Large brokerages capture market share, 3 great agent technologies + the 2022 T3 Summit
In addition to the articles, here are a few items we are reading from across the internet.
NAR raised its special assessment fee for members from $35 to $45 for 2023. The special assessment, which began in 1999, goes to fund NAR’s consumer ad campaign and was last increased in 2009. NAR expects the assessment to bring in $66.15 million. The NAR board voted to keep the association’s base annual dues at $150.
The nation’s largest real estate holding company, Realogy Holdings Corp., which includes the brokerage, franchise and ancillary business wings, is rebranding to Anywhere Real Estate with implementation occurring by end of the second quarter. Realogy CEO Ryan Schneider said the rebrand reflects the company’s consumer-focused, agent-led approach, and accompanied the expression of bold vision for Realogy at the company’s May 12 special investor presentation.
The Canadian Real Estate Association reported that the average price of Canadian homes stood at $646,809, nearly twice the U.S. median home price in March of $375,000. Both Canadian and U.S. average home prices have jumped approximately 30 percent from 2020. Inflation, a yearslong supply-demand imbalance and low interest rates have fueled high price appreciation over the last several years. With recent mortgage rate increases, the market is already shifting.
Home prices jumped 19.8 percent in February from the year before, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. That increase is the third-highest in the index’s 35-year history. With interest rates rising, we may be approaching a peak in home price appreciation.
The New York Times chronicles two recent efforts by smaller developers in New York state to bypass local historic preservation commissions, which, in many areas, serve as a key time and cost impediment to new construction. As the 2022 Swanepoel Trends Report outlined, new construction remains one of the key relief valves to creating a more balanced market and local regulations, like those offered by historic preservation commissions, add costs and delays to these projects. This article provides an example of how these issues are being navigated on the ground.
A federal lawsuit that challenges the Buyer Broker Commission Rule – in which NAR MLS rules require listing brokers to offer compensation to buyer brokers – has been certified as class-action by a judge. Defendants include NAR, Realogy, Keller Williams Realty and HomeServices and America. Brought in 2019, the suit affects Missouri homes sold through four MLSs from April 29, 2014 through the present. The four rules at issue include: • NAR’s so-called Buyer Broker Commission Rule, noted above. • NAR’s Code of Ethics that requires Realtors to offer compensation to cooperating Realtors • NAR’s statue that prohibits buyer agents negotiating commissions when making an offer • NAR’s statute that prohibits buyer agents negotiating commissions after an offer is made. Another, larger federal lawsuit in Illinois, challenging some of the same key items above is still active as well, and could become class-action, too. This outstanding suit, the certification, along with continued U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Federal Trade Commission scrutiny, suggest the commission protocol the industry has followed for decades, in which sellers pay both sides of the commission, may change in the near future.
Black Knight, a public software company that provides popular MLS software Paragon, is in the process of being acquired for $13.1 billion. The buyer, Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the owner of the New York Stock Exchanges, purchased a similar mortgage software provider Ellie Mae in 2020 for $11 billion. Real estate technology and data is becoming bigger business. This acquisition represents more consolidation and the push for economies of scale and new opportunities it opens up.
Frederick Townes, former chief operating officer of real estate marketing platform Placester, has been named CEO of Remine, the real estate software provider that a consortium of four MLSs banded together to purchase in late 2021. Remine represents an increasing effort by MLSs to take their tech needs and future into their own hands. Read our related T3 Insight article from February, “With deepening collaborations, MSLs embark on new era,” here.
Some homeowners are beginning to push back on bulk investor-owned homes in their communities based on an experience of a lack of upkeep and lax tenant screening. Homeownership breeds many benefits to communities – it encourages more ownership of local areas, greater care of homes themselves, brings equity and wealth to families. Investors who own large portfolios of single-family homes can hamper some of these benefits.
Mortgage rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to above 5.3 percent in late April, their highest level in over decade, according to a recent Mortgage Bankers Association survey. Rising rates are having an effect on the real estate market in locations throughout the U.S., cooling a bit of the long-standing buyer frenzy and moving the long-standing supply-demand imbalance to something more balanced.
Enabling Intelligent Change.
