by Justin Ziegler | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ascended the Inman Connect stage on Thursday to argue that homeownership is the backbone of the American middle class while making his case to an audience of real estate professionals that, “Realtors are key small business people.”
Kennedy made the comments while chatting with Inman founder Brad Inman, who quizzed the heir from America’s most famous political dynasty on topics ranging from vaccines to good governance to the war in Ukraine. Midway through the conversation, Kennedy said that when he was a kid, the average home cost $7,000, while the average income was $5,000 a year. The result was that “everyone could get into a home” and that widespread access to equity fueled an explosion of wealth.
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“The American middle class was the greatest economic engine in history,” Kennedy said. “This ferment of economic activity was rooted in homeownership.”
However, Kennedy was critical of changes in the housing market that have pushed homeownership further out of reach for many people.
“We’re going today from a nation of homeowners to a nation of renters,” he said. “And when we do that, we’re going to go from citizens to subjects.”
Near the end of his interview, Kennedy also weighed in on recent antitrust lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors and various companies that have rocked the industry. Though Kennedy said he wasn’t sufficiently versed in the issue to make promises, he said that based on “what I know about it, it seems counter productive.”
“It seems unjust and it does not seem rational,” he added.
Kennedy went on to promise that if he is elected, he would figure something out that “makes sense.” But he repeatedly praised the “free market” real estate agents.
“Realtors are key small business people,” he said, “and we want to build small business in this country.”
Kennedy’s vision for improving access to homeowners, he explained, involves limiting the ability of major corporations to buy large numbers of homes. That, he said, would free up more supply. Meanwhile, he also wants to create incentives that would push local governments to loosen their zoning and planning laws — a plan that he believes could also add to the supply of housing by spurring the building of things such as tiny homes.
If Kennedy were to win the election — something polls currently suggest is unlikely — he would appoint a task force to address housing affordability.
“We need to build,” Kennedy told Inman reporters following his appearance on the Connect stage. “We need to be imaginative about building low-income housing — low-income housing that’s enriching rather than subduing.”
“There’s plenty of other nations that have population growth and don’t have housing crises,” he added, “and a lot of it has to do with the overregulation at the local level of zoning and planning regulations.”
Though Kennedy took the stage at the very end of Connect’s final day, hundreds of attendees lined up for the event. The line ultimately snaked away from the ballroom, through the Connect exhibition hall and down a nearby corridor. A team of armed Secret Service agents — some dressed in suits and others in police-style uniforms — screened attendees with metal detectors and wands as they entered the room.
By the time Kennedy finally walked on stage, at least 400 people — some of whom mentioned delaying flights home — had piled into the room.
Earlier in the conversation, Inman also noted that Kennedy has been portrayed in the press as opposing vaccines. Inman asked Kennedy to clarify his opinion.
“If you want to get a vaccine you ought to be able to get a vaccine, but you ought to know the safety profile and the risk profile and the efficacy of that vaccine,” Kennedy said as scattered applause broke out in the room.
Kennedy then went on to discuss trust in institutions, and criticized the common pandemic-era refrain that people should “trust the experts.”
“Trust the experts is not a feature of either democracy or science,” he said, adding that trusting experts is actually a feature of religion and totalitarian regimes. In reality, Kennedy continued, members of a democracy need to “maintain a posture of fierce skepticism.”
He went on to describe his career as an attorney, saying that this attitude of skepticism was an important part of the job.
“My job as an attorney is to be able to read science critically and then deconstruct it and put an expert on the stand and make him break it down,” he said on stage.
On the presidential race itself, Kennedy later acknowledged to Inman reporters that Vice President Kamala Harris’ sudden entry last month may hurt his own campaign in the short-term, but he expressed faith that concerns over her economic policies will ultimately rattle business leaders.
“I think in the short term it’s taken points away from me,” Kennedy said. “I think over the next three months, we’re already sensing uneasiness particularly in the business community with Vice President Harris’s record in California and a record of what people consider hostility to the business community.”
“It’s a very dynamic election,” he added. “You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Developing…
Update: This post was updated after publication with additional comments from Kennedy’s visit to Inman Connect.
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by Drew Thompson | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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.”
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For real estate brokerages looking for opportunities to win in the post-commission lawsuit era, getting into the mortgage business might look like a tempting opportunity to generate additional revenue.
Brokers and agents attending Inman Connect Las Vegas are getting perspectives on the pros and cons of delving into mortgages from several points of view.
Those points of view include HomeLight founder and CEO Drew Uher — who’s been there and done that — and Fathom Holdings CEO Marco Fregenal, who still sees value in being in the mortgage business “in a very selective way.” LoanDepot CEO Frank Martell is urging Compass to think twice about expanding into lending.
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A 2023 Best of Proptech Inman award recipient, Uher launched HomeLight in 2012 as an agent matching site with backing from Google Ventures, among others. HomeLight got into the mortgage business with the 2019 acquisition of digital mortgage lender Eave, which became HomeLight Home Loans.
Uher said HomeLight has since exited the home loan business, and that he has “a newfound respect for the mortgage industry.”
“If you rewind to 2021, [we had a] slide in our investor deck of … the billions and billions of dollars of revenue that we’re gonna do in the future … huge growth coming out of mortgage,” he said.
What HomeLight learned was that mortgage lending is “a very people-intensive business” that Uher said he’s happy to leave “to the people who are really good at it, who specialize in it. Our unit economics now look much more like software margins than they did a few years ago.”
According to records maintained by the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry, HomeLight Home Loans Inc. holds licenses in 34 states and Washington, D.C., and at last count sponsored 13 mortgage loan originators.
HomeLight continues to partner with mortgage lenders on its power buyer and cash offer services, which it expanded with the 2022 acquisition of Accept.inc.
“The way the ‘buy before you sell’ product works, we used to do the mortgage in that transaction — that used to be how we would monetize it,” Uher said. “By stepping out of that, and by letting the agents’ preferred lender do the mortgage, we are no longer creating friction between the agent and the lender. We can actually leverage the lender as a channel.”
Fathom, which provides real estate brokerage, mortgage, title and insurance services, got into the mortgage business in 2021 with the $26.75 million acquisition of E4:9 Holdings and its three operating subsidiaries, Encompass Lending Group, Dagley Insurance Agency and Real Results. Although Fathom ended up selling Dagley back to its founder this year, it expanded its presence in lending by acquiring Washington, D.C.-based Cornerstone First Financial.
Fregenal said that while mortgage lending is a small part Fathom’s business, it can be a valuable tool in facilitating transactions.
“I think what makes Fathom unique is that we’re not trying to do everything for everyone,” he said. “Our goal is to facilitate a transaction. We use mortgage in a very selective way.”
Fregenal said Fathom is focused on helping its agents, and Encompass “has helped get deals done. But I agree you have to be hyper-focused on what you do well.”
LoanDepot President and CEO Frank Martell also warned real estate brokers and agents on Wednesday to think “long and hard” before getting into the mortgage business, calling it “a very complicated, highly regulated industry.”
Martell also serves as a board member for real estate brokerage Compass, and panel moderator Clelia Peters said he’s been advising the company on a possible expansion into home lending.
“He told me backstage that he was really encouraging [Compass to] step away from thinking about that type of integration,” Peters said Thursday.
Uher noted that “Zillow is leaning heavily into [mortgage], which I don’t understand at all. Usually, loan officers are the ones paying for Premier Agent subscriptions, and so it’s like they’re biting the hand that feeds them.”
Fregenal said the mortgage industry is doing pioneering work in artificial intelligence, and being exposed to that has been useful for Compass.
“The mortgage industry is doing a lot of work on AI [that] has caused them to really think about the process, right?” he said. “To think about how they spend money, how long it takes to get a mortgage. So for us, having a mortgage business also helps us understand that — how do we simplify that process as well?”
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by Justin Ziegler | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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IBuyer Opendoor saw declining revenue and growing losses during the second quarter of 2024 amid a slow market, the company reported in earnings posted on Thursday.
Revenue was down 24 percent year over year to $1.5 billion, which was an improvement of 28 percent from the previous quarter, as the iBuyer sold 4,078 homes.
Opendoor saw a net loss of $92 million, down from a positive income of $23 million during the second quarter of 2023. Still, the loss was an improvement from its $109 million loss the previous quarter.
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The company earned a gross profit of $129 million, down from $149 million the previous year and up from $114 million during the first quarter.
Opendoor’s inventory balance hit $2.2 billion, representing 6,399 homes — up 94 percent year over year.
Despite declining revenue and growing losses on an annual basis, Opendoor CEO Carrie Wheeler expressed satisfaction with the company’s performance overall, which exceeded their expectations.
Carrie Wheeler | Opendoor CEO
“We are proud of our second quarter performance and the progress we’ve made in building a platform where all customers can begin their home selling journey,” Wheeler said in a statement.
“Revenue, Contribution Margin, and Adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our guidance, and our acquisitions outperformed expectations, growing nearly 80 percent year-over-year. We continue to make meaningful progress increasing brand awareness, delivering industry-leading seller NPS [Net Promoter Score], expanding our product offerings, and driving structural efficiencies across our platform that we expect will benefit the Company for years to come.”
One of the ways Opendoor sought to increase brand awareness this quarter was through launching a mobile truck that drove around neighborhoods in Nashville, Tennessee, to bring the iBuyer’s instant offers straight to consumers’ front doors.
As the market began to slow further over the course of the quarter, Wheeler added, the company shifted its strategy to adjust.
“During the back half of the second quarter, we began responding to signals that indicated additional slowing in the housing market,” Wheeler said. “We are making decisions that appropriately balance growth, margin, and risk in what continues to be a challenging environment. While the housing cycle will eventually recover, the improvements we are making in the business are enduring. We continue to expect to make meaningful progress in both increasing acquisitions and reducing Adjusted Net Losses this year, as compared to 2023.”
During the second quarter, the iBuyer purchased 4,771 homes, 78 percent more than it did during the same period one year before, and 38 percent more than the previous quarter.
Opendoor closed the quarter with 1,793 homes under contract, up 29 percent year over year and down 31 percent from the first quarter of 2024.
“We’re focused on building a durable, generational business that customers love,” Wheeler said during a call with investors on Thursday afternoon, noting that the company had made significant improvements during the quarter to improve its top-of-funnel, which will lead to more converted customers.
Wheeler noted that over half of Opendoor’s markets were launched during the pandemic-impacted years of 2021 and 2022, and therefore, have an awareness of less than 20 percent. Those markets, however, have great potential for future growth once market awareness grows.
The iBuyer expanded its List with Opendoor product to nearly all its markets during the second quarter, Wheeler added, which has yielded a nearly 10 percent increase in its NPS, showing growing consumer loyalty. The program allows consumers to list their home with an Opendoor partner agent and determine whether or not they want to accept the offer or explore an offer from Opendoor during a 30-day period.
Wheeler also mentioned that Opendoor today announced its single-family rental intelligence platform Mainstay was pulling away from Opendoor to launch as an independent company, which will allow each company “to focus on their respective businesses.” Dod Fraser and Nate Harbacek will continue to lead Mainstay alongside a team hired for the purpose of growing the company.
In closing the investor call, Wheeler expressed optimism for an improved housing market looking forward.
“We’re pleased with how our results came out,” Wheeler said. “We know the housing market continues to be challenging — we also know it will not last forever.”
Opendoor’s stock was down in after-hours trading on Thursday as the investor call took place, dropping by around 16 percent or 17 percent.
Credit: Google
Looking ahead to the third quarter of 2024, Opendoor expects to see revenue of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion.
Update: This story was updated after publishing with additional details from an investor call that took place on Aug. 1, 2024.
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by Christy Murdock | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
Inman honored 12 individuals and companies at its 26th annual Innovator Awards on Thursday, including awards for company, brokerage and innovator of the year. See the full list of winners.
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The 26th Inman Innovator Awards took place on Thursday, with more than 80 individuals and companies being honored for their efforts in improving the industry through groundbreaking products, trailblazing leadership, awe-inspiring teamwork and abundant generosity in the face of unprecedented challenges.
Courted co-founder and CEO Sean Soderstrom, home inspection software company Inspectify and cloud-based brokerage LPT Realty clinched the top three awards for Innovator of the Year, Company of the Year and Most Innovative Brokerage of the Year, while Maui Real Estate Agents received the Nate Ellis Award for their service in the wake of the 2023 Maui wildfires.
“We have an amazing list, and there’s so much innovation that’s crazy,” Inman founder Brad Inman said before calling nominees on stage. “Someone just said backstage there’s been more innovation than he’s ever seen in 25 years. If you’re a finalist, just come on up. Everyone’s a winner.”
Innovator of the Year: Sean Soderstrom, Courted
Sean Soderstrom, Courted | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Since founding Courted less than four years ago, Soderstrom has helped thousands of brokers and team leaders supercharge their recruitment and retention efforts by using artificial intelligence to analyze local market statistics and other key business metrics to determine chances of long-term success or if/when a team or top producer may leave.
Courted has taken a manual and archaic process and brought it to the 21st century, helping brokers make smarter, data-led decisions in identifying emerging star agents before the competition does — an invaluable asset in a consolidating industry. Don’t be surprised if Courted gets acquired in the near future.
Company of the Year: Inspectify
L to R: Katie Kossev, Managing Broker of Texas at Side; Gary Ashton, RE/MAX Advantage; Josh Jenson, CEO of Inspectify; Debra Beagle, The Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage; Robert Palmer, CEO of LPT Realty; Eric Stegemann, CEO of Tribus; Sean Soderstrom; Brad Inman and others | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Home inspections are one of the most nerve-wracking parts of a homebuyer’s and homeseller’s journey, with inspections having the power to make — or break — a deal. Home inspection platform Inspectify has spent the past five years improving the process with software-driven workflows that help inspectors move faster, standardize data, and mitigate challenges for buyers and sellers through unrivaled transparency.
Inspectify uses data and listing information to contextualize the home against its contents and major systems and provides an easy-to-understand, categorized list of issues from most to least important. The company recently upped the ante with insurance on individual appliances and home systems, which enables a buyer to be comfortable purchasing a home with older items because Inspectify will back the item’s functionality after purchase, greatly alleviating risk and uncertainty about moving forward.
Most Innovative Brokerage: LPT Realty
LPT Realty founder and CEO Robert Palmer (center) and others | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Florida-based LPT Realty has quickly scaled the ladder of cloud-based brokerages, growing to 10,000 agents across 24 states in two years. The brokerage offers agents marketing, technology and training with a $500 annual fee and a $195 transaction fee. Agents with LPT also get to choose between two compensation plans — an attractive feature as the industry barrels toward monumental change in commission policies.
LPT Realty founder and CEO Robert Palmers’ vision has begun to catch the attention of industry heavyweights, with former eXp Chief Growth Officer Michael Valdes taking the reigns of LPT’s newly founded international division. “Robert is a true visionary, and I am honored and humbled to join this impressive company,” Valdes said.
Read on for the full list of winners.
Most Innovative Agent or Team: The Ashton Real Estate Group, RE/MAX Advantage
Debra Beagle and Gary Ashton of Ashton Real Estate Group | AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Marketing or Branding Campaign: Homes.com Super Bowl advertising blitz
Inman Innovator Award recipients | AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Lead Servicing Solution: Fello
Host Katie Kossev | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Marketing Solution: Realtor.com Listing Toolkit
Hosts Katie Kossev and Brad Inman | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Client Experience Solution: Solid Earth
Eric Stegemann, CEO, Solid Earth | AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Use of AI: Sidekick
Michael Martin, co-founder and co-CEO of Sidekick | AJ Canaria Creative Services
Most Innovative Industry Podcast: Jason Abrams, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent
Most Innovative Organization/MLS: Miami Association of Realtors
Miami Association of Realtors | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
The Nate Ellis Award (for giving back to the community): Maui Real Estate Agents
Maui Real Estate Agents: Nura-Nal Andres, Tyler Coons, Brad Inman | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
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by Cara Ameer | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
Four months after releasing a first-of-its-kind short-term touring agreement, Zillow has released 24 state-compliant versions of the agreement exclusively for Premier Agent partners.
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Four months after rolling out an industry-first short-term non-exclusive touring agreement, portal behemoth Zillow has released 24 state-specific versions of the agreement as the industry nears the Aug. 17 deadline for several landmark procedural changes, including a requirement that buyers’ brokers sign representation agreements with buyers before taking them on a home tour.
The state-specific agreements cover 80 percent of Premier Agent Real-Time Touring connections; however, Premier Agent partners can opt out of using them. For those who opt-in, the agreement becomes an automated part of the touring flow. When a homebuyer requests a tour with a Premier Agent, they’ll get a notification about reviewing and signing the seven-day tour agreement online or in person before the tour begins.
Alongside the touring agreement, homebuyers will receive a primer on what the agreement entails, why it’s required and their choices after the tour concludes. If a homebuyer decides to work with an agent after the short-term contract expires, they’ll be prompted to sign a longer-term agreement that outlines the services they’ll provide and how the agent will be compensated.
“We believe for most buyers, working with an agent in all stages of the process, is valuable,” a Zillow spokesperson told Inman in an emailed statement. “We’ve designed [the touring agreement] to be an easy, transparent experience for both agents and consumers to comply with new regulations, while also ensuring shoppers go into a home tour understanding exactly what the agent will do, but without being locked into working with an agent exclusively prior to even meeting them in person.”
They added, “This is an opportunity for the agent to educate buyers about this new standard and the need for another agreement, as well as showcase their own services and value in navigating a home buying process.”
The state-specific versions of the touring agreement will only be available to Premier Agent partners; however, the original version of the touring agreement is still available for all agents to download and use.
Since debuting the tour agreement in April, Zillow said the tour agreement has yielded positive results. Homebuyers who signed a tour agreement went on more tours than homebuyers who didn’t and were more likely to sign a long-term agreement with a Premier Agent.
Zillow Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson said the rollout of state-specific touring agreements aligns with the portal’s dedication to facilitating transparent transaction for homebuyers and buyers’ agents as commission policies change.
“Buying a home is complex and often comes with a lot of stress: Half of buyers tell us they cried at some point during the process,” he said in a blog post. “Without an expert prioritizing their individual needs, buyers can miss out on making a competitive offer, leave money on the table in the negotiation, ignore potential pitfalls or waive important aspects such as inspections – which can end up costing them later. Most buyers want and need an expert on their side – we don’t see that changing.”
“The requirement to have an agreement in place prior to touring a home will be new for most consumers and agents. As we move forward, it’s important to remain focused on who the real estate industry serves: buyers and sellers,” he added. “We’ve long championed a more fair and transparent marketplace. In this moment of evolution, we’re extending an invitation: Join us in putting consumers first.”
The updated agreements are available in these states: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
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by Taylor Anderson | Aug 1, 2024 | Industry, News Feed
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Inman Connect wouldn’t be what it is without debate and discussion on the myriad of ways technology impacts the business, people and places that make up the industry.
Per usual, there’s never a clear consensus or right answer on what will work for your business, but the lineup of panelists at Wednesday’s two-hour multitopic tech track did manage to land on one agreement — it all revolves around serving the consumer.
Problem solving
Marq CEO Owen Fuller | Photos by AJ Canaria Creative Services
In his presentation titled “Can Technology Solve Our Biggest Problems?” said flatly, “No.” And he didn’t float his take through a cloud of vagaries or specious talking points.
Fuller ticked off a six-item list of how to shore up a business when the storm starts knocking it around:
- Get grounded personally
- Clarify your vision
- Choose a differentiated strategy
- Strengthen your team and strategy
- Accelerate through Technology
- Give back as you succeed
Tech trends
Left to right: Kendall Bonner, Alpa Lally, Chris Cox, Sean Wheeler | Photos by AJ Canaria Creative Services
For those who need help with Fuller’s fifth list item, frequent Inman Connect presence Kendall Bonner assembled a team of tech talent to help the audience understand what’s on the horizon in “The Future is now: The most influential tech trends for 2024 and beyond.”
Keller Williams’ Chris Cox offered up some hints on where the big brand is headed, leaning into internal AI models that will help new and growing agents do more faster, while Alpa Lally of Rocket Companies reminded the afternoon crowd that machine learning models have been around for quite a while, it’s the accessibility of data that’s energizing the models. In fact, the future is all about data.
“The more you democratize data, the more you can put into your model,” Lally said. “It’s that modernization of it that will get us to the next level.”
Sean Wheeler, Lone Wolf Technologies’ CTO, confirms that his company is also looking to data to create a new future for real estate. The company just released a massive overhaul of its platform, calling it Lone Wolf Foundation.
“I was told when I was much younger that technology changes but the data stays the same, and that seems to be true,” Wheeler said. “But you can’t really do anything unless you understand the data, integrate it and structure it the right way.”
Tomorrow’s homebuyers
Left to right: Kendall Bonner, Nikki Miller, Michael Lucarelli | Photos by AJ Canaria Creative Services
In the “Connecting with tomorrow’s homebuyers” panel, RentSpree CEO Michael Lucarelli urged the audience to look to the rental industry to fill your pipeline.
“You have to meet consumers where they’re at and we’re increasingly a nation of renters,” he said. “Future first-time homebuyers are renting today, so agents out there should consider representing landlords, representing renters. Most importantly, you’re developing dozens of relationships. Put consumers in a better position; they need help.”
Vice President of Lever by Movoto, Nikki Miller, said that working with renters is one way to meet the buyers of tomorrow, but her company’s research is finding that agents are finding consumers in all kinds of ways and that there isn’t much consistency.
“They’re all connecting with consumers in different ways, so you have to identify what it is you’re willing to do, and ask the consumer how they want to be communicated with.”
Miller said generations want different methods. Some prefer calling, others email, but she made sure to advise people calling on her to not leave a voicemail.
“I’ll think you’re a psychopath,” she said. “Just shoot me a text, right?”
Tech fuels expansion
In chatting with ERA Venture Founder Clelia Peters during the “Brokerages Talk How Tech Fuels Expansion” panel, Jeff Polashuk, Regional Vice President of Compass, said the No. 1 thing agents can do to expand their business is to stay in touch with clients, “in the best way.”
“Your client really is the most valuable thing you have, so when you’re evaluating technology, please, please, please make the focus staying top of mind, and move at a faster pace,” Polashuk said.
His fellow panelist, Michael Valdes, CEO of LPT International Realty, augmented Polashuk’s take.
“It’s the idea that the client, in the end, is what brings us all together, that’s why we’re in the room,” Valdes said. “It’s what our industry is all about.”
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