The Year Residential Real Estate Brokerage Changes Forever

The 2020 Swanepoel Trends Report analyzes why and how iBuying and other top trends are reshaping real estate from the ground up

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CALIF. (DECEMBER 02, 2019) -- T3 Sixty, the residential real estate brokerage industry's leading management consulting and research firm, has released its 15th annual examination of real estate's top trends for 2020 in its annual Swanepoel Trends Report. In over 200 pages, the book analyzes how iBuying, modern brokerage finances, venture capital and much more are shaking the industry to its core, and creating a new way consumers will buy and sell real estate.

After fundamentally altering other industries, venture capital and technology are now rocking the residential real estate brokerage industry. By fueling new models, consolidation and ways of delivering services, these powerful forces are changing the way consumers buy and sell real estate forever.

"The way consumers buy and sell homes is radically changing, and 2020 will be the year that more will recognize these fundamental shifts happening within real estate," said Stefan Swanepoel, chairman and CEO of T3 Sixty and the report's editor-in-chief. "The industry is changing more and faster now than it has in decades, something that becomes abundantly clear when reading this study."

The Report identifies iBuying as the #1 trend in 2020. In this controversial and powerful new real estate model used by Zillow, Redfin, Opendoor and a growing list of other companies every day, consumers can sell or buy a new home in as soon as three days with all cash and choose their closing date. The model brings transparency, simplicity and certainty to a transaction that historically has been lengthy, confusing and complicated.

The report outlines how the trend has evolved from a seller-focused model to one that serves buyers, and, increasingly, synchronous sellers – those sellers who are also buying a home. New companies are offering an increasing number of twists on the model, which the report thoroughly reviews.

This year the study decoded to also analyze three companies who have made huge bets on the future by essentially pushing all of their chips to the center of the table with aggressive, company-changing moves. T3 Sixty provide the reasoning behind the moves by these companies – Zillow Group, Compass and Keller Williams Realty -- from the inside-out so as to give the industry and understanding not previously available or understood.

The Report also covers the significant challenges currently facing MLSs and their industry constituents, a deep analysis of how venture capital works in real estate, a review of what to expect from the industry's class-action antitrust lawsuits, the new ability for brokerages to easily support consumers after the transaction and the largest security threats that brokerages overlook.

About T3 Sixty

Exclusively serving the residential real estate brokerage industry, T3 Sixty provides real estate CEOs, business leaders, association and MLS executives, brokers and high-performance teams the knowledge, best practices and support to grow their businesses. The company does this through management consulting, training and in-depth research and quality publications, such as its hallmark Swanepoel Trends Report, an annual analysis of the top trends shaping the industry for the next 18 to 24 months. The firm's consulting divisions include brokerage, technology, mergers and acquisitions, and associations and MLSs. Find out more here.