change because it requires effort and energy. However, when we embrace change, we activate our brain’s reward system, creating a powerful cycle of growth and improvement.”
Why change is essential
As we move into the second half of 2024, it’s an opportune time to reflect on what changes we need to make to invigorate our real estate careers. Remaining static may feel safe, but it’s not where growth happens.
“At the heart of growth is change. We all strive for innovation, to differentiate and to advance. All of those goals require change. Winning requires change,” Rodriguez writes.
10 things to consider when contemplating a change
In an ever-evolving market, adapting and embracing new strategies sets you apart from the competition. Here’s where to start:
1. Evaluate your goals
Take a moment to reflect on the goals and resolutions you formed at the beginning of this year. Are they still relevant? Do they excite you? Adjust them to align with your current aspirations and market conditions. (Read more about setting and achieving goals.)
2. Adopt new technologies
The real estate industry is rapidly changing with technological advancements. Whether it’s new CRM software, virtual tour platforms, or AI-driven analytics, embracing these tools can streamline your operations and enhance client experiences.
3. Expand your skill set
Invest in professional development. Attend workshops, earn new certifications or explore areas of real estate you haven’t tapped into yet. Broadening your expertise can open new doors and opportunities.
4. Revamp your marketing strategy
If your current marketing efforts are not yielding the desired results, it’s time for a change. Explore new channels like social media advertising, video marketing or content marketing to reach a broader audience.
5. Network and collaborate
Building relationships with other professionals in the industry can provide fresh insights and opportunities. Attend industry events, join professional groups, or collaborate with interior designers and stagers to offer a more comprehensive service to your clients.
6. Reassess your niche
Are you focusing on the right market segment? Sometimes a shift in focus, such as moving from residential to commercial real estate or specializing in luxury properties, can reignite your passion and open up new revenue streams.
7. Improve client communication
Evaluate how you communicate with your clients. Implementing new communication tools, such as automated follow-ups or personalized newsletters, can improve client satisfaction and retention.
8. Optimize your online presence
Your online presence is more important than ever. Update your website, improve your SEO, and increase your activity on social media platforms to attract more leads and establish yourself as an industry expert.
9. Enhance your brand
Your personal brand is your calling card. Consider updating your logo, redesigning your business cards, or creating new marketing materials that reflect your current vision and values.
10. Seek feedback and mentorship
Don’t underestimate the value of external input. Regularly seek feedback from clients and colleagues, and find a mentor who can provide guidance and help you navigate challenges.
Bonus tip: Pick up the phone
Have you ever heard of phone anxiety or telephonophobia? It’s a surprisingly common phenomenon for a population that relies primarily on emails and texts for communication, but nothing beats the personal touch of a phone call.
Picking up the phone to connect with clients, potential leads, or colleagues can foster stronger relationships and clear up misunderstandings quickly. A simple phone call can demonstrate your commitment and attentiveness, leaving a lasting positive impression.
When you’re in a time of change, don’t underestimate the power of a phone conversation to help you gain clarity, make plans and seek out solid advice from mentors.
Embrace the excitement of change
Change doesn’t have to be daunting. It can be exhilarating and full of potential. As we dive into the latter half of 2024, ask yourself: What changes do I need to make to feel excited about my career? What activities should I pivot to drive the results I want?
For those who resist change, remember that it can be a catalyst for growth and innovation. It’s time to step out of your comfort zone and embrace the endless possibilities that change brings.
Change fires me up. It pushes me to improve and grow continuously. As you consider your own journey, remember that change is not just good; it’s essential for success in the real estate world. Let’s make the second half of 2024 not just different but better than what came before.
Troy Palmquist is the vice president of growth and product marketing for eXp California. Follow him on Instagram or connect with him on LinkedIn.
by Jeff Tucker | Jul 19, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
The FCC announced on Tuesday a plan to help consumers identify and block AI-generated robocalls. The plan, if passed, could impact a key part of real estate agents’ lead generation methods.
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.
The Federal Communications Commission has plans to tighten the reigns on artificial intelligence-generated robocalls.
Jessica Rosenworcel | Credit: FCC
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced her plan on Tuesday, requiring callers to disclose the AI-generated robocalls when obtaining prior express consent from consumers. Even with prior express consent, callers would be required to make another disclosure on every AI-generated call they make, a measure Rosenworcel said would help consumers “identify and avoid” calls that “contain an enhanced risk of fraud and other scams.”
The plan also calls for creating tech that helps consumers identify and block unwanted AI-generated calls and protecting “positive uses” of AI-generated calls for consumers with disabilities.
Rosenworcel said her proposal builds on several recent actions the FCC has taken to regulate robocalls, including the passage of a declaratory ruling that said voice cloning technology is illegal and a $6 million fine levied against a New Hampshire man who made voice-cloned robocalls to sway 2024 primary voting.
The plan will undergo a three-part voting process, starting at the FCC’s August Open Meeting. If commission members approve it, it will face public comment and a final vote before implementation.
Although the plan doesn’t mention any specific industry, it addresses a critical component of many real estate agents’ lead generation plans and emerging tech that uses AI to automate cold calls.
Last year, Texas-based franchisor Keller Williams settled a $40 million class action lawsuit for unsolicited, pre-recorded telemarketing calls its agents made to consumers without their consent. The lawsuit leaned on the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which Rosenworcel cited multiple times in her announcement on Tuesday.
“Bad actors are already using AI technology in robocalls to mislead consumers and misinform the public,” she said in a written statement. “That’s why we want to put in place rules that empower consumers to avoid this junk and make informed decisions.”
Katie Lance
In an email to Inman, marketing expert Katie Lance said Rosenworcel’s proposal is a “significant development” that agents and brokers shouldn’t ignore.
“For agents who rely on AI to streamline their marketing tasks, this move underscores the importance of ethical and compliant AI usage,” she said. “AI has revolutionized our industry by enabling more personalized and efficient communication with clients; however, it’s crucial for agents to understand the boundaries of these tools to ensure they are not infringing on consumer privacy or regulatory standards.”
Lance said AI must be used responsibly, and this is the time for agents to review what AI tools they’re using and adjust how they’re using them.
“For agents, this means being vigilant about the sources and methods of their AI tools, ensuring they comply with all relevant regulations, and focusing on building genuine connections with clients,” she said. “AI should augment our efforts, not replace the personal touch that is so vital in real estate.”
Email Marian McPherson
