The Insider: Issue 002
Welcome to the second issue of The Insider — your Monday morning briefing with a side of inspiration. (If you’re just joining us, check out our first issue here.)
There’s lots going on, so let’s get to it.
LAST WEEK THIS WEEK
- Arrived Homes, one of several new companies (explore them in our Insider Proptech Guide) that make it possible for people to buy into single family investment properties for amounts as low as $100, raised $37 million from investors including Marc Benioff and Jeff Bezos. One can view this as either the democratization or institutionalization of real estate investing. Either way, it is yet more evidence (as if you need any, really) that the basic character of our housing market is changing before our eyes.
- Meanwhile, Attom reported that flipping — that thing where a small-time investor buys and sells a couple or a couple dozen homes — is at its lowest level since 2000.
- Orchard (buy before you sell), HomeLight (agent matching, cash offers) and Knock (buy before you sell) are all preparing to go public. We have never been even close to having so many public companies, and so much money, sloshing around our real estate fishbowl. Good or bad, we think this is no time to be serving up plain white toast to the marketplace.
HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS?
The “luxury” fetish
Redfin has a luxury label. Guess we missed this. We spotted this sign out in the wild in Northern California and it got us thinking about this method of “special” treatment when it comes to luxury. It usually involves something to the effect of a black version of the brand’s logo and some extra-fancy marketing stuff. We get the sentiment behind it, but the execution often fails to connect any dots for an outsider. How does a different label signal a difference for buyers? Or, what is it supposed to signal? So many questions here.
It’s the Millennials, Sir. They’re Here.
As everyone reading this newsletter knows, housing markets across the country in the past year have gone from a brief pause to the Wild West to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to something like a weird acid trip full of hallucinations and sightings of otherworldly beings. In short, it’s crazy out there. A lot has been written about the frenzy in recent months. But we always look forward to geeking out a bit over the annual State of the Nation’s Housing report from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. Here’s the cliffs notes. And the full report. (TLDR: Millennials are finally aging into the home buying years, folks.)
WHAT'S INSIDE
Log in, dig in, and spark some ideas. Check out:
New! Original Research on real estate’s “loyalty problem."
Here’s a snippet: 39% of people report contacting their agent for assistance after the transaction, while 46% of people report that their agent has not “stayed in touch” since their transaction closed.
Oof.
INSPIRATION POINT
Phone It In
One of the greatest brand campaigns of the last decade was Farmers Insurance’s “We know a thing or two” ad series. The company now has a clever new campaign, “Phone it in,” which invites us to a direct call to action to save money for doing nothing. It’s almost like they know exactly what people love most. Reminder: your marketing or ad slogan need not be “real estate-ey.”
Two Wrongs Make It Right
We loved this short but sweet blog post by UX design student, Cristina Lutcan, who takes us on a little journey of how pushing her designs further than she could imagine taught her the importance of allowing imperfection on the way to your best work.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“If you want to be a purposeful brand, it is not about coming up with stories. It is about conveying stories about what you already do. If marketing ‘comes up’ with a ‘purpose,’ it is by definition not purposeful, not ingrained, not authentic.”
— Björn Annwall, Head of EMEA, Volvo Cars
