Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Listing Bits Episode 54: Opportunities for Agents to Partner with Opendoor – with Shannon Fitzpatrick & Tyler Hixson

Many agents might view Opendoor as a competitor, yet another tech platform out to eliminate their jobs. But what if you could leverage the iBuyer as a partner to build your real estate business?

Shannon Fitzpatrick leads a team of 45 agents at Movoto Real Estate in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada, and Tyler Hixson serves as the Director of Real Estate Partnerships and Strategy at Opendoor. In this episode of Listing Bits, Tyler and Shannon explain how agents can leverage Opendoor as a tool to grow their business, bringing cash offers to prospects and tying multiple transactions together.

Shannon speaks to the value of going into a listing presentation with an Opendoor offer, describing how it allows him to do what’s best for the seller, and Tyler discusses why agents can get a stronger offer from the platform by articulating the property’s unique features. Listen in for insight into the misconceptions agents have about Opendoor and learn how to work WITH the iBuyer to serve your clients and generate more leads.

What’s Discussed: 

How Shannon uses Opendoor to bring a cash offer to prospects

Leveraging Opendoor to tie multiple transactions together

The value of going into a listing presentation with an Opendoor offer

Opendoor’s offer valuation process and associated service fees

How Opendoor passes its vendor discounts on to sellers

How Opendoor can serve as a powerful lead gen tool for agents

Why agents can get a stronger offer from Opendoor than sellers

How Opendoor works directly with agents through closing

How Shannon uses Opendoor as a recruiting tool at his brokerage

The advantage to sellers of working with an agent AND Opendoor

The misconceptions agents have about the Opendoor platform
-Quality of offer + fees
-Think it’s out to eliminate agents

Opendoor’s plans to expand to serve all customers, home types

Resources:

W+R Studios

Cloud CMA

Opendoor/CloudCMA

Connect with Tyler:

Opendoor’s Agent Partner Program

Connect with Shannon:
Movoto

Shannon’s Website

Shannon on Zillow

Opendoor partners with Cloud CMA

Cloud CMA will now include all cash offers from Opendoor

“Last year, W+R Studios unveiled a tool called iBuyer Connect, which allowed agents to incorporate all-cash offers from investors into their listing presentation. Robertson told Inman that most of the interest from investors at this point had been home flippers, but now adding Opendoor as a partner in the platform will allow agents using iBuyer Connect to present all-cash offers to owners of turnkey homes.

Agents who refer clients to Opendoor ultimately have two options. Negotiate a traditional listing agent commission with the seller – who will also be paying Opendoor a transaction fee that averages 7.1 percent – or forgo the listing agent commission and receive a 1 percent referral fee from Opendoor.”

We’ve been working on this for over a year. What I think is going to be transformational about this is the software integration between Cloud CMA and Opendoor.

The experience of creating a CMA and going right in to generating an offer is like nothing out there. It really gives agents the advantage in simplicity and speed. And its only going to get better.

In case anybody asks…

Get it? ????

Homebeat™️, a new way to keep in touch with past clients using Cloud CMA

Just two weeks ago, I was sitting in the audience at a real estate conference and the moderator asked the panelists, “What’s next in real estate?” Brian Boreo, co-founder of 1000watt, is one of the smartest people I know in real estate and said, “I’ve always thought that whoever figures out loyalty in real estate will win.” This brought a smile to my face, because there’s something Brian and the rest of the audience didn’t know that I’m excited to share that with you now.

About 5 years ago we made a fundamental shift with Cloud CMA. We knew that not all agents have listing presentations scheduled every week so we added features designed to help them get business – not just serve current clients. Pivotal to this was adding a “What’s my home worth?” landing page to every Cloud CMA account. This landing page could be easily shared on social media – which agents did –  and the results were astounding. The number of Cloud CMA reports skyrocketed. To give you an idea, we launched Cloud CMA in 2010. In 2018 we hit a milestone of 10 million Cloud CMA reports generated. One year later in 2019, we are sitting at 14 million Cloud CMA reports generated. We can also account for 548,517 leads generated from automatic Cloud CMA reports. That’s moving the needle. Today we want to move that needle even further.

The National Association of REALTORS® has stats that show agent satisfaction over 80%, making it a well known industry fact that a majority of consumers were happy with their agent.  Yet only 11% of those consumers use that same agent again. Why? Because agents are not doing a good job of keeping in touch with their past clients. That’s why we are introducing Homebeat, a new way to pump up your business from past clients. With Homebeat, agents can schedule automated CMAs to be delivered monthly, quarterly or yearly. And while traditional Cloud CMA reports are generated as PDFs, Homebeat will be completely digital, allowing your clients to view homes comparable to their home from any device.

Just like Cloud CMA reports, Hombeat is branded to the agent and also includes a call to action to request a “Full CMA” when they are closer to selling their home.

With Cloud CMA you can generate seller leads, convert those leads to clients and now with Homebeat, keep those clients coming back for more. 

We will be rolling out Homebeat to select markets starting later today and will be free for 30 days to any Cloud CMA subscriber. To find out more about Homebeat, visit https://cloudagent.wpengine.com/automate-your-cloud-cmas-with-homebeat.

“Cloud CMA’s iBuyer Connect has legs.”

I couldn’t come up with a better headline than Inman News in their post today about Cloud CMA’s new feature “iBuyer Connect” so I just stole it. : )

Cloud CMA’s iBuyer feature has legs
New feature from W&R Studios is patent-pending, now open to investors nationwide

“In August, W&R Studios began testing iBuyer Connect, originally called Cloud Investor Connect, in Southern California. It gives an agent the option to request cash offers from iBuyers after creating a CMA for a property, provided that the property meets the requirements of an iBuyer.

Should any iBuyers that are part of the iBuyer Connect network choose to submit an offer, the agent can then go to a listing presentation armed with one or more cash offers to present to a prospective seller, along with a CMA.

If the seller accepts the investor offer, the agent will represent the investor as a buyer’s agent. The agent might also win the listing, in which case the agent could also serve as a dual agent. The feature doesn’t comes with any additional cost, and the compensation agents receive from an iBuyer varies by company and market.

Our current test is with a Southern California company who is focused on flipping homes. Venture backed iBuyers like “Opendoor” are typically making offers closer to market value. Cloud CMA can work with both models.

We recently celebrated the results of agents who used iBuyer Connect for the first time to make transactions. The response from these agents has been great.

We are also surveying all agents using iBuyer Connect and are very encouraged by the results (we sent the survey out to a pool of 250 participants and got 35 results back).

When asked, “How likely would you use this feature on future listing presentations?” Over 85% said they were “Very Likely”, “Likely” or neutral.

Here are some other quotes from the survey.

“The services works as advertised, the communication from the investor was great. “

“It could work for certain properties. We would use it again in the future.”

“I think this is a great new tool and look forward to using it again. “

“The offer was extraordinarily low… but still useful for selling an investor network to clients.”

“I really appreciate the service. I believe that it is great to have that service available when listing homes, especially when the home needs work and you dont need to wait for an offer.”

I reached out to one of the agents, Briar Warren of Murrieta, who successfully sold a home using iBuyer Connect, you can read her comments on our press release here.

As we continue to test this feature we are learning how to provide even more value to Cloud CMA subscribers. We think agents can provide a great experience to their clients by enabling them to participate in this growing iBuyer marketplace.

Alain Pinel chooses Cloud CMA

Alain Pinel Realtors Unveils Dynamic, “Best Of Breed” Technology Strategy

“As sole proprietors of their own business, agents deserve the confidence of knowing that their data and tools belong to them exclusively. We have chosen a model that gives agents flexibility and options without extra cost on their part,” said Zane Burnett, Vice President of Digital Innovation & Technology at Alain Pinel.
APR has inked partnerships with the following companies:

ActivePipe: Automated email marketing with exclusive property feed integration

Adwerx: Automated, geo-targeted social and display advertising of property listings

Cloud CMA: Deep property, comparable sale and buyer reports presented in a branded format

RealScout: Collaborative home search between agents and buyers and email alerts powered by “computer vision”

Contactually: An intelligent CRM that automates common tasks required of agents

Several of these applications are integrated; all will be available to APR agents through a single sign-on (SSO) dashboard within the company intranet.

Smart guys.

Underdog?

High praise from Mr. Brad Inman on our new Cloud Investor Connect feature in Cloud CMA.

In real estate’s tech platform race, I’m betting on an underdog as brokerages square off against Zillow and Redfin, small startup W+R Studios’ Cloud CMA could be the viral hit like this summer’s Shiggy dance

But I got my eye on a third potential and fledgling platform coming out of nowhere by two likeable entrepreneurs who have been building real estate software for 25 years. Greg Robertson and Dan Woolley dub their company W+R Studios. Its signature product is Cloud CMA, which does comparative market analysis for agents to deliver to home sellers.

It’s software does 260,000 CMAs a month.

Here is the hook that could propel their company. The southern California firm added a new instant offer feature to their product last month, so when presenting the CMA the agent can also point the home seller to an instant offer alternative from investors and iBuyers.

It is being tested in Los Angeles with signs that it might be a breakaway product — maybe even a platform.

You can imagine most agents in the country using the software someday with all of the big Wall Street iBuyers and local investors participating on the Cloud CMA platform. It sports an easy to deploy API for investors and a friendlier-than-Mr. Rogers user experience.

Nice way to start a week. Dan and I want to thank Brad for his kind words (no pressure!). And also Art Carter and CRMLS for serving as our first “sandbox” of sorts. Plus our other MLS partners that have helped Cloud CMA to grow in to one of real estate’s most popular products.

So far our tests in Southern California for the past two weeks have gone better than expected. Agents love the experience, and are giving us great feedback. I’m happy to share some of our results, just contact me directly.

See you tomorrow at Inman Connect SF


Dan and I will be attending Inman Connect SF starting tomorrow, until Friday. I will be on stage at 4:40PM Tuesday on the “New Kids On The Block” panel (don’t ask) making a special announcement about Cloud CMA. We are super pumped about this announcement and think its one of the most innovative things we’ve done….ever. So stay tuned, and see you is SF!

The New Cloud CMA

We launched Cloud CMA back in early 2010. And its grown to be one of the most popular 3rd party software applications in real estate. But it was due for a refresh.

Someone once said design isn’t just how a product looks, but how the product works. I think in both cases the new Cloud CMA nails it. We made a short video with a few W+R Studios members responsible for making it happen.

The look and feel of the new Cloud CMA is designed to be new, yet familiar. We know that customers have developed a sort of muscle memory to create reports so we didn’t want to mess with that. Alternatively, customers will be able to switch between the new and “classic” version.

Hi Res version here.

We integrated public record data so that users get a head start creating their CMAs. Using this data to populate key fields for the subject property improves the algorithm to choose the correct comps. We also added the ability to select and de-select comps from the larger expanded map interface.

Hi Res version here.

Most enhancements to Cloud CMA were added to the Customize step, which was getting a bit unwieldy. So we cleaned up the page layout to give users a clean slate to customize their reports.

Hi Res version here.

Of course the UI/UX are important but the output, the printed reports, are what really matters. The key to good reports is a mutual respect between the agent and client. Our design team came up with a brand new default theme called “Modern”. These reports are “sano” as the old surfers say in Huntington Beach, meaning “super clean”. I think the design team has knocked it out of the park. Of course, previous report themes in Cloud CMA will also be available.

All of this was done to match the look and feel of our other products in the Cloud Agent Suite.

We began showing this to agents and MLS executives in Washington D.C. at the NAR Midyear meetings. The response has been phenomenal. MLS providers with site licenses are going to love to be able to show even more value to their members by introducing the new Cloud CMA. As part of the new launch, we re-shot 14 How-to videos for Cloud CMA. You can check them out here. Keep in mind agents will be able to switch back to the “Classic” Cloud CMA anytime they want. So, this along with the new videos will make launching the new Cloud CMA a no-brainer.

We will launching the new Cloud CMA in select markets over the next couple months. We also have the ability to turn on individual accounts, just reach out to Katie if you want, and she will get you up and running.

I was watching Elon Musk speaking to his shareholders yesterday. He began with “this is going to sound cheesy but at Tesla, we build our cars, with love, we really care”. Elon got a bit emotional and went on to say, “At a lot of other companies, they’re built by the marketing department and the finance department. There’s no soul, you know?” I know exactly what Elon is saying.

I know I’m gushing a bit but I’m super proud at everyone at W+R Studios for making this happen. Their dedication, and soul, shows in every pixel.

This is going to be a huge year for Cloud CMA and we are just getting started, we have a few more tricks up our sleeve which I will be happy to share with you next month. Stay tuned.

Miami AOR launches Platinum Plus membership level

MIAMI REALTORS® Launches MIAMI Platinum PLUS for its Members

“The MIAMI Association of REALTORS® (MIAMI) is now offering its members subscriptions to MIAMI Platinum PLUS, an exclusive and unparalleled suite of upgraded Realtor products and services, so Realtors can utilize an even higher level of industry tools to improve and expand their business while enhancing the home buying and home selling process for the public….

MIAMI Platinum PLUS includes Form Simplicity Ultimate Edition, Cloud CMA, access to a second MIAMI Multiple Listing Service platform and Proxio Premier Agent in addition to a number of benefits including one free NAR designation class.”

I’m seeing this tiered level of membership a lot more these days. The key is to have a compelling offering.

Sponsored By MLS Reset