Gradually… Then, suddenly!

OVERVIEW

Listen in as I interview York Baur, CEO of Seattle-based real estate technology company MoxiWorks.  MoxiWorks was spun out of iconic real estate company Windermere Real Estate and York leads a staff whose mission is to help brokerage companies be more profitable through agent productivity.  In addition to specific applications like it’s Engage CRM, MoxiWorks is a player in the emerging real estate data platform race with its MoxiCloud product.

YORK’S THOUGHTS:

Real estate is a relationship based business and many try to make it more about technology than it should be and that technology exists to serve the relationship process

MoxiWorks believes the brokerage company is the center point of real estate and  it’s mission is to help the brokerage be more profitable through agent productivity.

Successful brokerages need to be great at recruiting, retention and agent productivity

MoxiWorks was created within Windermere Real Estate and spun out with additional brokerage company investors when they determined that running a technology company was not best served within a real estate brokerage company

A true real estate platform is a separate piece of software that can aggregation and disseminate data of all types to applications that are used by the brokerage company.

Data includes property data, brokerage and agent data and consumer data

MoxiCloud is an open data ecosystem that is used by over 50 companies who serve real estate brokerage companies

Data is the fuel that powers a broker’s business and a true platform in real estate will be open and allow friction-less switching between application vendors to leverage that data.

True platforms create network effects and for that to be maximized on a data platform, participants would be well-served to share their data.  But, the industry is not there yet.

MoxiWorks provides a white-label version of MoxiCloud to Leading RE.

LINKS

www.moxiworks.com

OVERVIEW

Listen in as I interview Bryan Copley, Co-Founder and CEO of CityBldr in Seattle, Washington.  Most automated valuation models attempt to determine the value of real estate in its present use.  As Bryan and his co-founder worked their way through two previous residential real estate technology startups, they learned that there was an opportunity to use technology to discover value in the shadow inventory of properties that might be for sale “at the right price” and that builders, developer and investors were very willing to trade-in the historical manual process of determining the “what could be” valuation for a model that can replace that process in seconds.  

BRYAN’S THOUGHTS:

• Bryan’s first real estate startup, Real Estate Buyers Listing Service, attempted to aggregate the demand side of the residential real estate market and discovered that a key missing piece was the presence of the human broker to manage the transaction  
• His next startup, Everyhome, attempted to expand the market of homes by exposing more properties to buyers by putting a digital “for sale” on every home in the country and allowing buyers to make bids on homes even when they were not listed.
• Bryan and his team learned that most users of Everyhome were investors, builders, developers and others involved in commercial real estate.
• They also discovered that there was another way to underwrite the value of properties, that being what a property (or multiple properties) might be worth based on highest and best use.
• Citybldr’s technology uses machine learning to automate valuation
• Citybldr does not license their technology.  Instead, they partner with traditional brokers, builders and developers who are putting deals together and are paid a portion of the commission income that is generated as part of those deals.
• They facilitate the creation of assemblages by allowing potential sellers to create groups of sellers via their website.
• CityBldr’s mission is to help to create happy, functional sustainable communities. There is the potential for CityBldr to provide a social good by optimizing how cities are developed and re-developed by leveraging underdeveloped properties to meet the increasing need for affordable housing

LINKS

www.citybldr.com

OVERVIEW

Listen in as I interview John Berkowitz, Co-Founder and CEO of OJO Labs in Austin, Texas.  As we enter the early days of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the convergence of large amounts of data being capture on various devices and distributed computing power has ushered in a new world of artificial intelligence and machine learning.  Many new commercial iterations AI have focused on service industries and trying to create applications that can service consumers better than the level of service historically provided by humans.  John provides his thoughts on the promise of AI in real estate and what OJO Labs is doing to help both consumers and agents get value out this new technology.

JOHN'S THOUGHTS:

• AI is technology that allows machines to perform tasks that previously were better performed by humans
• Artificial General Intelligence is where machines are able to “think” like humans and we are far away from that level of AI
• More narrow AI based on natural language processing, visual perception and pattern recognition is available today
• OJO launched in 2015 and it was not initially designed to be an AI company.  It is now focused on helping consumers make better decisions.
• Initially launched a text bot and tested with consumers and learned that consumers will ask questions that they might not ask with humans but that the technology needed to be conversational in nature
• They are still very early in their tech development process
• OJO is trying to solve the problem where prospective home buyers are unwilling to talk with a human early in their home search process and provide them with meaningful assistance that can eventually act as a bridge to real estate agents
• OJO's customer is the consumer but deeply believes that real estate professionals are essential to a consumer's real estate journey
• Biggest challenge is trying to develop an application based on a complex and changing consumer dynamic
• He sees technology as reducing the number of agents necessary to service the demand but does not see the agent role going away

LINKS

www.ojolabs.com

www.whatmatters.com

OVERVIEW

Listen in as I interview Tim Dain, President and CEO of MARIS MLS in St. Louis.  The real estate industry’s use of and need for data is increasing at lightspeed.  Historically, MLSs have been the providers of all property related data to industry participants.  As a “why” thinker in a world dominated by status quo, Tim provides his thoughts on why MLSs will look much different in the future and how he is molding MARIS into a prototype MLS that will best serve changing industry demographics and deliver the data framework the industry needs.

Tim’s Thoughts:

• Service is not overrated
• In his first year, he focused on infrastructure that supports a better member service level
• MLSs not well positioned to meet the data needs of the industry
• There's a significant need to segment MLS members into generational segments who want to interface with the MLS in various ways (e.g. Boomers and Millennials)
• Tim’s motivation to innovate is internally generated out of his love for the industry
• Looking 10 years down the road, Tim discusses a connected data node network and local service centers.
• How the OODA loop has help Tim build teams that move quickly

SHOW LINKS

• MARIS/Tim Dain
  • https://marismls.com/company/team/tim-dain

• Allstate is now a data and technology company
  •  https://www.airiters.com/allstate-is-now-a-data-and-technology-company-my-ces-interview-with-ceo-tom-wilson-forbes/

• BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
  • https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883

• OODA Loop
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

Real estate industry executive Russ Cofano explains how Gradually… Then, suddenly! will explore those people and companies who are determined to change the real estate industry and with it, access to hundreds of billions of dollars. Russ provides a sneak peak on the initial lineup of guests and a way to get email updates at www.avvonue.com. The first episode drops February 20, 2019.