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.”
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
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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September 2021
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T3 Sixty ranks the residential real estate brokerage industry’s most powerful and influential leaders and executives. nominate a leader you feel is worthy.
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September 2021
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While real estate companies tout many potential applications, AI is actually in its relatively early stages in the industry
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September 2021
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Housing affordability has become a big challenge in communities throughout the U.S., as home prices rise, particularly at lower price points
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August 2021
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The large real estate brokerages and technology companies are getting even larger. And it is becoming more difficult to determine who owns whom when companies maintain the brands of some firms they acquire. This post summarizes the most significant brands operated some of the industry’s largest companies.
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August 2021
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Many real estate leaders are realizing that improving the diversity of their leadership teams support their corporate ideals, but they may not realize that it improves their bottom lines. In this article, we discuss the business case for improving diversity on real estate leadership teams
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August 2021
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Increasingly, the power of real estate technology does not lie with the systems brokers and teams use, but in how they use them. And perhaps nothing influences the way companies can use different technologies than the degree to which they integrate with each other. In this article, we outline the four main types of real estate integrations with examples of each.
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July 2021
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As the brokerage industry matures into one with more public companies, more companies are offering agents compensation in the form of equity and revenue sharing that supplements traditional commission splits. This article provides insight into this shift.
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July 2021
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As the need to automate and increase efficiencies continue to rise, industry-specific back-office accounting systems are becoming gradually more important to brokerages. With many options to choose from T3 Sixty compiled a list of eight important questions and steps to help brokers to find the right system for them.
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July 2021
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Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are an invaluable tool for brokerage leaders to grow and adapt their businesses. In this article, we identify and provide details on the six most critical KPIs brokerages should track.
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 avaiable on Inman
REX Real Estate, a discount brokerage which operates outside the MLS, has publicly applauded the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to back out of its antitrust settlement with NAR after NAR recently petitioned to have the DOJ uphold the settlement. REX, itself, filed an antitrust lawsuit against NAR and Zillow in March.
NAR continues to face significant pressure, from the government in the DOJ, REX and several homeseller lawsuits. These developments will keep the association’s hands full over the next months and years, and they may impact some long-standing industry practices and rules.
- Article avaiable on Fort Worth Business Press
Compass has acquired LegacyTexas Title, a title insurance company that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The acquisition represents Compass’s continued push to grow its ancillary businesses, which, with the acquisition, now features title and escrow services in six states.
The acquisition follows the company’s February 2021 acquisition of KVS Title and its October 2020 acquisition of title and escrow software startup Modus.
- Article avaiable on PR Newswire
Ribbon, an alternative real estate transaction startup that helps homebuyers make all-cash offers on homes, raised $150 million in a Series C financing round. The company, which also partners with agents to help support their buyers’ transactions with all-cash offers, announced plans to expand to half the U.S. by 2023.
Real estate is seeing real estate transactions evolve in real time with startups like Ribbon providing new financing options to homebuyers and agents. Read more about the model in the upcoming 2022 Swanepoel Trends Report.
- Article avaiable on TechCrunch
After raising $75 million in March 2021, Pacaso, the startup run by former Zillow Group execs Spencer Rascoff (chairman) and Austin Allison (CEO) has raised another $125 million, led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. The company streamlines second-home ownership for consumers with a platform that allows them to own shares in properties in 25 second home markets such as Lake Tahoe, Palm Springs, Napa and Malibu in California and Park City, Utah. The firm recently launched its first overseas market in Spain. The firm holds active brokerage licenses in its active markets where it partners with local agents to purchase homes outright or shares in a home.
Pacaso debuted its platform just in October 2020 and claims to have an annual revenue run rate of $330 million. The speed with which the startup is growing and raising money epitomizes the current real estate era, is chronicled in detail in the 2022 Swanepoel Trends Report, available for preorder here.
- Article avaiable on GeekWire
Opendoor has acquired two general contracting platforms Pro.com and Skylight and will fold the companies’ teams into its own. The move represents a deepening and expansion of the services Opendoor, and other iBuyers, look to provide real estate consumers. IBuyers are quickly becoming more than just companies who streamline the transaction – they are jumping into the services adjacent to the transaction including mortgage, title and insurance, but also moving, home renovations and more.
- Article avaiable on RealTrends
The funding spree for alternative real estate finance models continues with HomeLight’s $363 million funding round. The funding includes $263 million of debt financing that the company says it will use to fund its cash offer service, in which the company makes cash offers on homebuyers’ behalf, and its home trade-in service, in which it helps finance a homeowner’s purchase of a new home and the sale of their existing home. The funding illustrates the intense attention the alternative financing model is receiving and the promise investors think it has.
- Article avaiable on Inman
Related to the story above, NAR is considering adopting a policy that will require websites that display listings through IDX feeds from Realtor association-run MLSs to display the contact information for listing agents prominently. Realogy has come out to publicly support the policy.
Listing broker and agent attribution has been a conflicting topic for brokerages and agents for many years. Many complained or resented when realtor.com and Zillow.com grew significantly by selling connections to other agents off their listings, but also faced some of the same issues on the listings presented on broker sites throughout their markets. IDX rules have not required prominent listing agent attribution, and this policy looks to change that. With CRMLS’s move, covered above, and large companies such as Realogy supporting the proposed NAR policy, this could be changing now.
- Article avaiable on HousingWire
IFunder Orchard, which provides brokerage, mortgage and title services to homebuyers and sellers, raised $100 million in a Series D fundraising round. The company provides cash-backed offers on behalf of homeowners buying a new home for a 6 percent fee. The funding indicates the sustained interest and attractiveness of the alternative real estate financing models cropping up, which include iBuyers and a growing number of alternative financing models.
- Article avaiable on Inman
The nation’s largest MLS, CRMLS, which serves over 108,000 subscribers in California, updated its policy in September to require all brokers to prominently display the name and contact info of listing brokers and agents on listings they receive through an IDX feed. Instead of appearing down on listing display pages, brokers must now display that information toward the top.
Now that Zillow Group displays listings on its site as a participating broker through IDX feeds, rules like this carry more weight, especially from the nation’s largest MLS. Many portals, including realtor.com, now prominently display listing broker or agent names and contact info. CoStar Group has said it plans to compete by leaning into the industry’s Fair Display Guidelines, of which prominent listing broker or agent display is key component.
- Article avaiable on Washington Post
Institutional investors and iBuyers captured a record share of single-family homes in the second quarter of 2021. These firms accounted for 16.1 percent of all single-family purchases across the nation in that period, approximately double the rate (8.4 percent) a decade ago, according to Redfin data. The tally excludes purchases from smaller, individual investors.
This is the highest share for any quarter on record, which goes back to 2000. As iBuyers increase their market share and major private equity-backed companies such as Blackstone Group increase their activity in the single-family space, housing affordability, especially for lower-income buyers, may become a bigger challenge.