Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Unboxing video – The Art of the CMA

I got a copy of my first book, “The Art of the CMA”, in the mail on Friday. I made a quick video to memorialize it.

We have done a ton of proofreading to make sure there are no obvious errors, but we also wanted to check to see the layout and print quality on the physical book itself before ordering any copies of the book in bulk.

Looks like everything is checking out so I will be placing my first order today. If you are interested to know when the new book comes out you can visit www.TheArtoftheCMA.com and sign up to be notified.

I have many people to thank but will wait when the book is available to everyone, plus I have something fun in mind for the official launch. Stay tuned!

Fear and why iBuyers Offers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs

Jay Thompson, writing on Inman News, Why iBuyers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs 

“Greg Robertson, W+R Studios co-founder, was attacked, called clueless, and challenged as to whether he had any industry experience (yes, almost three decades worth.) IBuyers, also highlighted in the headline, got one mention. Nothing else in the survey report was discussed. A few commenters waded into the fray showing understanding of why they at least look at Zestimates and sometimes mention them in listing presentations. The vast majority of commenters sounded off on the evils of Zillow and the Zestimate.”

I will say I am “clueless” about many, many things. My wife will tell you as much.

Sorry this post is a little long, but I think it touches on a lot of issues (not to mention a shameless plug for my company ????).

Jay, as you may know, is a former broker (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) and worked at Zillow in Industry Relations for some time. His article is in response to an article published on Inman News about W+R Studios’ announcement of the results of their inaugural survey, 2020 Best Practices of CMAs and Listing Presentations.

Here’s more from Jay…

“No one, including Zillow, W+R Studios or me, is saying the Zestimate should be used as a comparable in your CMA. Of course it shouldn’t be, that’s not its intent or purpose. But to ignore it is to ignore something your clients are looking at and wondering about. Address it upfront, leave out your personal feelings about Zillow, and put any objections to rest early in the process. The listing presentation is the ideal time to address it with sellers, and the CMA is the perfect place to have it on record. “

Emphasis mine

Cloud CMA pioneered ways of including Zestimates to compare against actual sold prices from the MLS data as part of a Cloud CMA report. This has since been copied by other vendors. I was surprised by the amount of push-back we got when we introduced it. Many MLS organizations (after pushback from their members) made us turn the report page off by default, or in some cases, turned off altogether. But every time I sat down, one on one, with a broker or MLS executive and showed them how the report page worked, they understood, “wow this is great, agents are going to love it.”

This happens all the time. Many agents and brokers just hear/read “Zestimate” or “iBuyer” and begin to see red.

As we can see in the survey results and the comments on the article there is still a lot of fear out there. And as Mr. Hurbert once wrote, “fear, is the mind-killer”.

Flash forward to a little less than a year ago when W+R Studios introduced a way of including iBuyer Offers (with Opendoor) in Cloud CMA. We were met with the same type of fear and got a lot of push back and false claims.

“You’re going to put agents out of business!”
“Shame on you Cloud CMA!”

And those were the polite ones. I took these comments hard. We put many of our partner MLS organizations in a tough spot. They began to get calls from their members that “Cloud CMA was sending our CMAs to Opendoor!” (not true). The misinformation got so bad we had to create a document refuting some of the most outrages claims.

But we held firm because we knew, to paraphrase Jay, the listing presentation is an ideal time to address iBuyer Offers, and the CMA is a perfect place to have it on record.

Dan and I are always looking for new ways to innovate, and we are willing to take risks and keep our customers ahead of the curve. Even if these ideas seem crazy or counter-intuitive at the time.

The main thing that got us through the periods I wrote about above was, in the end, our customers (MLS organizations, brokers, and agents) trusted us.

In a recent “Friday Flash” blog post, titled “What are you saying” Brian Boero, CEO of 100watt wrote:

“Honestly, I am glad we have arrived at a point where there are no more red lines to transgress. I used to get revved up about this stuff too. Now, Zillow buys, owns and sells homes, Realtor.com charges referral fees, and yet good agents, teams and brokers continue to do their thing. “

Unlike Brian, I don’t think we are there yet. We still need to get over our fear of these new (old?) models, which as Rob Hahn and I discuss in recent Industry Relations podcast point out, keep turning more and more towards agent inclusion. We need to focus our energy on more positive things. We have a lot more to worry about than Zestimates and iBuyers.

I just hope the industry can take the advice of what a wise old hippie once said…

“You gotta let that shit go, man. Let it go.”

W+R Studios’ 2020 Survey of Best Practices for CMAs and Listing Presentations

Got a few nice write-ups on a recent survey W+R Studios put out.

From Andrea Brambila of Inman News – Most agents aren’t including Zestimates, iBuyer info in CMAs

“W+R Studios, whose flagship product is comparative market analysis software Cloud CMA, fielded the survey “2020 Survey of Best Practices for CMAs and Listing Presentations” online from May 18 to May 31. The company sent the survey to its 298,520 Cloud CMA agent and broker subscribers, of which 3,325 completed the survey. Survey respondents hail from 46 states nationwide.

“Any agent creating a comparative market analysis wonders whether they are ‘doing it right’ or is curious about what other agents include or don’t include in their CMA. This survey gives agents an inside peek at the best practices of what goes into creating a winning CMA,” said Frances Wiseman, director of marketing for W+R Studios, in a statement.”

I was also surprised that most agents were not including Zestimates in their CMAs. Less so about iBuyer offers, since the number of iBuyer markets is still limited.

From Victor Lund of the WAV Group – Survey Results: Best Practices for CMA

“A powerful data component that is affirmed by the report is that agents interrogate all listing statuses in their CMA. Active listings are important to understand what is available to buyers today, but pricing is particularly influenced by pending, sold, expired, and withdrawn listings. The CMA may be one of the reasons why homes are selling so much faster (lower days on market) than ever before. It is hard for a listing to hide when the listing price is too high. Surprisingly, the report indicates that the properties included in a CMA range from 5 to 11. Agents focus on the Days on Market Comparison more than 61% of the time, making it one of the most vital calculations in the CMA report.”

Yup, Days on Market (DOM) is a huge deal for agents. Which I know is a battle at most MLS organizations.

Check out the full results here. If you are at an MLS organization this would be a perfect thing to share, since a lot of agents wonder whether they are doing a CMA “right”.

I would love to hear any suggestions to make the report better for next year. Are there any questions you want to ask? Let me know.

The Art of the CMA

So I wrote a book.  I’m self-publishing it. I’m getting some final feedback on the copy/content and finishing up the images, but in the next few weeks, we will be sending it to the printer.  So, I’m looking for some feedback.

But first, let me tell you a story.  I began writing the book almost two years ago.  One of my favorite artists is John Coltrane.  My son’s name is Cole, which was a compromise I made with my wife. Which should give you an idea of how much of a geek I am.

John Coltrane used to live in Long Island, NY.   MLS of Long Island (MLSLI) holds a tech fair every year in October and his house isn’t far from the hotel I stay in.  So each year I’ve driven by it.  There’s a plaque outside the house that memorializes it. It’s not Graceland or Paisley Park. It’s was just the humble home of a great artist.

For inspiration, I wrote the first words of my book outside that house.  Since then I’ve struggled, started, and stopped multiple times.  Then, last year I was attending a trade show on content marketing in Cleveland and ran into an old colleague/friend of mine, Charles Warnock.  I hired Charles years ago to run marketing at eNeighborhoods and now had a consulting business called Content Marketing Factory. We have been keeping in touch but had a chance to catch up with a couple of drinks at the conference.  Charles mentioned he was co-authoring a book on enterprise innovation and digital transformation. Immediately I told him I was working on a book too, and was having trouble completing it and staying focused.  He was excited by the idea of the book.  So I struck a deal with Charles and he has been invaluable in helping me get the book completed.

So I’ve been working with the graphic designers on my team to create the cover of the book. I’ve decided on a layout and now I’ve narrowed it down to 3 different versions of that layout. So I’m looking for feedback on these three final designs. That’s where you come in.

The name of my book is “The Art of the CMA”. I’ll write more about the concept and content of the book in a later blog post.

Design #1

COVER DESIGN CANDIDATE # 1

This the basic layout.  I’m using Neutra (pronounced noy-tra) as the main font.  It’s named for a famous Architect, Richard Neutra. Neutra is used in a lot of signage. It’s the same font I used for our building signage at W+R Studios building and the original W&R Studios buttery soft t-shirts.  I like the fact that the font is tied to dwellings.  The public library in Huntington Beach was designed by him, right before he died and his son took over the project.

The green I use is the same green as Cloud CMA.  But I only mention Cloud CMA once in the book.

The sub-headline “Winning Listings by Mastering Real Estate’s Best Marketing Tool” isn’t final, but I haven’t come up with anything better.

And of course, the illustration is of a house, with a dollar sign symbolizing the value.

Design #2

COVER DESIGN CANDIDATE #2

In this version, we have added multiple colors to the line color of the illustration.  Like an artist’s palette.  The feedback I’ve heard so far is that it looks too close to a company logo during “Pride” month. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Design #3

COVER DESIGN CANDIDATE #3

Here the artist’s palette vibe and color are more prominent and we changed the color of some of the copy.

So there you have it.  I’ve created a quick poll that you can fill out below. Or write something in the comments or just send me an email. I’m beyond excited about this project and happy to have all of you share in its creation.


Webinar: What’s Behind Opendoor?

I’ve asked Tyler Hixson, director of Real Estate Partnerships & Strategy at Opendoor, to join me on a webinar on December 5th. On this webinar, I’m going to ask Tyler to explain how agents are using Opendoor to increase their real estate business, common misconceptions and other tough questions about where Opendoor sees the industry going.  We will have a Q&A session at the end.

Register for the webinar by clicking on the link below (Please feel free to share):

Registration => What’s Behind Opendoor?

P.S. Can’t make the live webinar? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording.

Undercover investigation finds agents/brokers complicit in housing discrimination

Long Island Divided

“More than 50 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the federal Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination in housing, this remains a core question for one of America’s oldest, most populous and most segregated suburbs.
The answer should be equal treatment for all by real estate agents and equal access for all communities.
In the decades after World War II, Long Island experienced explosive growth as its communities swelled with returning veterans investing in homes and establishing roots. But opportunities were not the same for everyone in what was also an era of racially exclusive covenants and blockbusting tactics that separated communities along color lines.”

Editor: Newsday

Just devastating. A must-read for everyone in organized real estate. You can only imagine what’s happening in “exclusive buyer networks.”

In case anybody asks…

Get it? ????

Constellation acquires Offrs, SmartZip acquisition also to be announced soon

Inman News:

“Constellation Real Estate Group announced Tuesday that it has purchased data analytics and lead generation company offrs, continuing a running acquisition spree that has seen the software giant pick up firms focused on everything from marketing to mortgage technology.
In a statement Tuesday, Constellation said that offrs (yes, that’s how the company spells its name) “leverages big data and its proprietary machine learning algorithm to predict future home sales and transactions.” Offrs then provides that data to various real estate professionals, including agents and mortgage companies.
Terms of the deal were not made public.”

Spoiler Alert!

I’m also hearing that Constellation is in the late stages of acquiring SmartZip too, which has been looking for a suitor for quite some time. That deal I’m told will be announced shortly. SmartZip had raised over $30M dollars according to Crunchbase.

I have mixed emotions when I hear of companies being acquired by Constellation, because they have a reputation as bottom feeders and founders rarely take any real money off the table.

VHT Studios Unveils Virtual Twilight and Decluttering

VHT Studios Unveils Virtual Twilight for Real Estate Professionals to Further Captivate Buyers and Boost a Listing’s Appeal

“Virtual Twilight is another convenient alternative to VHT’s traditional twilight photography sessions. VHT uses our professional photographers’ daylight exterior photographs and our image specialists digitally transform them into twilight photographs. It saves time for the seller and real estate professional, since it requires no additional or extended late-day photography sessions.

I would qualify this as a AR (Augmented Reality) type of feature, although it’s not done on the fly. But, their slide demo is pretty impressive, make sure you look at all the photos, the decluttering and staging examples are just as impressive as the twilight photos. I wish I could use the decluttering feature in real life for my boy’s rooms.

Jeff Turner takes CEO position at immoviewer

immoviewer Announces Appointment of New CEOJeff Turner Named Chief Executive Officer

“We are thrilled to have such a highly regarded industry leader as our new North American CEO,” immoviewer founder, Ralf von Grafenstein said. “Jeff has a unique understanding of where the real estate market is heading and a clear vision for where technology fits into the picture. Jeff’s experience and reputation in the industry is stellar and well known. We are certain he will be able to lead us to the conversations that will move immoviewer forward at a rapid pace in North America.”

Huge congrats to Jeff. This stuff looks shit hot and affordable for most brokers/agents.

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