Preparing For The Future
Issue 4 - October 30th, 2020
The National Association of Realtors states that the average age of the typical residential real estate agent in America today is 55 years old.
Millennials still make up the largest share of home buyers at 38%: Older Millennials at 25% and Younger Millennials at 13% of the share of home buyers. Eighty-six percent of Younger Millennials and 52% of Older Millennials were first-time home buyers, more than other age groups.
This age disconnect in the market between the average age of agents and the largest cohort of homebuyers seems to be a massive opportunity to me. This past week, our brokerage firm Archetape launched a new training and educational resource called Archetape Academy. We want to prepare the rookie agents of today to be the top producing agents of the future. It is a natural tendency for home buyers to work with agents who are around their same age or in the same life phase. Younger buyers appreciate the insights from an agent their age who may have the scoop on cool bars or restaurants in a neighborhood whereas older buyers may want the scoop on family oriented neighborhoods or top school districts. In my experience, the advice given by agents to their clients is much better received when they are all in the same life phase or have similar interests.
To learn more about Archetape Academy then CLICK Here!
Podcast Worth Listening To
Chris Powers Podcast with Metaprop - My friend Chris Powers hosts a very insightful podcast called The Fort with Chris Powers. In this episode, he interviews the founders of Metraprop VC out of NYC who are one of the most active early-stage real estate and proptech investment firms globally with over 125 + investments in their portfolio. On this episode, Chris talks with Aaron and Zach about their journey to becoming partners, the NYC venture capital world, the emergence of PropTech as an investable asset class, their processes for investing in companies, what early-stage founders do well when raising capital, and much more.
Newsworthy Links To Share
Watch a robot build a house in a couple of days in a time-lapsed video on Mashable! CLICK HERE
Former Zillow founder, Spencer Rascoff, shares why SPACs are the best route to IPO for private companies today. He has launched a new SPAC called Superova Partners, and he is the co-founder of new vacation property marketplace company called Pacaso. He shares his thoughts and insight from taking Zillow public in a recent article in Dot.LA
eXp Realty doubles sales volume in Q3 and agent count surpassed 35,000. EXp is the brokerage most people completely overlook when discussing the big name residential firms. In my opinion, they are one of the most impressive stories in the residential real estate world. They have one of the fastest growing agent rosters in the country, just launched internationally, and their Virbela software which they acquired a few years ago seems like it was invented for the crazy world we are living in today. Learn more about their upcoming earnings report HERE and learn more about VirBELA who builds immersive virtual worlds for events, learning, and work HERE.
The Zillow Mafia continues to launch new companies with 2 former Zillow execs announcing a $40 million dollar seed round for Tomo Networks. Founded just a few months ago, Tomo’s first product is a tech-fueled mortgage and transaction platform targeted at both real estate agents and consumers. The company describes itself as a fintech startup. It is staying quiet about the exact business model, but it has big ambitions. Read more HERE from Geekwire.
Not if but when: Why you should be preparing for commission compression now. More discussion around commission compression coming out of Inman News. I touched on this in my last newsletter, and I completely agree with the author of this article. ResiRe commissions will 100% trend downward over the next few years. Most firms and agents are completely unprepared for this shift in the industry. At Archetape, my brokerage firm, we are thinking through these kinds of things every single day, and our agents will be set to thrive no matter what happens with commission compression in the future. "The primary factor in commission compression will be the consumer. It seems safe to say that consumers are becoming more educated and more annoyed about how much they fork out to buy or sell a home. Consumer behavior, demand and expectations are going to reduce commissions."