CINC Xchange

Crunching the Numbers: What Q1 2024 Can Tell Us About the Months to Come
The first three months of 2024 have come and gone, marked by increasing numbers across North American markets — and a surge in optimism to match. Let's have a look at the numbers: Numbers on the rise When comparing the beginning of 2024 with 2023, we're seeing more increases than decreases — in fact, across nearly all categories, there's been growth. We've seen a subtle increase in listings under contract — as subtle as 0.5% — alongside a 7.5% increase in inventory, and an 8.1% increase in new listings. Less subtle is the 32.2% increase in off market listings, a category in which we've seen continued growth over the course of the market's most recent years. Our only reduction when comparing this quarter to last year's is in listings sold, which saw a decrease of 4.2%. What this tells us about the rest of 2024 As mentioned, this is hardly the first time we've seen an increase in off-market listings in recent years — in fact, we often find it to have the most substantial increase across all categories. While there are many reasons that sellers and buyers are pursuing off-market options, it's as important to understand as it is to take action. To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf

Tips and Tricks for Getting Your Agents to Adopt Your Real Estate CRM
Brokers, you know how crucial it is to invest in a rock-solid, reliable, and scalable real estate CRM for your business. But getting your agents to learn, use, and rely on the tool can be tricky. How can you balance driving agent adoption and proving the value of your tech investment? By highlighting the importance of a good CRM and lowering the barriers to entry. The Importance of Technology Adoption by Agents Most brokers know getting their real estate agents to adopt the technology they invest in is an uphill battle — to say the least. While commonly considered an inconvenience and gap in ongoing agent training, lack of tech adoption by agents is actually a threat to the brokerage and its success. Brokers typically purchase CRMs not solely for having a centralized database, but also having a singular view into their agents' activities. This includes key milestones like: Lead generation, follow-up, and conversion rates Client outreach efforts Retention efforts Nurture campaigns and reminders Email drip campaigns Performance reports By straying off-course and not using the CRM provided by their broker, agents pursuing the beaten path can struggle to track their follow-up, conversion rates, and other key metrics. Or, if they have these key performance indicators dialed into a systematic approach of their own, the lack of their broker's visibility and alignment to aligned processes means customer experiences can be inconsistent. This can jeopardize your bottom line, brand, and your brokerage's reputation. So, why would agents risk not using the tech their broker provides them? Skip the Learning Curve and Get Early Tech Adopters in Your Brokerage It's not uncommon and is usually a result of plain old-fashioned human behavior. New technology always comes with a learning curve, and even a broker with the best intentions won't always beat out a determined agent spending their time chasing deals. Brokers need to invest in educating their agents on the new tech they've invested in and carve out dedicated time for ongoing training and maintenance. They also need to pitch the benefits of a CRM and its centralized view to their agents. However finding the time, resources, and capacity to dedicate to agents getting boots off the ground and behind their desks can also threaten ROI. What's a broker to do? Agents are chasing their next success story and making time appear out of thin air to serve their clients and nurture new ones. It's well-known agents wear a lot of hats and have countless conflicting priorities to juggle. Because of this, it's crucial brokers get agents to adopt — and actively use — the CRM they've invested in. If the learning curve is one of the biggest risk factors for agent tech adoption failing, brokers can actually eliminate that hurdle. How? By investing in a CRM that's extremely easy to use and designed with an agent on the go in mind. To a seasoned, determined broker, finding an easy, seamless real estate CRM to invest in can sound a lot like finding a unicorn or stumbling upon a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But by investing in a proven tool CRM needs, brokers can give their agents' tech adoption rates a significant boost. To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate

Understanding Your ListTrac Report
The image below is a clip from ListTrac Web Insights for an MLS. ListTrac is now reporting metrics from nearly every major IDX vendor, the major portals, and the MLS systems including Black Knight, Matrix, FlexMLS, and Rapattoni – in total, over 100,000 real estate property search sites. This particular report shows listing views. It should be no surprise that Zillow is the leading consumer site for viewing property. In most MLS areas, Zillow has more traffic than all other sites combined (which is true in this market). Here are some interesting observations: The MLS system matters The MLS system is a major point of engagement for consumers who are home shopping. Moreover, consumers viewing property from the MLS system are working close enough with a real estate agent that the agent goes through the trouble of setting up their saved search. Of course, the MLS views will also include the research done by agents when they do searches. It is a hard number to dissect, much in the same way that traffic to Zillow is hard to dissect the intention of consumers on Zillow or other consumer sites. Homes.com? Homes.com was contested by Realtor.com when CoStar CEO, Andy Florence, announced that Homes.com has garnered enough traffic to become the second highest ranking portal in America. Realtor.com CEO, Damian Eales, stated in a podcast that Andy's statement is easy to make "when you are grading your own homework." WAV Group has not seen a ListTrac report that validates the claims of Mr. Florence in any market, but we have no reason to doubt him. If you have evidence, please pass it along. Homesnap? Sadly, Homesnap has also disappeared from these reports. Homesnap was the partner to the Broker Public Portal and was garnering tremendous traffic in many markets. Before the sale to CoStar, I believe that 1.2 million real estate agents were benefiting from their service through their MLS. I still do not understand why CoStar killed that product. As you can see, Zillow has retained Trulia, which is outperforming Homes.com in this market. Who is IDX vendor Cyberitas? A Google search result of the company indicates that they are working with Anywhere brand Century 21. In this market, Century 21.com is slightly ahead of virtual tour vendor Property Panorama in terms of traffic, and slightly behind Homes.com in overall traffic. I found it interesting that Century 21 has more traffic than Coldwell Banker in this market. Typically, it is reversed. The Power of IDX (or powerless IDX) In terms of IDX vendors, Reliance Networks and MoxiWorks were tied, followed by IDX Broker and iHouseWeb. But overall, IDX is dwindling in terms of attracting consumers to search for properties. WAV Group believes that IDX vendors have failed to keep up with the portals in one key area: IDX sites do not display listings of all parcels. They only display the listings for sale or recently sold (in many markets). Consumers love getting the listing information at the parcel level published by Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, Homes.com, Movoto, Redfin; and the newly appointed sites by RE/MAX and Compass that have also become parcel centric. If you are a broker, remember to log into ListTrac and look at how your listings are performing in the market. Share that information with your agents so they understand these numbers and remind them that ListTrac has seller reports that show where a client's listing is being viewed. If you are an MLS and would like help interpreting the ListTrac report and communicating that to your brokers, agents, or consumers, reach out to our team. WAV Group Communications can help. Other ListTrac Data Points ListTrac will also show you how many leads were generated off of listings, and which sites generated the most number of leads. They will also show visitor trends. You will be amazed at how much traffic dips in the MLS on weekends. I love the top agent report. As you might expect, the agent with the most listings has the most views of their listings. The geographic traffic report is fascinating. It allows you to look at where the consumer is searching from. This particular market has significant search traffic from the major Texas cities. The national narrative is that everyone is moving to Florida and Texas – but this area is attracting folks from Texas. Last but not least are the most popular price points. Seventy percent of all search traffic in this market was for homes under $500,000. As you can tell, I am a ListTrac fan. If you have it in your market, make a point to review it every month. Be sure to include it in your training and communications. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group