The Insider: Issue 024
Good Monday, all. We’ll start the week with the big news, some prime real estate and a bit of honesty. Dig in.
Last Week This Week
Place, an “all-in-one” support suite (marketing, accounting, HR, legal and more) for top agents and teams founded by real estate entrepreneur Ben Kinney, raised $100 million from Goldman Sachs at a $1 billion valuation.
Place is not a brokerage. Legally. But if you look at the services it provides agents and teams, it looks very, uh, brokerage-y. And that’s what makes this company so interesting to us: it is indicative of a larger trend whereby the traditional conception of real estate brokerage is steadily dissolving. Think EXP and Fathom, brokerages that abjured the office completely and are “cloud based.” Or Side, an “invisible brokerage” that can be easily compared to Place, but operates a licensed broker.
If you think that’s a little confusing, you’re right. It is. And that’s the point. What a brokerage is or isn’t is shifting, and the legal requirements around brokerage, while everything in a way, can now be seen, looked at from a different angle, as academic.
Luxury Presence, a website and digital marketing company serving agents and teams, raised a $29.5 million Series B round. One can imagine the pitch deck and pro-formas on this — “50,000 productive agents paying us $10,000/year for software and services = $500,000,000” — and it is indeed a compelling story. The catch is that executing on this is brutally hard. Churn, the inherent conflict between SAAS and the relentless desire for local/personal customization, and the generally atomized character of the agent market are tough to overcome. Very few have done it. We’re rooting for ‘em.
Mega indie broker and franchisor (yes, those things can go together now) @properties acquired Christie’s International Real Estate. Discontent with Christie’s had been building for some time among affiliates, and it will be interesting to see if @Properties (also an Inside member company) can give it new life. It’s a bold move, and one that reflects deepening emphasis on luxury across the brokerage landscape.
Have You Heard About This?
The Estate Said, ‘Nah!’
Ever wonder what the smallest property in New York is? It’s Hess Triangle, a triangular piece of privately owned property in Greenwich Village. Here’s a fascinating and tiny backstory of how this came to be. (And here’s a bit more to that story too.) What’s it worth? We don’t know. But it follows the first rule of real estate and of branding — location and differentiation.
What's Inside
Missed our Live Webinar last Thursday in which Brian shared takeaways from our recent research on luxury real estate, the MLS, and buyer agent commissions? No worries: you can view the recording here.
Listen in on Marc’s 3 Things Podcast episode with Mark McLaughlin. Mark was formerly Chief Real Estate Strategist at Compass, and CEO of Pacific Union International. He is now an independent investor and advisor, and, for our money, one of the sharpest minds in the biz.
Inspiration Point
Pays To Be Honest
Why go with the same homepage headline as every other company like yours, when you can say something truly refreshing and distinctly you? The headline above from the California Conservation Corps caught our attention, which is exactly what a headline’s job is. It pulled us in, made us scroll, and now we know a bit more about the benefits of signing up with this organization.
Oiling the Creative Pump
Modern life seems to demand more and more creativity. Case in point: what’s for dinner? A simple question that demands a creative answer. Is there a way to encourage our brains to think more creatively? Check out some practices these 11 artists do every night to clear the decks for out-of-the-box thinking. Maybe there’s a new way to approach that recurring office problem. Or maybe a new spin on chicken and rice is somewhere in your psyche waiting to emerge.
Quote of the week
“At the heart of every good idea or great business is a clear sense of purpose and a vision for the future its creator wants to see.”
— Bernadette Jiwa
