T3 Insight
Executive brief: articles and latest news
T3 Sixty’s monthly executive brief providing analysis on the most important trends and developments as well as a quick digest of the most notable news in the industry.
The industry has so many stories, blogs, press releases and announcements each month that we all struggle to digest the information and distinguish between truly meaningful developments and hype or advertisement.
With T3 Insight, T3 Sixty analyzes developing trends, provides new brokerage industry best practices, and creates new perspectives on recent developments in technology, leadership, and organized real estate, in a monthly executive brief. It helps executives understand how the industry is changing in real time.
Each monthly executive brief also includes a composite of latest news and current articles under the title “What We’re Reading.”
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
Have a question? Connect with our executive editor, Paul Hagey.
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Articles
Individual deep dive topics that T3 Sixty explores as part of the monthly executive brief
The articles listed here are an alternative view of the composite monthly brief. This offers an easy way to view recent, chronological, articles.
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February 2023
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One of the most high-profile U.S. discount brokerage flameouts in recent years was Purplebricks, the U.K.-based startup that launched in 2014. The company raised $239 million to launch and expand in the US with a significant TV and digital ad spends but ended up exiting the country by September 2019. This article dives into the Purplebricks’ failure and includes a recorded video interview with Purplebricks’ former US CEO.
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February 2023
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On Tuesday, T3 Sixty released its annual ranking of the nation’s MLSs, local Realtor associations and state Realtor associations by year-end 2022 member counts in the Organized Real Estate section of the 2023 Real Estate Almanac. This post presents a video conversation about the data in the report and some of the implications.
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February 2023
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New construction – or the lack of it – has been a key factor in the nation’s nearly decade-long housing inventory shortage. With too few homes being built each year demand for single-family homes has consistently outstripped supply – there is just not enough housing being built for the nation’s growing population.
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January 2023
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The concept of a discount brokerage — in which brokerages offer services to real estate buyers and sellers for less than the predominant commission-based model — has existed for decades in the real estate space. This article provides a brief overview of where this model has been and where it may be headed.
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January 2023
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Every year, T3 Sixty ranks the nation’s 200 most powerful residential real estate brokerage leaders in the Swanepoel Power 200 (SP 200). The 2023 edition launched on January 10.
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January 2023
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After two years of rapid growth, home prices have slowed markedly as the housing market transitions to a period of lower sales amid higher mortgage rates. This article provides an analysis of the current home price trend and some details of how it has impacted metros.
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December 2022
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The real estate market has undoubtedly slowed. As the end of 2022 approaches, this article explores the market features to expect in 2023.
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December 2022
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In this 2023 Swanepoel Trends Report chapter digest, we present a high-level synopsis of the industry’s most profitable, national real estate brokerage company: HomeServices of America.
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December 2022
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In this 2023 Swanepoel Trends Report chapter digest, we present a high-level synopsis of three compelling real estate companies: At World Properties, Peerage Realty Partners and Place.
What We’re Reading
Notable industry articles curated with T3 Sixty’s perspective
Every month T3 gathers most important news across all companies, brands and regions and created an executive summary for quick and easy review.
- Article available on New York Times
Migration to quieter, more far-flung places has multiple downstream effects on them, both beneficial and challenging. In this article, the New York Times explores the impact on Maine, which saw a large influx of residents starting in mid-2020, which lowered the states average age, contributed to average home price increase of 60% from 2019 to 2022 and has brought life to many of the state’s sleepy towns. Similar areas across the U.S. are experiencing similar impacts of the Covid-induced migration. Questions remain whether this migration pattern will continue or whether the previous norm will return.
- Article available on OnlineMarketplaces
OJO Labs, the operator of a national portal and referral network, announced that it had sold its Canadian operations, ojohome.ca, to the Royal Bank of Canada, and raised a debt round. Combined, the actions brought approximately $200 million to the company. The Austin, Texas-based company has made large, aggressive moves to become a major player in the residential real estate lead-generation and portal game. It acquired one of the nation’s most-visited real estate portals in Movoto in June 2020. It has raised approximately $134 million to date. Like many startups who have raised millions of dollars in recent years to revamp real estate, OJO Labs is looking to gain traction and a profitable model for its tech platform and real estate network. We’ll continue to monitor the company and others like it as they evolve.
- Article available on Real Estate Magazine
The Canadian Real Estate Association has announced plans to turn the real estate portal it owns, Realtor.ca, which had a reported 121 million users in 2022, into a standalone for-profit firm. The proposal will be discussed at the trade association’s annual general meeting in April. The potential spinoff of Realtor.ca from CREA echoes a similar move NAR made with Realtor.com back in the late 1990s. It operated under operator HomeStore, which went public in 1999 and in which NAR maintained a large equity stake. That stake has waned over the years as the site’s operator changed to Move and then to News Corp, which is now pursuing a sale of Realtor.com. NAR has lost a lot of control of the site. A national listing site offers many opportunities for an association, especially if it maintains control as the site grows and evolves in a separate company. Will be interesting to track how CREA manages this.
- Article available on The New Yorker
In this profile of 3D home printer Icon, which raised $185 million in February 2022, The New Yorker explores the promise and challenges of 3D homebuilding and its potential for improving housing affordability. 3D-printed homes remain expensive to build, but companies, such as homebuilder Lennar, which has invested in Icon, believe with scale they can become cheaper to build and more affordable for consumers. In addition, the technology can be applied to multifamily, which will bring much more supply than the current single-family applications.
- Article available on Inman
NAR reported an historic member count in 2022 of 1.58 million, a 1.4% growth from 2021. The trade group has forecasted that the 2023 count will drop by approximately 7% to approximately 1.47 million. Real estate has always see-sawed with the market – in flush times, agents rush into the business and serve the increased number of buyers and sellers. In tighter times, the workforce contracts. The predominant independent contractor structure in the industry accommodates this fairly fluidly. The structure also contributes to a challenge of maintaining high service quality.
- Article available on New York Times
As interest rates rise and money gets more expensive, the models some companies launched with or leaned into in recent years are collapsing under their own weight. Profitability has become all-important and the days of losing big money on a future bet of profits is all but gone. This New York Times article profiles the dilemma referencing companies grappling with the reality, including Zillow Group, Redfin and Opendoor.
- Article available on CNN
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index shows that prices dropped 0.3% in November from the month before, representing five consecutive months of drops. Home prices have definitely come down in recent months, but as economics news early in 2023 appears bullish and with inflation potentially curbed, the housing market may stabilize as it heads into the spring selling season.
- Article available on Inman
Like other iBuyers, Offerpad has hemmorhagged money as the market turned and it was stuck with inventory it had to sell at losses. The company recently raised $90 million in a private fundraising effort, which also came with an unspecified number of layoffs. More details of the raise, any adaptations to its model and the layoffs will be laid out on its fourth quarter 2022 earnings release.
- Article available on Real Estate News
CRMLS and Bright MLS, the nation’s two largest MLSs, are launching a consumer search portal, Nestfully, expected to launch on April 1. The two MLSs own the site under a joint venture, and REcolorado has signed on as a participant. At launch, the MLSs expect listings from over 240,000 brokers and agents to show up on the site. Other MLS participants are expected. The launch of Nestfully represents the ongoing effort by innovative MLSs to enhance collaborations and achieve the multiple benefits of scale. For more details on these collaborations and the reasons behind them read the 2023 Swanepoel Trends Report chapter, “The Future of MLS.”
- Article available on Inman
In its second quarter earnings report of its fiscal year released on February 9, News Corp disclosed dropping revenue, with its digital real estate division playing a key part, and plans to cut approximately 1,250 jobs. In addition, it said it still is pursuing a sale of Move, the operator of Realtor.com. A sale of operator of one of the nation’s most popular real estate sites in Realtor.com to CoStar Group, one of the named suitors in the potential sale, will play a big role in the evolution of online real estate in the U.S.