Join me for cocktails and conversation to kick off the week of NAR NXT! Mingle and enjoy time with real estate tech founders, execs, VCs, and practitioners.
This is a collaboration with Drew Meyers of Geek Estate (GEM), and will be hosted in the work/car studio I share with Dan Woolley. We’ll set up tables, have local brews and a few handles, snacks, cool music, a bubble top hockey table and a few surprises.
Very close to John Wayne Airport (SNA) airport if you are flying in Monday. Or maybe a kicking off point for some of Orange County’s finest restaurants.
Open to GEM members and you pioneers of proptech and organized real estate insiders. More information coming soon.
It was great to be back in New Orleans last week. From what I heard this was the largest attended CMLS ever. With so much going on in the industry it made sense everyone wanted to be together. Plus it was the “10 year anniversary of the 10 days session”.
I hadn’t been to New Orleans since pre-pandemic. Not sure if it was just me but the streets seemed a little cleaner, and the beignets a little heavier.
News dropped of Redfin “leaving NAR” on Monday while I was traveling. GFK certainly knows how to work the press and the timing of the release was genius. I think towards the middle of the week the initial shock wore off and left most of whom I talked to with more of a shrug. Same thing with the news that Anywhere (and RE/MAX?) won’t require franchisees to join NAR. Since it’s not a mandate I don’t think anyone will care. But I do think the optics from outside the industry is the real story here. With NAR‘s recent bad press in the New York Times, inventory shortage, affordability, and high interests rates may lead some people to believe where there’s smoke there’s fire. Especially when you read the misleading headlines.
I didn’t get to attend many sessions. But heard a lot of good feedback on the “What If Mindset” presenter. I did give a talk at the CEO Forum held Tuesday afternoon and was surprised at the level of interaction I got from the group, which in my experience don’t easily share opinions in public. But this is the CMLS Conference after all. One thing I heard afterwards from some MLS execs was the concern that over the years CMLS has worked more closely with NAR and how that might “bite us in the butt” in light of all the shenanigans lately. But, who can tell?
The lobby bar chatter was filled with vendors telling lies to each other, talk of lawsuits, joint ventures, and changing business models and dinner plans.
I ate like a king, and broke my rule the first night. I did manage to get to bed early Wednesday night in preparation for my Industry Update session on Thursday. I spent all Thursday morning creating the slide deck and rehearsing in my hotel room. Which if anyone had a hidden camera would look like an insane person making funny faces and saying the same things over and over in to a mirror.
I was backstage with Sunny getting ready for my session. Andy Woolley was set to introduce me. I was told that Andy would go out first, then introduce me and I would come out second. I had no idea what actually was about to happen. They announced Andy and my handler told me to go on stage as well. Then Andy delivered a masterclass in roasting. He had the crowd howling and he’s expertly delivered well timed cuts and jabs, all at my expense. It was hilarious!! Bravo Andy!
With so much going on in the industry, my Industry Update session was one of the best yet. And the last slide got a standing ovation (or so I’m told, I left the stage pretty quickly). I hope to have that video of Andy and I posted soon. The feedback I received was so kind and I’m glad I could bring a bit of levity to everyone’s day.
I left the CMLS Conference feeling a bit tired (NOLA) and also energized. I’ll have a few announcements due to meetings I had at the event in the weeks to come.
My thanks to Denee and the entire CMLS staff for having me and once again putting on such a great event.
“Our consulting team is in hundreds of conversations every month with brokerage leaders, team leaders, and executives in our industry – and there is no way to sugar coat this, there is a malaise over part of the industry right now.
Many people that would normally engage, show up to things, be present – they are simply not there.
This has been evidenced heavily by attendance at the late summer conferences that kick off the fall conference season. Attendance is 30-50% down, which in many respects, is not surprising.”
There has been a lot of great buzz around Blueprint, a relatively new proptech conference in Las Vegas. I’ll be attending and covering the event for the first time this year. The speaker lineup looks great with the likes of Pete Flint, Spencer Rascoff,Adena Hefets, Brian Bair, Dave Garland, Errol Samuelson, and many others. The lobby bar should be full of some interesting folk.
The people at Blueprint were nice enough to give me a link to share with Vendor Alley readers to get $200 discount of the normal price to attend the event. Just click here ===> Blueprint Event Discount
Speaking of Inman Connect, Rob Hahn and I are a finalist for and Inman Innovator Award for top video or podcast. This was a complete surprise and grateful for those who nominated us.
I’m not sure when they announce the winners but we have some stiff competition.
As one does, I was going through my inbox and came across a gem from Marc Davison of 1000watt. The piece is entitled, The harpoon and the row boat. Marc is a great writer, and for some reason when I read anything he writes I hear the voice of Bono from U2 in my head. Are they really going to perform without Larry Mullen Jr.?? But I digress.
The article is an example of the deep thinking the guys at 1000watt put into real estate. In this case “recruiting”. But it’s more than “recruiting”. It’s coming at a problem with a design mindset. It’s asking question after question after question after question until you get to the essence of the problem you are trying to solve.
What the article also reminded me of is an event 1000watt is hosting next month in Portland, Oregon. It’s called TURN ON. I’m going and I CAN NOT WAIT! And what I have written about this event before is still true today.
“So if you want to cleanse your palette of the normal, because in 2023 we are all going to need new ideas and inspiration, then you should sign up too.”
The guys at 1000watt have been generous to give me a couple tickets to give away at a phoneomal discount.But only to those who haven’t registered already.
So if you are interested in joining me and other truth seekers be one of the first ones to reach out to me I’ll send you a link.
“We intend to make this list as comprehensive and up to date as possible over the course of the year. Email daniel@inman.com with events for consideration or with changes to events already on the calendar. Please include the name of the event, the date and a website as we update the post periodically.”
I’ve tried and failed at putting together a list like this hopefully Daniel and Inman News does a better job. I’m going to be optimistic and bookmark this in my browser. Thanks Inman News!
I had a chance to attend the T3 Tech Summit in Newport Beach, California. A few people have asked me online how the event was so I thought I would do a quick post on my experience.
Jack Miller President & CEO of T3 Sixty
All in all Jack and team did a great job and would definitely want to attend again.
The event was held a the Vea hotel in Newport Beach, CA. The hotel was recently remodeled beautifully. I believe Marriott still manages the property but it was more of a resort vibe than the old Marriott that stood there. This is a signature of T3 events, where they like to hold them in upscale and sometimes unique properties. The best thing was it was only about 15 minutes from my house. : )
The event kicked off on October 31st with a short keynote presentation and a welcome reception. I think that may have hurt them a bit (along with being just a week before NAR Annual), I had to leave the welcome reception early to go spend Halloween with the kiddos, so I’m sure a lot of people either didn’t attend or arrived the day after due to the conflict.
Dr. Howard and Jack
I really enjoyed the keynote. The speaker was Dr. Ayanna Howard. She was at NASA’s JPL working on the Mars rover and is now Dean at the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. I think this is also a trademark of T3 events, really unique keynote speakers. I sense someone over there is a space nerd too, so loving that thread. Dr. Howard was super smart and spoke about AI.
They had a bunch of other speakers. I really enjoyed Wendy Purvey, President, and COO of Pacific Sothebys International. Wendy has been in real estate for over 30 years and did a great job explaining where brokers’ headspace is at now and how companies selling technology should be approaching them in this market.
I also enjoyed Jimmy Mackin from Curaytor. His presentation about the metrics from high-producing teams and how brokers can win by duplicating Zillow (I’m paraphrasing here) was amazing.
There was also a mix of speakers from T3 Sixty highlighting their services (another staple of T3 events), which feel a bit long, but hey, you gotta pay the bills!
One of the features T3 Sixty was highlighting before the event was the “experience rooms’. Basically these were rooms with large displays. The “experience” part was dependent on the vendor, so they were a bit hit or miss. But I do appreciate T3’s goal of bringing innovation and a new experience to your standard vendor alley (pardon the pun).
They also gave out the “EXHIBIT” design awards for brokerages. They split the country into 3 parts, West, Mid-West, and East Coast. I was less impressed with the choices here. For instance, I don’t care what you show me there is no way Baird & Warner beat out West + Main for best brokerage design.
I loved, loved, loved the “pitch battles”. Three vendors (per product/service segment) got up on stage and had a limited time to pitch their product/service. Then a group of three judges of industry peeps (Sean Wheeler, CTO of Lone Wolf is pictured in the middle seat) gave their feedback and favorite along with audience voting.
I didn’t get a chance to attend day 3 of the conference, the fuel pump in my VW Beatle failed on the way to the event (long story).
During the event I caught Stefan watching intently from about the 4th row, stage right. I can imagine him taking mental notes, and his other thoughts having commanded the stage for so long. I’m sure more than once he would have loved to jump up on the riser himself. But I don’t think you have to worry Stefan. The boys (and girls) are alright.
Thanks again to Jack and Travis and the rest of the T3 Sixty team for their wonderful hospitality and looking forward to next year.
