The Insider: Issue 001

Hey, we made it! It’s the first issue of The Insider Newsletter — our members-only quick take on what’s important and inspiring this week. If you like something you see here, do us a favor and hit reply or jump in the Facebook group with comments so we know.

LAST WEEK THIS WEEK

  • Flyhomes, one of a growing number of “cash offer” startups (think Knock, Homeward, Orchard, etc.) scooped up another $150 million. This is the flip side of iBuying (which should really be called iSelling). But anyway, here’s our question: "what happens when all the offers become cash offers?”

  • PE firms Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners completed their acquisition of CoreLogic. Stone Point also became the lead investor in Lone Wolf last fall. This is mind-bending consolidation: Stone Point now controls the largest property data company in America (which also happens to provide the leading MLS system software, Matrix) as well as Lone Wolf, which has absorbed Istanet (forms), Ziplogix (forms, transaction management), W+R studios (CMA’s) and others. Our take: this may be worrisome, but also opens the door to a new wave of “independent” entrants. So, a net positive.

  • Check out this short but incisive piece from John Burns Consulting on what is really true (and not true) about our housing market. It challenges several possibly dangerous assumptions many of us (ourselves included) have seem to have accepted too swiftly. A taste: “This is a demand-driven housing boom, which is contrary to the housing shortage theories being propagated by those who have an incentive to make others think there is no risk to investing in housing today.”

 

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS?



Taking Sides

Agents may know all the reasons they’re the better choice over ibuying for many sellers. But do sellers? We love how Realtor Brian Holt of The Logan Group in Raleigh, N.C., took ibuying as a challenge to show how his value stacks up in the social post shown above.


Automation Facepalm

If recruiting is bloodsport right now, a real estate team in the Washington, D.C., area did the equivalent of stabbing themselves in the leg. They set up a robocall service to send a pre-recorded message out to all the local agents to try to recruit them. Something must’ve gone wrong with the time zones and the calls went out between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. That’s when things went a bit viral. Agents immediately began sharing the message on Facebook with some critical NSFW comments. Yikes.

It goes to show that even with all the tech out there today, recruiting is a people business that’s best handled by, well, people.

 

WHAT'S INSIDE

Log in, dig in, and spark some ideas. Check out:

 

INSPIRATION POINT



‘Scared Sh*tless’ or ‘F@#king Fearless?’

If you want to truly think differently about your marketing, we highly recommend spending the 17 minutes to watch this talk by Oatly Creative Director John Schoolcraft. In it, he breaks down the strategy behind the Swedish oat milk company’s rise to success (which inadvertently created a worldwide shortage of the cow milk alternative, and helped John get rid of some old National Geographic issues in the process) — all without a marketing department.

 

 

Moody Day Linguine, anyone?

Check this: Barilla Italia, the affordable pasta maker whose blue boxes grace the aisles of nearly every supermarket, has its own Spotify channel with playlists that last the length of time it takes to cook various pastas. Though many of us are gluten-free, we gave this a test run and can verify: it works and this is a little stroke of brand genius.

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"In our business we can literally change family trees."

— Matt Curtis, CEO of Matt Curtis Real Estate in Huntsville, Ala., talking about helping first-time, first-generation buyers secure homeownership.

 

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