The Insider: Issue 009

Good day, folks. Let’s do this!

Last Week This Week

• The real “Upstream?” Data and analytics company Black Knight, announced a consumer-facing enhancement to its digital mortgage servicing solution. If this strikes you as obscure, think again. Black Knight (which, remember, also owns AVM provider Collateral Analytics and MLS system software Paragon) will help mortgage servicers retain clients by engaging homeowners with home value estimates, local market analytics and recent sales data, in combination with information on their loan and rate, before anyone else. In other words, a solution like Black Knight’s captures leads in an embryonic state, ahead of Zillow, an agent, a broker... anyone. 
  
  
• LoanWolf acquired Terradatum, maker of Broker Metrics, the software nearly every broker in America uses to track market share and prospect for recruits. We hope LoanWolf’s remarkable buying spree is leading somewhere. We’ve seen private equity rollups before, and they can easily become little more than a Frankenstein’s monster of re-animated flesh gathered from disparate bodies lumbering semi-consciously through the landscape. Not to be pessimistic or anything...
  
  
• Zillow and EXP reported earnings last week. Our hot takes: EXP is now a 58,000-agent runaway train that offers immediate (low-fee/low-cap) and long-term (recruiting residual) benefits to agents that will look even more attractive when the market cools. Zillow's iBuyer business, and the “ecosystem” that will make it eventually pay off, is a very long-term play. 

Have You Heard About This?

Is this marketing or manipulation? The next frontier for advertising is to engineer ads into our subconscious through audio and video clips. And, of course, some companies are already doing it. That’s the news. We will now back away slowly and let you process that.

What's Inside

Join your fellow Insiders for a Live Webinar this Thursday at 12 Pacific / 3 Eastern where Brian Boero will share our takeaways from the Original Research report on Millennials we published last week. Bring your own takeaways and questions.

Here’s the Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89483894716

Don’t forget to check out (and bookmark) our Proptech Guide. It’s an Insiders-only resource for keeping track of new companies in the booming real estate tech space. We update it at least once a week. 

Inspiration Point

Sacramento appraiser Ryan Lundquist shared his answer to the “Is it a good time to buy?” question. We think it’s pretty good. Because it’s — get this — free of B.S. 

Think Inside a Box

Remember that time Nike created vending machines in NYC where FuelBand users could redeem fuel points for merchandise? Food for inspiration for any of you looking to jump outside the marketing box.

Break It Up

“Productivity has wrapped itself up in our self-worth so that it’s almost impossible for us to allow ourselves to stop working.” Rahaf Farhoosh dropped that gem in this video, “How Burnout Makes Us Less Creative,” part of a TED short series that explores the way we work. So much of modern work is creative work. After the past year and a half, maybe it’s time for a break.

Quote of the week

“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”

— Marshall McLuhan