In this edition of RealTrending, Steve Murray, senior advisor to RealTrends, explains the impact of a resurgence of COVID-19 on real estate, offers an analysis of recent earnings calls and talks about a new real estate team study launching soon.
Here is a small preview of today’s RealTrending interview. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Resurgence of COVID-19: We notice already that many of our brokerage clients are now shifting to virtual meetings once again. That’s a trend that seems to be picking up some steam among leading brokerage companies in the country, in all regions of the country, just for safety’s sake.
Company Earnings: If you look at the performance of some of the larger stock market companies, like Zillow, Redfin, Opendoor and Compass, it will be interesting to see when or if they achieve valuations. That is, will they grow into their valuations as time goes by? Who knows for sure? Certainly, I wouldn’t venture an opinion whether one or all of these companies will in fact grow into their valuations.
But it means that we’re going to continue to see new competitors with new ways of doing business, getting funding from a variety of sources to gain their piece of the residential brokerage business. Does this mean the incumbents should run around shrieking with their hands in the air and their hair on fire? Don’t do that!
Real estate teams: We understand that teams can be scaled because there are real estate teams now doing 1,500 to 5,000 transaction sites, which is sizable. Some teams would qualify for the RealTrends 500 or Nation’s Best brokerage rankings. We’re going to launch a new real estate team study in September. We will notify each of you and invite any of your teams that wish to participate to join us in this in-depth national study about the performance of teams. We’ll produce a benchmark report while maintaining strict confidentiality for each team’s submissions. The benchmark report will give broker-owners, team leaders and team owners good information about how the best teams perform.
