Issue 12 - December 25th, 2020
I had the honor of being a guest on the FORT podcast last week with Chris Powers. Chris and I both started our real estate careers at the same time when we were both in college in the DFW metroplex (he at TCU and myself at SMU). Chris launched his career buying rental homes around the TCU campus, while I started out in the brokerage side of things helping classmates find apartments around campus at SMU. We have been friends ever since those early days, and it was an absolute blast to sit down in his podcast studio. We discussed the real estate industry at large, and my current focus of rebuilding the outdated residential real estate brokerage model with my new company, Archetape. I would love for you to check it out and listen, and I hope you have a great day and end to the year that is 2020.
Cheers!
The FORT podcast: Sam Sawyer
On this episode, Chris and Sam discuss the issues facing real estate agents and how Archetape is working to transform their experiences. They also discuss Sam’s vast experience in real estate and tech, trends in home buying, major players like OpenDoor & Zillow, the process of building a remote company during COVID.
Newsworthy Links To Share
Qualia announces $65 million fundraising and acquires Adeptive Software. Qualia, the leading digital real estate closing technology company, announced that it has raised $65 million in Series D financing, increasing its total funding to $160 million and valuing the five-year-old company at over $1 billion. The latest round was led by existing investor Tiger Global, alongside other existing investors 8VC and Menlo Ventures. Additionally, Qualia announced the acquisition of Adeptive Software, the developer of ResWare, a complementary title and escrow production software well known within the real estate industry. Read more HERE.
Homesellers have filed another lawsuit against real estate brokerage giants Realogy, RE/MAX, Keller Williams and HomeServices of America challenging the industry practice of having sellers pay buyer brokers. The plaintiffs in all three suits want to have homebuyers pay their broker directly, rather than have listing brokers pay buyer brokers from what the seller pays the listing broker — a move that could upend the U.S. real estate industry by effectively forcing changes in how buyer’s agents are traditionally compensated. Read more HERE.
Avenue 8 announces $4 million seed round to rebuild the traditional real estate brokerage model. Avenue 8, which describes itself as a “mobile-first residential real estate brokerage” — providing a new set of tools for agents to source, list and sell homes, and handle the other aspects of the process that fall between those — has raised $4 million. It’s being led by Craft Ventures — the firm co-founded by David Sacks and Bill Lee that has amassed a prolific and impressive portfolio of companies — with Zigg Capital and Good Friends (an early-stage fund from the founders of Warby Parker, Harry’s and Allbirds) also participating.Read more HERE.
Mike Delprete and Tryolabs launch a visual graphing tool to track iBuying around the USA. This interactive map shows the growth of iBuying in markets all over the country, and they will continue to update it as the industry presses forward. Check out the map HERE.
Fifth Wall Ventures adds Greg Smithies as new partner to launch $200 million climate focused real estate fund. “What excites me about this space is that there’s so much low-hanging fruit. And there’s $260 trillion worth of buildings,” Smithies said. “The vast majority of those are nowhere up to modern codes. We’re going to have a much bigger opportunity by focusing on some not-so-sexy stuff.” That’s why Smithies, a former employee at Neuralink and the Boring Company and most recently in charge of climate investing at BMW iVentures, has joined the firm. Read more HERE.