May 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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May 2021

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The portal rentals battle heats up

Rentals have long been a related, but detached aspect of the residential real estate sales industry. As the nation’s most popular portals mature and consolidate, however, they are beginning to also compete for dominance as rental marketplaces complement their for-sale business.

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May 2021

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Tech vendor contracts: the critical questions to ask to avoid pain and suffering

Technology has become critical to the modern brokerage. Consequently, the contracts brokers have with their vendors have become ever more vital to business health. It’s never been more important to develop clear contracts that specify how integrations, data and acquisitions can affect operations. T3 Sixty gives its recommendations in this article.

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May 2021

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5 emerging real estate accounting systems

The brokerage accounting system landscape is changing. In this article, T3 Sixty presents five newer systems for brokerages to evaluate when considering a back-end financial platform.

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.

Home prices reached all-time high in April

Article available on CNN

NAR data shows that the median sale price for U.S. homes reached a record $341,600 in April, a 19 percent jump from April 2020. Homes also sold at record speed, with just a median of 17 days on the market. Low inventory and relatively low interest rates are helping push prices higher, as is the increasing number of all-cash buyers, according to NAR. This is creating tough conditions for lower-income and first-time buyers. While interest rates remain low, and construction stagnates with higher costs and fees, the industry looks poised to live with these conditions for at least the next year or two.

Realogy reports highest-ever 1Q revenue

Article available on Inman

Realogy announced an all-time high revenue of $1.5 billion in its first quarter earnings report; this represents a jump of 32 percent from the first quarter 2020 for the firm. But Realogy wasn’t alone in having a strong first quarter among the many now-public real estate companies. Zillow Group beat its outlook with $1.2 billion in revenue, Redfin grew revenue 40 percent year over year, eXp World Holdings more than doubled revenue year over year and Compass grew revenue 80 percent from a year ago.

Rising lumber costs at $36K to home building costs

Article available on CNBC

The pandemic forced lumber providers and suppliers to prepare for a construction freeze, but the subsequent torrent of activity after a brief pause surpassed expectations and left the building industry with much more demand than it could handle, and prices have risen accordingly, an estimated additional $36,000 cost for building a single-family home. Constructing new homes is one of the most direct ways the industry can balance the current strong sellers’ market, but this relief valve is hampered at the moment.

US’s top 1,000 brokerages grew market share in 2020

Article available on Inman

The nation’s 1,000 largest brokerages increased their market share to 52.2 percent by 2020 sales volume, according to the 2021 Mega 1000. That represents a growth of 16.2 percent from their 2017 share. The U.S.’s 10 largest brokerages grew share at an even higher rate over that time period – increasing it 34.8 percent to 31.0 percent total share. T3 Sixty data continues to show, again and again, the largest companies in real estate are getting larger, and doing more business. The industry is in an arms race as the big aim to get bigger.

Lone Wolf acquires Lion Desk and HomeSpotter

Article available on Vendor Alley

After acquiring forms software provider zipLogix in 2019 and CMA developer W+R Studios in December 2020, Lone Wolf continued its real estate tech acquisition spree with the acquisition of both CRM Lion Desk and real estate digital marketing tech company HomeSpotter in May. Lone Wolf represents the increasing tech consolidation trend occurring in real estate, which is giving brokers and agents fewer tech providers to choose from but the ones they do have, now offer deep, well-rounded tech platforms that provider richer functionality.

T3 Sixty

T3 Insight Monthly Executive Brief

The portal rentals battle heats up

Tech vendor contracts: the critical questions to ask to avoid pain and suffering

5 emerging real estate accounting systems

Home prices reached all-time high in April

Realogy reports highest-ever 1Q revenue

Rising lumber costs at $36K to home building costs

US’s top 1,000 brokerages grew market share in 2020

Lone Wolf acquires Lion Desk and HomeSpotter

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