July 2021

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. Here are this month’s articles.

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July 2021

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The proliferation of the ‘commission plus’ agent compensation model

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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The 6 critical KPIs brokerages must track

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.

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July 2021

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How to choose the best brokerage back-office accounting technology platform

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.

In addition to the three deep-dive articles above, T3 Sixty has, in addition, identified a collection of noteworthy articles from various news sources. Here are those honorable mentions.

Compass and eXp World Holdings announce mortgage joint ventures

Article available on Yahoo Finance

Mortgages have been an important source of ancillary revenue for residential real estate brokerages for decades and younger companies are beginning to jump all in. Compass, founded in 2012, has partnered with Guaranteed Rate to form a new joint-venture mortgage company OriginPoint, while eXp, founded in 2009, formed a joint venture with Kind Lending to establish Success Lending. Compass leverages a mortgage partner already with a presence in the industry, which allows it to jump in quickly to the mortgage space and ramp up production quickly. Realogy formed its own joint venture with Guaranteed Rate, Guaranteed Rate Affinity, in 2017, and it has contributed importantly to Realogy’s bottom line in recent quarters. Kind Lending, on the other hand, is itself a startup, having launched in just 2019.

Ohio’s largest MLS eliminates ‘Coming Soon’ status

Article available on Inman

MLS Now, which serves 13,800 subscribers in Ohio and West Virginia, is eliminating the “Coming Soon” status for listings as it found a significant portion of agents using the status primarily to market, and sell, listings before they went officially active in the MLS. This practice of marketing homes to encourage exclusivity, which the Clear Cooperation Policy aimed to curb, is still rife in many markets. Exclusivity persists, however, with agents using the office exclusive provision of the policy, and by agents making listings live in the MLS on Friday, but waiting until Monday to mark as active, which complies with the policy’s rules. MLSs will have to continue to monitor this premarketing activity and tweak their rules accordingly.

Fannie Mae downgrades housing forecast

Article available on Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae downgrades housing forecast After a torrid start to the year, the housing market may not see as big a 2021 boom as originally projected by some experts. Citing a continued dearth of inventory, constrained by homebuilding challenges, Fannie Mae has downgraded its 2021 home sales forecast from a 6.3 percent increase over 2020 to a 4.2 percent increase to 5.49 million single-family home sales. The economy, and real estate, continues to fly high, but inflation, higher prices, and homebuilding challenges, are beginning to emerge as the limiting reagents of the housing market. As these factors evolve, the outlook will undoubtedly shift further as the year progresses.

Oregon passes law requiring agents to reject buyer ‘love letters’

Article available on Inman

This month, Oregon passed a new law, which goes into effect throughout the state in January 2022, that requires real estate agents to reject the personal letters and sometimes photos that buyers, via their agent, submit along with their offers. This practice is fairly widespread in the industry and has become increasingly controversial in recent years as recognition grows that the act could contribute to discrimination based on race, family status or other details that comes through in these “love letters.” Oregon is the first state to pass the law, and others are expected to follow suit.

Blackstone betting big on single-family rentals with $6B acquisition

Article available on The Wall Street Journal

Global investment firm Blackstone Group has acquired Home Partners of America, which owns over 17,000 U.S. single-family homes that it rents out, for $6 billion. As home prices rise, more families are priced out or delayed in the ability to purchase a home, which will likely increase the demand for single-family rentals – that’s the bet Blackstone is making. Blackstone has deep experience with single-family rentals; it was a major owner of single-family rentals in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis with its Invitation Homes business, which owned over 80,000 single-family home rentals. It divested in that business in 2019, but now it’s back.

T3 Sixty

July 2021

T3 Insight Monthly Executive Brief

The proliferation of the ‘commission plus’ agent compensation model

The 6 critical KPIs brokerages must track

How to choose the best brokerage back-office accounting technology platform

Compass and eXp World Holdings announce mortgage joint ventures

Ohio’s largest MLS eliminates ‘Coming Soon’ status

Fannie Mae downgrades housing forecast

Oregon passes law requiring agents to reject buyer ‘love letters’

Blackstone betting big on single-family rentals with $6B acquisition

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