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Listen as Eric and Peter discuss the ins and outs of real estate marketing in the United States. As strategic relationship manager with BoxBrownie, Peter has a keen understanding of the connection between the real estate agent and their marketing efforts.
Learn more with BoxBrownie: https://www.boxbrownie.com/
TRANSCRIPTION
Eric Stegemann (00:03):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Box Brownie segment the real estate podcast, where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by Peter Schravemade, which you’ll understand more why I’ve pronounced it that way. And just the second, uh, Peter as title is the janitor slashes strategic relationship manager for a company called box brownie. And I’ve known him now for a number of years. Um, so you’re going to find that this conversation is going to be very conversational, not so much a question and answer cause, uh, we’ve had a few beverages late at night and I’m probably going to be mentioning, uh, things that he’s talked about, which hopefully he’ll be willing to share everything that there is with us, that he shared with me at 11 o’clock at night after a couple of time. Peter, Welcome to the show.
Peter Schravemade (00:53):
What an introduction. Uh, I, I feel humbled, uh, not, not only in my Peter I’m from Australia and I don’t know, I don’t know why Americans saying that, but it is my fault.
Eric Stegemann (01:05):
Right? Peter
Peter Schravemade (01:08):
Peter. Yeah. Well, you know, it started because I think I have one of those names that sounds different in different languages or different accents. Right. And, um, I could never understand why people couldn’t understand me when I introduced myself as Peter, but it’d be like, can you spell it? So, uh, you know, we went down the line of Peter and now I, what you would have heard. I just, by default, when I’m in America, introduce myself as Peter, Peter on Peter from box brownie and, and then somehow stuck people find that funny and they laugh at me say, uh, yes, thank you for the introduction. I am glad to be here.
Eric Stegemann (01:48):
Well, uh, so obviously he’s in Australia as he mentioned, and it’s about 4:00 AM there. So we definitely thank him for joining us early. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what box brownie is?
Peter Schravemade (02:00):
Yeah, well, it’s a website is the easiest, easiest way to go with that. Now the box brownie itself was a camera. It was a lockout, a box shaped camera came out in 1,901, um, moms and dads could buy it. And the, the slogan that, uh, Kodak Eastman used way back then was you take the photo. We do the rest. And in, in some kind of weed way, we’ve continued on with that tradition. So we’re website that you can go to, to upload photos for whatever edit you may need. Um, at the outset that’s, you know, that starts with improving those rubbish photos that you’ve ever on his scene on the MLS, uh, where someone’s taken it, you know, with a smartphone, we can enhance those and all the way through to things like things like staging. Um, but even as we mentioned, just prior to hitting record on the podcast, we do just about anything, portrait photography, Twilight conversions, we take cars out of dry and things like that. So, um, we’re in image, editing companies, the, the basis of what we,
Eric Stegemann (03:00):
And so, and by the way, if you have not checked out what they do, please go to box brownie.com and you’ll see some of the examples of their work and all the different facets of what they do. I think we only mentioned here a few different types of photography and we’ll get into more, uh, in a second, but the, the work that they do and what they’re able to achieve, uh, is just quite amazing. So, um, tell us, uh, about the product and by the way, you have to go to their website, if you haven’t been and look at their pricing, because I think you’ll be shocked by how low cost, but high quality, what they’re able to provide is, so can you tell us a little bit about how that works and how you’re able to do it for that kind of pricing?
Peter Schravemade (03:46):
Yeah, well, uh, I mean, effectively the edits that we do, um, you know, we, we, I suppose box branding.com is not specific to real estate. We also operate in, in automotive building and construction, online fashion and retail. Um, so the, the groundbreaking thing that we did was not a lot to do with real estate photography, except that the products actually work in a brokerage or an agency. Um, the, the, the reality of what we did is we introduced the client, which, you know, could be you, for example, we introduced you to a graphic designer or editor of some kind that was able to deliver a product, um, within agreed expectations. So you will come in expecting, I want my daytime photo turned to Twilight for $4. Uh, you will upload that photo that will go to an editor. The editor will deliver that within a guaranteed timeframe.
Peter Schravemade (04:40):
So, you know, that, that transaction is, um, I suppose priceless if you’re an agent because, um, a lot agents are always on deadlines. We know about them. Um, we, we think our deadlines are quite quick, but even so, um, there’s so much pressure on the time process, uh, with an agent that, you know, we, we understand that in the, the time, um, that that was a driving force, I suppose, to make the products what they are. So, you know, it’s a really simple transaction that takes place, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be related to property, but, um, you know, our products inherently are, um, my background is in real estate has been for the better part of will getting on 24 years now, I’ve been in the industry. So, um, you know, that was a natural movement for us is to go into those, into those products. And it has worked, um, the acceptance of not just, uh, in, in America and North America at large, but globally, this is a product that, that works quite well. Uh, we, we know that, um, just because of the growth rates
Eric Stegemann (05:50):
And that’s, uh, it’s, it is something amazing to see how fast they’ve come onto the market. So obviously box is, uh, can be from over in Australia. Um, what made you and your team wake up one day and say, Hey, the United States is a, is a market that we should jump into full force.
Peter Schravemade (06:09):
Well, that’s an interesting question, actually. That’s a good question. Um, so we were already doing this in Australia and it was bubbling along what we thought quite nicely. Uh, we thought our growth rates back in, in those, um, in those days were excellent. And those days, just to put a timeframe on it that would have been sort of between, uh, July, 2016 and the end of the year. And it was a, it was around about the end of the year. It was December from memory, um, 2016 that I was sitting in a, in an office, which is like a we’re in an old box kind of office at that stage. And we had decided that the Americans spoke English as well, and that maybe it’s worth putting a social media pie stat. Um, we were even, I can remember we were actually drinking Crier at the time cause that’s what we thought, Mexicans strike.
Peter Schravemade (07:01):
Um, and, and we, yeah, we were having creditors and we decided we’d put an ad advert out and that advert, um, we’d left. I think the discussion happened in the middle of your Thanksgiving period, and then Christmas hits straight after. So we left that to sort of mid-January and we unleashed that and, and then all sorts of things started happening. Um, we were picked up by him and, um, was probably the biggest one, but, you know, even just the, the variability of the advert that went out was insane. It really convinced us that we should start looking at markets other than Australia, Australia, New Zealand, I think with the two that were in. Um, and now we’re in 96 countries, so that’s kind of moved forward. We’re multilingual, um, we’re in, uh, Spanish, French, um, Korean, Japanese, we’re about to go into Italian and German. Um, Portuguese was just launched the other day, so we’re slowly moving into other markets. Um, but yeah, America was definitely the first and, um, we, we would quite humbled at how we were embraced by America in general. It, it was, um, it was, it was definitely a humbling experience.
Eric Stegemann (08:15):
So one of the things that I know you and I have talked about though, about being here in the States, uh, is how bad you think the average photography of real estate listings is. So it’s so bad versus other countries, do you think,
Peter Schravemade (08:32):
Well, let’s, let’s just go not bad. Um, you have the potential to deliver to world-class standards. The best property marketing that we see is out of Scandinavia, the Scandinavian regions, and also out of the Australia, New Zealand regions. We think that they lead the world as far as what they’re delivering. Um, so when I, when I come to bed, I, I just think, um, the way I would put it is that there is a lack of focus on the actual marketing of the home itself. Um, and let me, let me put a few things in perspective that are different about America compared to global, um, number one, your E-Pro, which is your training manual by the NAR that does not actually talk about how you market a house. Um, it’s just an absent it’s, it’s not in there, um, yet real estate, one Oh one in, in those other nations, definitely in the UK and the EU actually talk about, um, you know, okay, so you want to be real estate agents let’s start the very basis is starting with the house.
Peter Schravemade (09:40):
When you think about our product to, um, you know, and you’re an agent, the first thing that you are more than likely going to have to do is to at some point, um, you know, find a product, which is, which is a house that you have listed and market that to a target audience. But I think, um, there seems to have been a, a real, um, missing piece there because you have a dual marketing process. I think the whole reason that this comes about, and I’m kind of answering the question first is that you have a Juul listing scenario where there’s a marketing agent and a purchasing agent, and most American real estate agents enter as a purchasing agent that they’re not even showing how to market a home to start off with us, they’re showing how to go and get leads for which they will sell properties.
Peter Schravemade (10:30):
I’m now coming back to your original question is why do I think American marketing is so poor? It just is, um, we have stats coming up and this, this is kind of preempting something we have releasing. We’re actually doing analysis on all of your forums to detect, um, what level of photography we believe is professional. Um, and we believe that it’s going to come in quite low, like to the extent under 5%, um, watch this space. Um, let, let me rephrase that. Um, everyone thinks they’re using a professional photographer, but w when the photos are taken internally, you can’t see outside the windows, which is a standard of professional photography. And we think, you know, there is no real, um, there is no real definition of what a professional photographer is. It could be my best friend’s sister’s uncle’s dog’s mother has a Nikon camera and therefore they are shooting.
Peter Schravemade (11:22):
So we’ve really attacked that space. Um, then, then you go down the list of things required. We’ll copy. I’m assuming that all agents have put copy on, but if you haven’t, it’s something that purchases want a floor plans, less than 5% of MLS listings have floor plans, your own national association of realtors, buyer, and home seller, generational trends say that 50% of purchases want one yet only 5% of listings have it. Um, and then you compare that also with Thailand where the takeout rate of floor plans, a third world country is 74%, and you’ve got HIPAA America sitting here at 5%. It’s a damning indictment on the industry. Um, you go to virtual tours, we believe the take up rate of virtual tours in the U S even now is still under 5%, even in the pandemic period yet. Um, you know, you have your purchases saying 50% of purchases saying that they want one.
Peter Schravemade (12:15):
Um, ironically, the thing that purchases want the least, which is video is, is actually done quite well. So, um, you know, there are the five elements that we see that purchases a screaming for. Um, four of those five are done very, very poorly when you compare them with international, um, standards and, and to come back to it. I think it is because there is a July listing process. Not many Americans are aware that that that process is only North America. It’s only Canada and the States. It doesn’t exist anywhere else. So there’s a greater emphasis on agents elsewhere to actually describe the product that they’re selling, which is the whole, that’s the whole purchase. You know, the whole idea of the, the, um, the, the sale is to actually, you’ve got a product that you need to move to potential target audience. How do want to describe that product? So, um, you know, to come back to it, it’s not so much that your marketing is bad. You just not doing the required elements that we know your purchases are asking for. I hope that makes sense. That’s a long way about answering that question.
Eric Stegemann (13:21):
No, I, and I think it perfectly aligns with other things that we’ve heard. So, um, a lot of our, uh, podcasts we’ve had the opportunity to interview people in international real estate, or that at least touch international real estate. So we interviewed folks from recipe, which is a photo, um, uh, image, uh, service that looks at the photo and tells you what’s in it. And we talk to, so they’re in Spain and we talked to the folks that ad Phoenix and they’re in Sweden and a few other folks that are in international real estate. And there’s a recurring theme amongst all of the people that I’ve had the opportunity to interview, uh, when they look at the United States, from the lens of being in another country at how we handle real estate. And that is because we have buyers, agents and sellers agents, which you alluded to. Um, and because of that process, that we’re more focused on lead gen than necessarily selling the property, whereas in almost all other countries, there’s no buyer’s agent. And so everybody is only focused on doing the absolute best to get the listing and then to sell the listing, because it may not be exclusive. They may have another, uh, listing agent that might be representing the property, right?
Peter Schravemade (14:35):
Yeah, that’s right. And in line with that, you know, like, let’s go, you’re familiar with the rebar camp scenario where you turn up and, um, you know, if you, if your listeners, aren’t the way it works is it’s like a pick your own path conference where you can put, um, you know, I guess ideas on a white board, people vote for those ideas and it dictates the sessions that will happen today. Generally you’ll have a bunch of industry experts and they will talk about what goes on and you know, why, um, I’m talking about rebar camps is that I’ve been to a number of them in the U S and invariably, there ends up this term on the board that is highly voted for called property marketing. Now in any other country, property marketing means how you actually go about marketing that house. Um, in all of those sessions at the rebar camps turn into what am I doing to get lead gen, um, you know, how am I just sold brushes?
Peter Schravemade (15:33):
Uh, do I have closing gifts, all of those things that actually aren’t essential to the sale of the property. Yes, they are important to do for you yourself, your brand lead generation, but they all come under lead generation. You know, that’s, that’s called lead generation marketing. And whether that lead is you’re looking at a purchase or coming in, or you will, you’re actually trying to get leads for, um, you know, people wanting to sell a house. That’s two different ball games. There doesn’t appear to be a general term that describes the marketing that we do to sell a property. Um, it’s just this big, dirty word that sits out there. And, you know, I’ve got my photos taken. I’ve used. What I think is a professional photographer. I’ve written some copy of, put it on the MLS. This house needs to sell. It’s like, it sounds like, uh, you know, it sounds like a wearing a life being at shit to a funeral.
Peter Schravemade (16:25):
It, it sounds as though we’ve hitched the, the cart before the horse. I’m not a, you know, I, I think if there was not one thing that I would actually recommend agents do when they get into the industry is investigate how to actually go about selling that property, you know, different ways to do it, things that are going to make your prices faster and the consistency, because all of those other things in my experience has been an agent fall into place. Um, you know, having never operated in America I’ll use that as a disclaimer, but those other things fall into place. Once you get your nuts and bolts in a row, are your ducks in a row? As far as the property marketing is concerned, it takes a large piece of that off your plate.
Eric Stegemann (17:08):
And you know what you’re saying, aligns to something I’ve said for 20 years in this industry, which is that the, uh, the process for getting a license in the United States is to pass a test. And so much of the American education system is about passing tests rather than actually consuming the knowledge you need to be successful and the same dose for most real estate education, uh, and getting a real estate license. They’re not at all focused on how do I market, or how do I do a great job for my client? They’re focused on the laws and what you can and can’t do here and there and how you renew your license, et cetera. And then the problem with that is that that’s fine. If the state is going to mandate that that’s what you need to have a real estate license, but then the next step is that most brokerages, because there’s almost no cost to them to have that person licensed at the company, they’ll take anybody that can fog a mirror.
Eric Stegemann (18:11):
And then you’ve just got them sitting there. And the expectation by the brokerage is the person will work out if they’re meant to, but there’s not mentoring that goes in there and says, okay, well, here’s how you do this. Or an apprenticeship. That’s so big in other countries. And very little apprenticeship takes place in the United States. You just get thrown to the wolves. And I think that some people just become successful with it. And particularly when it comes to marketing, they just do whatever is going to get them the listing or promise whatever is going to get them the listing. And then, you know, they’re not worried about making it better or selling a listing faster, and if they lose the listing, so be it, they just go onto the next one, right?
Peter Schravemade (18:54):
Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, in line with that, I think, um, what I have learned from the American cause this, this all sounds very critical and there are things that you guys do that are so much better than we do in Australia. Like how you handle a lead, for example, so much better than, than the way we do it over here. So it’s a, it’s a tit for tat approach. I don’t know if you understand that analogy, but it’s like, it’s sort of, uh, we, we can learn from you over here in, in elements of that. And that’s generally my message. When I’m speaking to Australians, my goodness, you should see how the U S deals with the lead. But the one thing I try and impress upon brokers is can you imagine if every single one of the incoming agents you had were able to go out and pull a property and, um, because you know, my belief or a common saying over here in our market is if you control the listings, you control a market.
Peter Schravemade (19:44):
Um, if everyone’s coming to you and you have all of these listings and you dominate in that space, you know, it’s your sign going up? It’s your name? It’s your brand that goes up every time. One of those is advertised. It just follows that if you’re doing a good job of that, people are going to come through with purchases. And, you know, I see companies that spend tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars on lead generation when they don’t have the basics, right. As far as their property marketing is concerned. And, you know, with our product, it’s, it’s, you know, they’re missing, it’s a dollar 60 per image. It’s not like it’s rocket science, or it’s more than a cup of coffee. It’s, it’s a crazy cheap price. And I look at the money spent on lead generation. And I just wonder, imagine if you just took a portion of that, let’s say 20% and dedicated that to, or we’re going to market these properties better.
Peter Schravemade (20:34):
That way. When a seller looks at our house, we’re going to go, um, you know, look at the job they’ve done. As far as marketing is concerned, we’ve got to get those guys into at least have conversations that the industry leader look how many listings they have. They’ve got listings everywhere. So I, you know, I think, I think, um, it has to all work together, coming back to what you said about, uh, checking a box. I can’t speak to the U S as far as, um, passing qualifications are concerned, but marketing only creeps into designations when you start doing luxury designations, both of them have it. Um, I’m not aware of it anywhere else. Um, and that, it’s a real problem because I think, you know, even if you are a good agent, as you alluded to before, and you come in in the sink or swim approach, and you’ve actually swum, you’ve, you’ve survived, you’ve made it past the buyer’s agents process.
Peter Schravemade (21:25):
Um, I can count on one hand the amount of agents who are actually good at both processes. So you’ve actually found someone that’s really good at dealing with behaviors, which is fantastic. Um, there is a whole different mentality in psychology to actually dealing with the sellers. Um, and I, I’m not sure I’ve seen any agency that I can name in the U S that is actually really good at, at recruiting that second person, that listing agent, um, that’s kind of, we’ve gotten lucky and the person does both. Um, it is, it’s a completely different thing to actually handling the seller as it is to handling the buyer. And whilst you might be good at both and you might, you know, run through and, and that’s happy, you know, you’re making hay wall of Sunshine’s kind of thing. Um, you really do have to be recruiting for both.
Peter Schravemade (22:14):
You need to be recruiting for somebody that is excellent in the art of negotiation and objection, removal. Um, you know, that, that’s, that’s what we look for as far as somebody dealing with the buyer and you need to, you know, find somebody who is actually excellent at marketing a product to a target audience. That’s the secondary side that’s in. I find that the two people are very rarely the same person, um, which is why also, I think even in the U S I’ve noticed a lot of successful teams are combinations of two people. I believe one has the listing approach, and one has the selling, and it may be a combination of both is one sort of 75% listing and, and 25% sell. And the others probably 75% sell at 25% list. But that’s generally what makes a successful partnership is the all-encompassing assets of dealing with all of the different cogs that go as part of the sale.
Eric Stegemann (23:07):
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s funny. Uh, how much on the same page we are here? I I’ve been saying this for a long time, and in fact, I’ll have to send you, I gave a newspaper interview when I started my real estate company, my brokerage, uh, eight, 17 or 18 years ago now. And in the newspaper, the quote I gave was to properly market a property. You have to be both a good agent and a good marketer. And I have that on my wall as a reminder all the time that here we are, you know, on nearly 20 years later, and it’s still the case, and it was the case 20 years before I gave that quote. Uh, it’s, it’s not
Peter Schravemade (23:48):
Probably even, probably even exacerbated more now, like 20 years down the track, the world has changed, you know, not just speaking to the pandemic period we find ourselves in, but, um, you know, we’re on the cusp, I think of actual, uh, two D imagery, um, giving way. I think you’ll see that over the next 10 years to three 60 degree virtual tours globally, not necessarily in America, in America, you’re still struggling to get your head around 2d photography and, and, um, deliver that at a consistent standard. So it’s going to be a very, very interesting time, especially when you think all of the MLS is, are actually set up to only handle two D photography. They’re not actually set up to take in virtual tours, aside from a link; it makes for a very different melting pot as to what the next 10 years is going to type. But it’s funny; you said that 20 years ago, that was when I also got into real estate. I was shooting on a film camera. I’m just really old. I think we bought by.
Eric Stegemann (24:46):
Yeah. W well, we both been in it for a long time, for sure. Um, but I think everything you say is going back to what you said on teams. It’s so funny that I’ve, I’ve said something similar to a long time, which is there’s two types of agents, and I’ve never classified it as buying agents and selling agents, uh, before, uh, or listing agents and selling agents before, uh, which has its own confusing term here that we have of knowing agent represents the buyer. Uh, but that being said, I’ve always said that there are agents that are really good at working leads and their agents that are really good at it’s selling properties and in marketing listings. And so it’s kind of the exact same thing is, is you have to be different. And that’s why I think teams have seen a rise so much is because it was the first time the United States that there’s been a realization of, you know, one person is not good at everything. And, and to build a big set of business, you really need to have people that focus and specialize in different areas, not to say that the buyer’s agent can’t become a good listing agent down the road, but, you know, it’s a very different skillset. Uh, and oftentimes you’re good at one and not the other, uh, maybe for the rest of your life. And that’s fine. Go to where your skill set is, right? Yeah.
Peter Schravemade (26:02):
Yep. Yeah. And I can, I can tell you on that. My skillset was definitely listing. I was, I was unbelievable at listing. I would only ever lose a listing if I didn’t want to get it. And generally that was a price or an attitudinal issue, um, with the hassle of the arena. So, um, yeah, I, I, it was, it was very difficult. I actually ran into my, um, the, the number two in my city only two weeks ago. Um, which is funny, cause we didn’t have the best of relationships back then, but it was, it was an interesting discussion as to what she has now learned and how she’s now operating in that city. So, um, yeah, I can put my hand up and say, I wasn’t wonderful dealing with the buyer. I was definitely the guy that you wanted in the property, telling the people how we were going to sell our price, sell our property faster for more money.
Eric Stegemann (26:55):
Yup. Makes sense. You get to know yourself. Right. You got to know what you’re saying.
Peter Schravemade (26:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree.
Eric Stegemann (27:02):
So a couple other things that I want to ask about one is, you know, I know that it’s a big core thing of box brownie that you guys don’t retain any copyrights to the image enhancements in any of the edits that you guys do. And a big thing, a big discussion in the MLS world, particularly as well as in the larger brokerage space recently, um, is about copyrights in the United States, owns the copyright to the photo. So why did box brownie choose to say, Hey, we’re going to, we’re not going to retain any copyright. We’re not going to just license you the photo. We’re going to let you own it.
Peter Schravemade (27:41):
Well, a though, I suppose the biggest reason for that is we are Australian and we wouldn’t have been able to start doing what we do, editing images in Australia if we retain the copyright. So, um, you know, in all of my brokerages, if, if anyone is taking photos, whether they are, let’s go my agents, for example, you know, on the odd occasion that they will need to take a photo of a, of a property find they have signed a waiver that hands, that copyright anything that they put up on our MLS, if you want to call it that they’ve signed the copyright over to me as an agent, um, irrevocably. So for the, for the future, um, that’s one thing, uh, if, if the photographers who my agency using haven’t signed a waiver, then it doesn’t go on the MLS. They have to go and reshoot it and go again until I’ve signed that waiver.
Peter Schravemade (28:29):
So copyright has always been something that, um, in Australia and, and definitely other parts of the world too, but I’m just speaking to the industry. I know so well is, um, the, the reality is we are paying the photographer for our commercial transaction to turn up to the, uh, to the property, shoot the photos and give them to us. There’s nothing really artistic about that transaction, the whole purpose of getting them to do it is that so we can market it in whatever way we see fit to achieve the style of either getting that property leased or sold. Um, when I came to the, to the U S it was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable that that whole concept of having, um, ownership of the copyright of the images was just missing. It, it just, it wasn’t discussed. I mean, it, it, we, I, I actually think we pushed it to the forefront in 2018.
Peter Schravemade (29:24):
Um, we certainly had discussions with Bob Goldberg who was the head of NAR. We told him about the way things were done. Um, I spoke at a clarity conference with which then led to the California, the, the California association of realtors setting up their own, um, and their own system, which by the way, I think is industry, um, groundbreaking industry stuff. So if you want to have a look at an association, who’s taken the bull by the horns, so to speak and actually led on this, I’d go and have a look at what California has done with its photographers. Um, but it w you know, the, the biggest issue that my job is to more raise the issues. I don’t come up with the solutions. I just speak about the problem that it creates down the track. You know, you have guys like Zillow getting sued by, by, uh, VHT studios, for example, which is, it just should never happen that a photographer holds the industry ransom.
Peter Schravemade (30:19):
Um, it’s, it’s like, um, I suppose a photographer suing a billboard company because that billboard is displaying an image that he took. Now, I, whilst I get copyright, and I understand how that works in photography. I am inherently a musician who has written songs for which I own a copyright for. I, I totally get that side of it as far as, you know, the other side, which is where somebody has asked me to write a jingle for that radio advert. I definitely do not retain copy there. And that’s, that’s the way you’ve got to look at this. You’ve actually hired a photographer to create a jingle for your radio advert, which you want to irrevocably own. So, you know, that that whole idea of, um, owning your, your, your images is so simple. It’s, it’s a full net NAR give you, you just need to fill it out and get your photographer to sign it.
Peter Schravemade (31:12):
And you know, what, if your photographer says, no, then find another one. I really don’t believe that’s an negotiate negotiable point. I think you just need to absolutely jump on and, and own all of the copy, all of the copyright on all of the images you need to own the intellectual property for which your, your responsible for. So, yeah, that’s, that’s a stand that we take it’s globally the way it happens, but it does seem to be missing in action in America. There were very few brokerages I know that have copyright agreements with the agents in there. Um, and that photography is,
Eric Stegemann (31:48):
Yeah. And then, you know, there’s this other oddity, which is essentially in many MLS, is you’re signing over the copyright to the MLS cases as well. So not only do you have to worry about the, the copyright of the photo, if your agents are using a professional photographer of whether you have the copyright or the ability to use that photo. Um, and in many cases I’ve seen where, when there is a copywriting, the, the photographers just licensing it the day the property goes off, the market you’re required to remove all use of that photo, um, issue. You send it to the MLS and many MLS agreements without brokers, even knowing about it, state that the MLS now has a shared copyright to that photo uploaded. Uh, and, and they, the statement is that the purpose is so that if a, um, uh, if, if there is a violator grabbing that photo, that the MLS can go ahead and Sue the violator that’s, uh, uh, stealing the photo from them. Right. But the problem you’ve now shared that copyright with the MLS, and you may not ever have owned the copyright in the beginning, uh, to Dax, right.
Peter Schravemade (33:04):
You’ve actually warranted it places, the hygiene issues, because they’ve warranted that they have permission to use it, which they may have for the sale. But as soon as the sale is finished, then there are all of these copies out there on various aggregators. It could be hundreds of them, thousands of them, even that just all out there. And no one, no one knows who owns the copy to them.
Eric Stegemann (33:24):
Right. Yeah. In, and, uh, I mean, we have clients of ours in, in different cities that we get requests all the time where a photographer will pop up and say, Hey, that’s my photo that you’re displaying on the website. They don’t, you don’t have the right to display that photo. And, you know, we, we of course remind them, Hey, it’s coming through an MLS feed. And our license with MLS is to use the photo. So you’ll need to talk to the MLS or talking to the broker that you spoke, the photography team.
Peter Schravemade (33:53):
Yeah. And that’s, that’s kind of California’s solution is that, they’ve what they have effectively done is they’ve said, if you are a photographer and you want to, um, you want to operate in, in, in the real estate circle, you need to assign this agreement directly with the California association of realtors. And it’s assigns the copyright over to the association to distribute as they see fit. So, um, you know, it says any of the images that find their way onto them that have been taken by them. They can do whatever they like with, and, and that’s, that’s, uh, been a short track, I think, to trying to educate their agents, to actually get the copy themselves. So, um, it’ll be interesting to see how that happens cause they’ve got a moratorium on it, but at some point they will switch off any photographer who hasn’t signed that waiver.
Peter Schravemade (34:40):
Um, and it will be interesting times. I think that they’re getting quite a list of photographers across the board, but, um, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that pilot goes, but I think, um, that, you know, the very least what you can do is just cover yourself by getting the agreement signed. Then you don’t have to worry about, um, you know, cease and desist letters coming through. And also Eric had a big thing to point out is, um, you know, just sold cards. For example, if I was a competitor of yours and you were putting up photos that I knew, um, you know, X, Y, Z photographer owned, and you’ll absolutely hammering the area with just sold cards. I’d absolutely be going back to that photographer and saying, well, they haven’t paid for the copyright on that. Just it’s off the market. They don’t own the copy anymore when they’ve printed these things, you could, in fact, if you’re a competitor and you really want it to be cutting, you could go back to the photography and then buy rights to those images and, and, and actually Sue that agent directly. Not that I’m, I’m trying to give, um, people, any litigious, uh, I guess, competitive advantages over that competitor, but that, that’s what you leave yourself open to, by not signing over the copyright. It’s crazy. I could totally do that. If you listed in your area, once she sold something and you just sold out, I could go and buy the copy of that. And I could ask you to go and retrieve all of those documents or send out apology letters for using my image.
Eric Stegemann (36:09):
Yep. Yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah, kind of crazy, but a is the reality of the world we’re in right now.
Peter Schravemade (36:16):
Yeah. The moral of the story is get your copyrights sorted for crying out loud. It’s free. It’s a free document. NAR have them. You can set them up. If you just go and have a look at copyright on the NAR website, there is a document that you can download. You can sign that and get all the photographers, be ready for the pushback that comes as part of your photographer, telling you that they’ve created something artistic and I deserve to own the copy. You might have to find another one. Um, I’d highly recommend that you do,
Eric Stegemann (36:44):
Uh, and we’ll, we’ll post in the show notes. Um, so if you’re listening to this, we’ll try to post a, a link in the show notes to where that, uh, where that document is. You know, something else I definitely wanted to chat with you about is, is, you know, a fairly new offering right before, uh, the virus hits a fairly new offering for you guys was being able to do, uh, 3d chores. Uh, these, you know, are the tours that are similar to Matter port or some of the other tools that you may have heard now, Matter port raised almost $120 million, right? And box brownie did not raise $120 million. Uh, so you know, what, what made it, uh, that you could jump into that space and say, Hey, look, we think we can compete with companies like Matter port and produce a better product than what they have.
Peter Schravemade (37:37):
Well, number one, we, when we’re not effectively trying to compete, we reluctantly we’re pulled into this space. Um, so we had conversations with many of the three 60 providers. Um, I can’t mention a lot of them cause we have NDAs in place, but a lot of them, we are the world’s biggest editor of three 60 degree photos. So, you know, you can imagine that the conversations that go on, um, if you are a virtual tour provider and you were taking photos and the world’s biggest three 60 degree editing company is box brownie. Well, you would be having conversations about potential, additional edits you can do. And they include things like enhancement item, removal, staging being the biggest, right? So we, we have always been in that space as an image editor, uh, very important to, to remember that, uh, the conversations that we’ve had with multiple of the three 60 or three virtual tours as you guys call them, providers have always revolved around image quality.
Peter Schravemade (38:37):
Um, this is getting slightly technical, but bear with me, um, when, uh, when, uh, a true professional photographer turns up at, uh, to type stuff, Fido is just using their DSLR or whatever it may be. They will put their camera on a tripod and they will take between three and five, um, images of the same scene at different light resolutions. And the only way to get professional results from photography is to merge those together. And that merging is a manual editing process. So we summarize professional photography to be, um, uh, three things, the, the, the presentation of the property or the getting the property ready for the shoot, the shoot itself, and can only be done using a technique called bracketing. It doesn’t matter how many the flashes you have. All right. How, how many different lenses it can only be done? It has to be used bracketing.
Peter Schravemade (39:27):
The third part about that is the manual editing process. And without each of those things, you’re not going to get a professional result at the end. So they are the three parts that are already incumbent into the digital stills. Now the world of three 60 hardware is forever evolving. Um, you have things like Matter ports camera, which I think is, is now gone. You won’t see many of them, um, moving forward. Yes, they are still selling them, but they’re just too big, too bulky. They take too long to shoot a home. Um, whereas, you know, you have the Ricoh theta cameras, which are the size of my Palm, have an eight hour battery life. Um, you can shoot a home in 10 to 15 minutes. And the quality that we can get from that imagery is better than anything we can get out of the Meta Port pro to hardware.
Peter Schravemade (40:12):
So we, you know, w the conversations that we were having with three 60 degree providers is you need to up your game, as far as the, the image quality was concerned. So, um, it appeared that none of them kid, they, they all have a product that they were delivering to, you know, people, people were happy to pay for it. Um, we, we were well aware that the consumer base was wanting to things that were different from the current offering, number one higher image quality, which we could deliver, um, very, very affordable in a do it yourself way. And the second thing was a no subscription platform. Um, now we had to write the code to do the 3d virtual tours anyway, because we were delivering, walked through to is to our building and construction industry that are of houses that don’t exist yet. So get your head around that for a second, we had to write the code for virtual tours for the building and construction industry, so that when somebody wanted to create a virtual walkthrough, and this is a true virtual walk through of a house that does not exist, we would create those two as using three 60 degree renders and would stitch them together.
Peter Schravemade (41:22):
So we’d already written the code for it. Um, there was a need in the market. So what we did is we delivered it at cost price. Um, and when I say it’s cost price, we don’t make money from it. Um, we are paying the manual editor who stitches it together, and we are paying for the hosting space for those three 60 degree images. So we came in with a product that, you know, for $16, you can do a virtual tour. And that, that is the, that’s the point of difference. The only reason that we, we did it is because we could, and we had to, um, you know, we had to create this anyway. So we’re not, I don’t even see ourselves as competitors. We still, I mean, yes, we are going to be taking market share, but the market share that we’re going to be taking it.
Peter Schravemade (42:03):
The people who wouldn’t sign up to a subscription platform in the first place and that people who wanted high quality imagery. And when we went to all of the three 60 providers, they weren’t interested in providing it. So we’re only doing the two things that they didn’t want to do. Um, and we’ll see, we’ll see how that goes. Um, that’s, that’s pretty much the bones of it. It, it isn’t, it is an open, um, I suppose it’s an open book. We, we are very, very transparent about why it’s there, um, how it exists. It is going gangbusters. Um, there’s roughly 95% of your market that do not use virtual tours. And we suspect that a good 20 to 30% of them, the reason they don’t do it is they don’t want another subscription. Um, you know, I that’s, that’s the play. I don’t, I don’t know why, you know, what you think of that.
Eric Stegemann (42:52):
I’ve long said that Matter port made a huge business mistake and that they tried to be everybody, everything to everybody when they kicked it off, they sold the cameras to, um, uh, agents. They tried to sell it to enterprises. Like they went to Sotheby’s and, and Corcoran, and all these guys and said, Hey, you should buy a camera for every one of your agents or multiple ones per office to go use. But then they also went and got photographers and they said, Hey, you can operate a Matter port business, um, and go sell this. And the problem was that the business model became strange. You had photographers that were selling it for one time, a pricing where they would go out and put the camera down and take care of everything. And then you had agents getting sold out where you can get a subscription for it, for, you know, a hundred dollars a month or whatever it happened to be depending on how many of them that you have live at any given point.
Eric Stegemann (43:47):
And so the problem with all of that is they’re only live for a period of time. You’re not able to use it for marketing as a sold listing or something down the road, right. To say, Hey, look, I do, Matter ports on all my listings. Here’s the benefit of them. If you don’t know what it is. And then using as to where my pricing lines in and with you guys, that’s a huge benefit. I pay a one-time fee, uh, to get the, uh, the property handled. Uh, I send you the video. I can use an off the shelf camera. Time, uh, pricing, where they would go out and put the camera down and take care of everything. And then you had agents getting sold out where you can get a subscription for it, for, you know, a hundred dollars a month or whatever it happened to be depending on how many of them that you have live at any given point. Uh, and so the problem with all of that is they’re only live for a period of time. You’re not able to use it for marketing as a sold listing or, or something down the road, right. To say, Hey, look, I do Matt reports on all of my listings. Here’s the benefit of them. If you don’t know what it is. And then using as to where my pricing lines in and with you guys, that’s a huge benefit. I pay a onetime fee, uh, to get the, uh, the property handled. Uh, I send you the video. I can use an off the shelf camera, whereas Matter port, you had to buy the $4,000 camera, uh, to be able to shoot it, um, and get the data out of it and get it into Matter port with you guys. You use the feta or, or I, um, you know,
Peter Schravemade (45:00):
Anything, really anything. So, yeah, we we’ve, we’ve tried to open it up. We’re not aware of a three 60 camera on the market that we don’t use. Um, a little look just on that. Um, I met a Porter, had the incumbent, they really pioneered, um, that spice all I believe. Um, then I, I don’t actually mind that model of going to the photographers, um, the, the one that they did because they create a, by almost create a selling point for buying their camera amongst the agents. Like you can go and pay $250 every time to have a house shot. However, if you’re over a certain amount, you might as well own a camera and have someone out there operating it. Um, you know, that they’ve almost made that an instant sale for themselves, the, the issue is they just can’t keep up with the research and development of the camera companies.
Peter Schravemade (46:45):
You know, you got GoPro that will slap on, you know, 3 million, maybe more, $10 million for the development of the three 60 cameras. That’s a really hard budget to come up against when you got the best minds in the world, working on something that you know is going to be the size of the Palm of your hand and can take photos. So the hardware game is gone and Matt port have acknowledged that I think in nodding as many words, but they’ve opened their platform up now to the Rico state of VI and the Rico is the one. Um, so that, that was a big step actually, because that’s the first time that they’ve ever even acknowledged hardware of another, another kind, but, you know, the, the, the fate of ease like $300 U S or thereabouts. Um, so it’s, it’s really, it’s really not expensive. Um, and I, I think, you know, the way where I go with this is if you’re a consumer out there and you’re going look, which is right for me, I don’t know.
Peter Schravemade (47:45):
I’d certainly be weighing them up. And I think the things that you need to look at is, is the hardware side, um, did, is it stand alone? Am I required to use any specifically to go with the hosting platform, the software, then you have to look at the shoot, how long that shoot takes you to actually do a shoot. Um, you know, whether that’s do it yourself or you’re going to hire someone there. And the third part about that is you need to have a look at how long it takes to upload. So that’s the other part of box branding. It takes five minutes to upload the images and you hit submit. Whereas a lot of the other do it yourself, builders, you have to upload the hotspot and then you have to embed another hotspot to tell it where it’s going, and that process can take easily an hour.
Peter Schravemade (48:28):
So you have to ma you know, I guess put all of the, those factors. And then, then you’ve got the money subscription or non-subscription or whatever. It may be into a nice package. And you have to decide what’s right for your brokerage or yourself as an agent. I think, um, what we have tried to do is simplify that, you know, use any camera you want. Um, here are guides on how to shoot. Um, it should take 10 to 15 minutes with most of the cameras out there. It’s a five minute upload to us. Uh, you pay as you go. So that’s, that’s the that’s really, really simply what we tried to do. I think you will see three 60 degree providers start to offer no subscription models in order to compete with what we’ve just done, Eric. So I, I believe it’ll probably change the market in that, in that nature they’re going to have to, it’s just too hard to pay 350 bucks a month when you’re only listing three houses.
Eric Stegemann (49:26):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think your model is though is the way to go when it can be done that way. It’s definitely the way to go. So, okay.
Peter Schravemade (49:35):
And it’s also the way we operate. Like, that’s exactly the way we operate with our edits. Um, you know, if we don’t deliver what we say, we did, you don’t have to come back, there’s no subscription, we haven’t locked you in. We don’t like those relationships when it’s not, you it’s me kind of scenario. So, um, you know, it’s just in keeping with our model.
Eric Stegemann (49:56):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we’re almost out of time, but one last question for you here, uh, is, you know, and I asked this of all of the people that we interview. If you could change one thing about the real estate industry, whether it’s in the United States or around the world, what would that one thing be?
Peter Schravemade (50:16):
Yeah, look, I’m going to go with the United States because it’s really, um, for me looking in, I can see a bunch of things that I would change if I was there and this one’s nearly impossible to change. I acknowledge that, but if I had one wishing could click my hand fingers like fairness and make that change overnight, I would do that would be, I would start charging real estate agents more money to be a real estate agent. Um, the, the, the cost of, I think you’ll find a lot of the issues with the real estate industry in America would dissipate or be gone forever if you just paid. Uh, let me give you an example here in Australia, for me to own a license for one year, it costs 5,000 Australian dollars for the privilege of owning that license for a single year, uh, in America.
Peter Schravemade (051:03):
Uh, you know, it varies, but let’s go between 300 and a thousand dollars is not enough to stop the issue that you have. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a plague you have, uh, um, in the U S of the hundred percent of agents, you have only 20% doing the lion’s share of selling. Um, the, the other 80% sell less than two houses per annum is the statistics yet. You know, when it comes to a virus, you have those 80% of incumbents who aren’t actually operating, or, you know, I would use the word part-time agents. Um, they are making the decisions for you. Um, I would be absolutely raising the prices of, of the barrier to entry, um, that would stop. Um, the fly by night is it would also allow the 20% who were actually operating, um, you know, not, not only would they get more money, but they’d be able to focus on their trade and you would find that 20% would become, um, I guess, better at what they do, because the competition would be harder in order to grab a listing. So, you know, I think there’s a bunch of things that STEM from that, you know, the 80% are probably the people who are uploading rubbish images to the MLS, um, that they’re also, you know, is systemically. We spoke at the start about, um, you know, agents being recruited just as buyer’s agents. I think a large portion of them sit in there and will never list a house. They may sell one, but they probably will never list one. So yeah, that, that would be what I would change.
Eric Stegemann (51:42):
Well, there you go. So thank you very much, Peter, for joining us, it’s been a great interview. Uh, and I, I think we’ll probably have you back. I think we can go deeper into some of these subjects.
Peter Schravemade (52:00):
I appreciate you your time. Thanks for having me on board. And, um, you know, I’m looking forward to hearing these podcasts, Eric, so take care over there in the States, if you’re listening. Um, I certainly hope you’re staying safe and out of trouble.
Eric Stegemann (52:00):
Thanks so much. Peter Schravemade made with box brownie, check them out@boxbrownie.com and make sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. The name of the podcast is brokerage insider. We’ll be adding new episodes at least every single week. So make sure to subscribe, to hear more interviews like this one. Thanks so much for listening.
