The biggest things are in front of us
The Weekly: Volume 14
I feel like everything important is happening on the edges right now. Like our industry has talked every benign topic to death for the last few years and we don’t have enough steam to tackle the things in front of us.
And while outsiders have dominated real estate headlines for much of 2016, I can’t stop thinking about a conversation I had with two brokerage veterans a few weeks ago around brokerage services that has been haunting me more than any disruptive early-stage startup press release or mockup ever could.
I’ve been overcome by the concept of “pay what it’s worth” which was introduced to me by Zach Schabot on an early morning walk through Golden Gate Park. It challenged me to rethink everything I know about structuring my services and has opened a window to tenant representation by realtors that has been troublesome for most to grasp. Operating out of Sarah Schnell Jones’ Bamboo Realty, Zach and his team of professionals are helping hundreds of renters a year find housing on terms that work best for everyone. It doesn’t hurt to fill their sales pipeline either. The long game.
I deployed my first “pay what it’s worth” rental listing last week. Freedom.
- Greg Fischer
1. The things Wells Fargo definitely has not done
I think we can all agree by now on what Wells Fargo did. They so aggressively promoted cross-selling of banking products that at least 5300 employees felt enabled or scared to open over 2 million unauthorized accounts and as a result were recently charged $185 million in fines by the CFPB. But Elizabeth Warren laid down everything the company definitely has not done in the Senate Banking committee hearing on Tuesday. CEO John Stumpf has not resigned, has not returned any personal earnings, and has not fired a single senior executive. Feels very eerily like Enron.
2. Industry jargon is ruining housing data
Inspired by the work of Harvard urban sociologist Matthew Desmond, the Milwaukee Area Renters Study (MARS) uncovered new trends in eviction data simply by changing the way they talked to people in the survey. “Researchers found that when people were forced to move, they often didn’t see it as an eviction. So instead of just asking, “Have you ever been evicted?” the MARS survey posed a roster of questions about a tenant’s housing history …Rather than “Where do you live?” people were asked, “Where do you spend most nights?” This research will impact new housing policy in a very positive way.
3. What’s the Point?
Point is a real estate tech company backed my some of the most well known investors in the space. It isn’t a very affordable service by any means, which really bugs me. Industry outsiders have notoriously complained about transaction costs from the sidelines, but almost every good idea they’ve shipped involves more fees rather than less. Maybe you notice this trend too? More importantly than whether or not Point’s product is a fee-laden ripoff or not, is that we are one step closer to figuring out what some new models for property ownership might look like in the future and I love that.
4. Making America gentrified again
We erase the stories of the displaced when we don’t memorialize their contributions to the places and spaces they lived in and we distance ourselves from the reality that people, families, and organizations are routinely marginalized in exchange for new development and profits when we don’t admit to it. While landowners have certain inalienable rights attached to their property ownership, what rights do the rest of us have and what can we do? We can start by telling the stories: The Oakland underground scene is rapidly disappearing.
5. The domain is not so eminent
It’s not all bad news. “There is something romantic about the idea of a holdout, a David to the big developer’s Goliath, a protagonist for whom home matters more than money, a solitary survivor. In the Pixar movie “Up,” the holdout is the hero. In the real-life Seattle version of the story that reportedly inspired the film’s premise, an elderly woman who refused to sell her home became — along with her home itself — a city icon.
Until next time…
I’m Greg Fischer, principal broker in charge of growth operations at Fred Real Estate Group in Bend, Oregon. Find out more about what I’m working on at bendgrowth.com
I also consult with early stage real estate startups. Find me on LinkedIn and AngelList
