The Insider: Issue 036
Happy Monday morning, all. This week, we have a nice balance of practical and quirky, along with a reminder that there’s always a creative way to make your customers feel amazing — even when you can’t afford a Super Bowl ad.
Last Week This Week
- It was earnings week for several companies in our space and, look, everyone in real estate is doing pretty well on the top line. Redfin was slow and steady, Zillow doubled down on its profitable referral business, and the EXP rocketship continued to climb.
But the earnings reports from Realogy and Compass were the most interesting to us, because they deviated from the script we’ve been handed the past few years.
Realogy was supposed to be the sluggish incumbent that was left with nothing much to do but absorb body blows from ascendant newcomers like Compass and EXP. But the company grew both profits and market share last year. Again, a rising tide lifted nearly all boats, but this is, in our mind, a surprise on the upside.
Compass, conversely, while growing revenue significantly, remains a money-losing enterprise that has yet to realize the promise of its tech-forward story. It remains, for now, a public real estate brokerage company, with 23,000 agents, over 1,000 software engineers, and only a rocky path to profitability. - Airbnb, the real estate company almost nobody thinks of as a real estate company, reported that 20% of its stays last year were for a month or more. Pandemic-powered yearning for somewhere different is a thing, and we think it will fuel housing demand for a long-time to come.
- NAR introduced its 2022 consumer ad campaign. There is so much that is true in these ads about the value of a great agent, but the punchline — every agent isn’t a REALTOR® — dangles off the end without connecting. And after decades of running such ads, our own research shows that the large majority of people don’t understand this distinction, let alone care about it. There are perhaps better ways to spend $40+ million a year supporting homeownership professionals.
Have You Heard About This?
37 Tabs And Counting
You might have a Chrome tab problem like many of us — meaning at any given moment you have no less than 37 tabs open in your Chrome browser. Have no fear or shame. It’s a common illness. There is medicine. It’s called xTab, a free Chrome extension that allows you to limit the number of tabs that can be open at any given time. Does your whole company have this problem? The enterprise version allows you to install, manage and customize it using a group policy. Get yours here. And get your attention and better overall computer performance back.
What's Inside
Join Valerie Garcia and Marc Davison in The Lounge this Friday, for a free-flowing, off-the-record session on the promise and perils of real estate tech. Brokers and “vendors” welcome!
Inspiration Point
Felt Like A Million Without Costing A Million
It’s been a week since the “big game,” aka Super Bowl. While the multi-million-dollar ad spots took much of the spotlight, Mailchimp ran a cool little campaign on Twitter to honor the small-but-mighty players. Under the hashtag, #BigGameSmallAds, Mailchimp spotlighted small businesses and artists — a super cool way to honor customers, make their stories heard, and make them feel like a million bucks for the recognition.
‘Enough of this sheet’
We’ve been marveling over the brilliance of a 2020 campaign by Coda, a SAAS company redefining spreadsheets. What comes into the minds of most of us when we think of spreadsheets is aggravation, “work” in the ugliest sense of the word, and unsexiness in its highest form. Coda does a magnificent job of leading with the problem — in a very specific, human, and clever way — with the line, “Enough of this sheet.” Check out more about the campaign here.
Quote of the week
“Perceived value can be just as satisfying as real value.”
—Rory Sutherland
