The Politics of Running A Realtor Association with Denver Realtor CEO Nobu Hata

Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player.

Nobu Hata is a real estate lifer. He’s sold, his wife runs a large team in Chicago, he’s helped create YPN chapters of Realtor Associations, worked for NAR, and now runs the Denver Metro Association of Realtors (DMAR). Listen to what Nobu has to say about the politics of running an association. What he’s doing to help Denver Realtors and the Denver housing shortage.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Brokerage Insider the podcast where we interviewed the leaders in real estate and technology. I’m your host, Eric Stegemann and I’m the CEO of TRIBUS. We’re one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate. And we’re providers of custom real estate brokerage technology to medium and large brokerages in the United States.

And even throughout the world today on the show. We have Nobu Hata and Nobu is the CEO of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. I’ve actually known Nobu for over 10 years now. And you know what Nobu liked me as a real estate lifer. He actually started in the real estate industry more than 20 years ago as an agent in Alaska, and then moved to sell real estate in Minneapolis, where he helped found the YPN chapter there.

After his time selling, Nobu moved to Chicago and he accepted a role at the National Association of Realtors. He was most recently the director of industry outreach and engagement strategy there at the same time, while in Chicago, Nobu’s wife, Shea became a Realtor and built an incredibly successful team where she still sells Nobu has traveled all around the U S and even around the world to various speaking engagements.

And so we’re very lucky to have him on the show today. So Nate Nobu thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Eric. I’m excited to dig in a, as a friend of mine and be in your new role as the CEO of of DMR. And so I want to kick it off and ask you a little bit about your past. So what originally got you into real estate?

I, you know, I think it, I think it’s just like most people yeah. We’ll get into real estate, like get, get into it by accident. I started out working for my father who was a former Xerox guy owned a, like a Kinko’s before it was a Kinko’s right. And one day I had gotten into a fight with my brothers.

And my my, my dad went to me and said, you need to use your powers for some good. Why don’t you go work for this brokerage there, everything’s starting to go online. And I think you can at least make some money this summer doing it. And man, everything just kind of rolled from there. I did a lot of design work and then I got into the sales end of things and it was just, the rest is history.

So, you know, you said the rest is history. What what’s kept you in the business this long? What is it about real estate that just keeps drawing you back into it? Oh man. You know, I think other than the fact that it’s like the mob, once you’re in you’re you can never really leave. I think the big thing is I’ve never.

I’ve never been a part of, of a business where the more good you do for people, the more profitable you’re going to be. And, and, and when you think about, especially now with the way businesses in general there really isn’t the case, right? But here in real estate, man, you, you, you, you serve people.

Well, you differentiate. You make them happy and you, and you make relationships. God, you know, it, it, it just keeps snowballing from there. So it’s, you know, try to get out once it didn’t really work. That’s how I got back into mint into real estate Minneapolis, but man, it was, it’s one of those things where I think it’s just, it’s it feel good thing.

And I don’t think I’m unemployable outside of real estate anyways. That’s you know, Rob Hahn our, our friend, Rob once once said the concept that we’re part of this unemployables group and you know, we only work in real estate and, and can only do certain functions. But that’s what we’re best at.

It’s our highest and best use. Right. Totally. Totally agree with Rob. So now here’s the thing. If I want to trace back your history just a little bit. So currently Denver, previously, Chicago. Yep. Previously Minneapolis. Yup. Previously Alaska. Yeah, up and down the West coast. So yeah, it was, you know, when you’re 20 something going up and down the West coast doing real estate thing during kind of the height of the post economic downturn thing, we’re pre economic downturn thing.

Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. Just kind of seeing real estate from all over the country from that angle. But, but it seems like it’s always cold weather environments. Tell me about it. So, so why the move to Denver and sticking with the cold weather, a process here? Yeah, it is I to NAR and it, it, I had a couple choices for jobs, you know, and it w it was, it was a nice position to be in.

I think it was just time anyways, to, to. To leave any are I’ve got that seven year itch. What I love about this market, not only the quality of life, which is fantastic, I got to get back into skiing and all the other outdoor sports stuff. And you know, I’ve got the family thing and, you know, Shane Oliver, but what I love about this market is that it’s kind of at the nexus of all the change that is happening in the industry, right?

So you’ve got Realtors, you got licensees, you’ve got, you got technology companies, buying houses. And, and you’ve got the socioeconomic issues, right? One in one in four Denverites, only one in four Denverites can afford one in four renters in Denver can own can’t afford to buy a home, which is a staggering number.

And it was, it was kind of like that challenge that interested me the most in spite of the weather, it’s it’s been great here and the challenges have been fantastic to deal with. So let’s dig into that one a little bit. I actually have a number of questions for you in that in that same, same part of the conversation here and that, you know, like at Travis, we obviously have a big base in Denver, in fact too, it’s actually where the majority of our employees are based at.

And you know, in talking to them, we have employees that, that are there that are. Making great money. I’m talking software developers and leaders of teams and, and you know, directors and VP roles that are in Denver. And I’m starting to hear from them that they don’t see themselves being able to buy a house, even though they’re making great money there.

And they’re seeing. They kind of were San Francisco was 10 years ago. What do you think Denver can do to encourage more maybe development or, or more ability for those people? Like what you’re talking about to be able to be homeowners? Yeah. And that’s one of the things that I am really looking forward to doing here.

And I’m in Denver is teaming up with and reaching out to developers here. Cause the one thing, you know, coming from Chicago where you can’t develop, unless you want to drive an hour, hour and a half outside of the city coming here where you can drive 15 minutes and go to develop a land. It is one of the great challenges to be able to talk to those folks and talk about what is actually needed right now and get some of these developers to think more think beyond kind of the, the that bang for your buck.

Because they can build these six, seven, $800,000 houses and get really good returns on that investment, but teaming up with them on what smart development looks like. Both out in the burbs in here closer to the city is a fantastic challenge. It’s one of those things where I’m very cognizant of, I fully agree with your staff or is it, you know, Denver is looking like what San Francisco, you know, Eric, when we first met at an inbound conference even 10, 15 years ago was fairly affordable then, but it’s skyrocket out of control.

Although, it’s gotten a very interesting the Bay area here. I just want to be part of that, of that solution for people like your staff so that they don’t leave. Right. And they don’t go to places that are that are a little more affordable. And then they stay here. We don’t have that brain drain.

That that is definitely happening right now. Kind of these major Metro areas. Yeah. And obviously from our end, we, we want to have sustainable workforce that doesn’t need to move all the time. In fact, the reason we opened an office in Denver was five years ago. We saw it as the, the place to be where developers wanted to go to, to get away from the high prices of San Francisco.

And you know, we were having a hard time just like you in Chicago for that hiring a hard time, getting developers to come to Chicago or want to move to Chicago. They weren’t already there. So the developer pool was small, but at Denver it seemed like every single person that was moving here or excuse me, every person that was applying for a job, I was looking to move here.

So, you know, you’re, you’re talking about developers building and like you said, if you don’t know the developer, the Denver market. You can drive 15 minutes to the, to the East and essentially be in wide open land. You know, particularly from where both of our offices are at, you don’t have to get very far and be in wide open land over there.

What are things, what are specific things that DMR that either you’re doing or that you thought about doing that would convince somebody like Lindar to build three, four or $500,000 houses, as opposed to the eight, $9 million houses? Yeah, where I’ve already enlisted my government affairs directors too.

So DMR is, is the only local association here in the Denver Metro or in Colorado. That’s got a full-time government affairs director. And that guy has relationships with with local regulators and legislators. It’s amazing. And, and, and it’s, it’s bringing those worlds together that we’re working on right now.

And, and breaking down a lot of the regulatory issues. To build, which is, which is the, that’s going to be the first issue that many developers were cited as a reason for building up and, and more expensive homes rather than the more affordable ones along with bringing in kind of smart. Again, like I mentioned earlier, the smart idea, smart development, which is.

Integral for building within the city. Now, no one wants to have, you know, strip malls and, and ugliness kind of going throughout especially the urban areas of, of the Denver Metro area. With so many areas have got so much character is it’s, it’s teaming up with not only the regulators and the builders, but also the locals.

And the community where you know, you know, Brits on this, maybe he can echo this, but I’ve never seen a more siloed neighborhood ideal, right? Where you’ve got people who will worry about their four by four square block block radius, and only that four by a floor for a block square radius, but bringing in smart development with these folks who are fiercely, fiercely protective of.

Of of their communities and what the community will be and teaming up with those guys in a very smart way. The, the beginning of this is the politics and you know, it was one of the things that I, as a former non Realtor, going into the Realtor world, I was, I was a convert too. But that world is one of those worlds of right now is, is, is evolving.

Getting a lot more human. And if I can bring a little more of the Realtor and real estate flavor to that so that we can team up better, better on better developments. We will have not only a short-term, but a midterm and a long-term road to to home ownership for folks like your staff, no matter where they want to live.

Now, I don’t want to sit there and say, Hey, to move to Aurora. I moved to Parker. There, there there’s opportunity everywhere. As long as we partner up correctly and we’re setting the the ground rules for that right now. And I think, you know, if you, you can go to Aurora and you can go to Parker of what’s there, but in, in the environment.

And I think our employees would be happy to do that, but the, the environment that we’re in, it’s kind of being two different things. Number one is those houses that come up for sale in an error and our Parker. The numbers we’re starting to see, and I still own, I own property in, in Colorado and actually in Parker.

And, you know, I’ve got an offer. For 10% more than the same offer I received in November of last year. So I just recently pulled an offer here in February and that same offer was 10% more. So the first, the first issue with development or a first issue with affordable housing, it certainly seems like, you know, the demand is so high beyond what’s there.

That in the immediate future, there’s no good way to solve it tomorrow. And am I wrong in seeing that? And that’s why that these are 10% increases or do you, do you see something else? No, I’ve been watching the stats as well. They are alarming. What’s been interesting is seeing, you know, as you know, my wife sells in Chicago, you know, getting a hundred thousand dollars over list over list price.

Multiple offer situation is not uncommon even in Chicago right now for million dollar properties. But when I hear a story about that happening with that, Five or $600,000 property. That’s when it’s like, wow. You know, I don’t know how I don’t know how first time home buyers are doing it right. First time home buyers, frankly, who are in that price point now, right?

Who are competing heavily with folks who are not only coming into the Denver Metro area, but that folks who are from what I’ve been hearing from my mortgage entitled people here they’re land rich folks who are locals, who are selling off their land and making a lot of money and then turning around and buying homes where they, they.

But never considered before. Right. As either the, their primary residence or even an investment property. So it is it, is it, is there a sign of it? Waning off? I don’t see it right now. I think we’ll take it year by year. I think this next year is just going to be more of the same with less inventory.

What, what I’m watching are things like Google stats, I’m watching things like you know, search queries. I’m watching things like a census census numbers. When those things come out to see if there’s any, any end in sight so that I can help prepare my members and their clients for for what will be an even more competitive market.

But we’ll hopefully a little more limited. Yeah, for sure. And that really yields to the second. The second part of the problem is. You know, what Nobu Nobu was, was alluding to in terms of building and, and the politics and everything like that. There’s more than just even politics of getting approval. Like what you’re talking about in Colorado, there’s this problem of the water rights and you know, building a single lot.

Can mean a $25,000 tap fee to, to connect up initially to get water rights. So $25,000 of a builder’s cost of building the home can be involved in, in the price that they pay to connect up to city water that’s there. And so it seems like there’s something has to be done about that. And I don’t know how sustainable that is over time because of the water problems that Denver has.

Right. Yeah. And what happens is, is that you know, shit, cause we are in actually in touch with, with those, with the various waterboards around the Metro area, which been, that’s been a very interesting conversation if that’s a new one to me and it’s been super cool to actually have. But any movement with those guys creates problems in another regulatory areas, including taxes, right?

So you know, we’re, we’re watching all of that to, to help guide not only policy for today, but policy for tomorrow as this. Metro area evolves and grow. So we can, as we can all be part of what this community is going to look like in five years, for sure. And you know, getting in just for a second more on this hyper Denver specific topic obviously I’m interested in it.

You know, the, the numbers that you’re seeing of people move there. I know. The last number I saw was that Denver essentially doubled in population over a 10, 10 year period. But is that, are you still seeing that’s happening and particularly with the pandemic, are you still seeing, or getting anecdotes of those numbers holding up or even moving higher than the word before?

Oh yeah, I it’s. They’re going to, they’re going to more affordable areas too. You mentioned Parker that that area is one of the fastest growing zip codes in the country. Right. So, yeah, I mean, it, I think people are realizing the Denver Metro area is massive. It’s almost like St. Chicago land. Right.

Except for, you know, we’ve got an airport to the East instead of a big old freaking Lake. But here, you know, yeah. You’re seeing, you’re seeing folks migrate out to areas. They probably wouldn’t even considered now that they know that, that you know, You’ve got you got Parker, which is what, five minutes away, 15 minutes away from the DTC.

And I was in castle rock today. Same exact thing. Right? So it’s, it’s filling in that areas between castle rock, rocket Parker with the the Denver Metro area that we’ll be watching closely. But man, is it a crazy time here or what. For sure, for sure. It’s a good time to be an owner. It’s a very tough time to be a current renter or somebody who wants to purchase at one point.

And it’s something I’m very concerned about in terms of my employees, because I want them to have somewhere sustainable that they want to be at and build a family and have that American dream. That’s the same reason you and I got into this business. You know, you, you talked about starting about bringing happiness and, and, and putting that into people’s lives and helping them achieve these dreams.

And. You know, something I’m always worried about is my people that I consider, like family to me you know, worrying about them, building wealth over time with the idea of home ownership for the industry that we’re in, we’re in. And I hear them make these statements to me. And it obviously makes me very nervous and, and I w I’m always interested in what can be done about these things.

So it’s great to hear somebody like you. That’s in charge of the association, there is thinking about it, working on it, and I can’t wait to see ’em. More specifics, come out over time of things that you guys are, are able to work on, both from the political side and from the building side to get them to do that.

So moving on, let’s talk about let’s talk about running an association because that involves politics. So, you know, how much of your daily life in being the CEO of DMR? How much of that is. Maybe about politics and dealing with brokers and dealing with agents and, and their process. Or maybe even talking about from dealing with literally politicians as we traditionally think about them versus a day-to-day running of an organization that, that a CEO typically does.

What is the D what does a day in Nobu life look like? You know a lot of it is, it’s almost like what, you’re, what you’re talking about. Right. And I, I’m trying to run a business here and that’s the way I think about it. And that being said, politics is rampant everywhere. What’s different about this.

This market is how fiercely protective people are. And, and as you mentioned earlier, I’ve been to. All 50 States, you know, and I grew up in Alaska, one of the, the most fiercely independent markets out there, period. But here I’ve never experienced people who are like, I don’t go East of East of , you know, I don’t go out and visit their worth.

And I’m like, it’s a suburb, man. It’s not like there’s gonna be any fiercely different, but I get it. You know? And I think that is the biggest. Hurdle that a lot of folks you know, in my position and, and, and elsewhere when you’re in a, in a position of authority is to kind of understand the politics be empathetic to it, you know, to me it’s finding the root yeah.

Root issue as to why folks are protective or, or, or have politicize it a certain issue. And then try to work. Backwards from the solution. Right? So it was something that, that working at NAR for seven years before, before that I was in it was a Realtor leadership. So, you know, I was surrounded by a Dan and day out.

And, and luckily, you know, for me, I just, I, you know, I think about the greater whole, the greater the greater membership of, of, of DMR on what we’re doing for them and how I can use the politics for a positive to meet, to meet the ends that I need in order to serve. All of our membership better just because I see that the writing on the wall when it comes to real estate, right?

So in dealing with politics is, is, is, is a day in and day out thing. Not only is it, do I deal with it from the membership point of view, but from my, even my, my staffers, right? There’s politics there. But I don’t let it get to me. I don’t take things personally. And I like to say as apolitical, as possible to, in order to get work done.

And frankly, being the new guy makes it fairly easy. What’s actually been pretty cool is, is I’m working with the brokers and the members here. Them knowing that I sold real estate before I got here, I have the connections you know, for folks like you and at NAR and whatnot. And, and, and, you know, w w.

My reputation that I had in NAR and even here of, I just want to get business done. It’s helping a lot. And at least right now, I mean, I’m not, I’m gonna knock on wood. It’s right now, the politics haven’t been detrimental. It’s, it’s a matter of just kind of taking it to heart and, and pushing forward.

That that’s a it’s insightful. Cause I, I don’t think many CEOs of associations are willing to, to be candid with what their day-to-day looks like, but it seems like a lot of it is always politics. And you hit the nail on the head, in any organization when you run it, you’re going to have internal politics.

You know, I’m talking about employees, not even external like you have to deal with, so you have a whole other. You know, set of these folks to deal with that you have to play politics with in terms of the brokers in the market, et cetera. Plus the, also the, all of the internal stuff that every CEO has to deal with.

So, you know, let’s keep talking about associations here. You know, you, I know that technology is a passion of yours. And so I want to ask, you know, in terms of your thought process, where’s the line. Where MLS and associations offer technology as part of their membership. Versus being the traditional MLS or the traditional association, that’s there for maybe political advocacy and you know governance but not having a bunch of tools or on the MLS side, just being the offer of con compensation between two brokers.

Where’s that line of what you should offer versus letting the brokers compete on their own. Yeah, that’s, that’s an interesting question. You know, I think the thing that That I am very cognizant of not, and that was cognizant of it, you know, dramatic our days. And, and, and before that, as, as a leader kind of traveling around the country the closer you are to the street, the more you need to be impactful with people’s businesses and how they see fit.

Right. You know, we’re the ones that, that get the dues for us and, and, and, and car at the state level and NAR frankly, right? So the more value that we show the better it’s gonna going to be for me. To come due season to ask for those dues and to get them without without much complaint. And, and, and how that stuff actually carries into the politics and the things actually to me, it’s one of the same conversation, you know, it’s all about trust when it comes to that type of type, you know, like yeah.

I want to build a place where folks are like, I trust you with not only my real estate technology and services and solutions that you’re offering, but the other things that you’re doing that on the political end of things as well, the line, I think actually differs from market to market. You know, this is a market where you’ve got, you’ve got you know, actually just got the numbers today.

You know, the, the. The top broker here has a little over 4% market share, right. And it’s a, it’s a large out-of-state brokerage. So you know what I offer, what I want, what I’m never going to do here is to offer things that help, not only them. But their business ops and their client dynamic as well. So once you start thinking about like technology products and solutions and offerings, really in that context, the lifts actually gets whittled down quite a bit, right?

This is not just about you know, silver, shiny toy objects. It’s really is about, this is going to help you save or save money or make money. Right. And how I offer it is a thing that actually is going to be the line where I’m going to be cognizant of every day, what a Remax needs is going to be very different from a Western Maine who will be very different from what, you know, the, the small mom and pop shops that dominate the Denver Metro area as well.

Right. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s. Bringing things in that don’t impact the the member dues or revenues that we are experiencing here, but marketing it better so that they use it. And they only use the services that they they want or need. And I’m even offering things like personal concierge type services to do a deep dive into their into their brokerage jobs to see what will fit.

Right. So it’s that feeling with a lot of the folks I’ve talked about has been fantastic. To them. Right. Because I, I, you know, I think you, maybe you can actually echo the sentiment, but there’s a lot of brokerage folks out there who really don’t understand what they need or when they need it. And it’s sometimes it takes that third party to come in and lend that insight and I’m happy to do it.

And, and man has it led to really good research on my end on what people actually want and need here in this area. So it’s funny that you say that you know, Travis, we’re, we’re getting ready to announce at the risk of, at the risk of making our PR folks frustrated. We’re getting ready to announce that we’ve overhauled everything that we do in terms of launching customers and onboarding customers and The simple fact of what we did was just start asking questions instead of saying, here’s what we offer.

Good luck. Right. We just started asking questions and I mean, as a former broker owner, if my association CEO. Knocked on my door one day and said, Hey, can I help you be a better broker? I think I would have, my jaw would have hit the floor. I don’t. I mean, you know, few tech companies do that. No, CEO’s that I’m aware of.

Do anything like that. And you’re right. The reason we started doing this was actually to just collect data on what was working, what wasn’t working to make our own products better. And then we found out, Hey, they were wowed by the fact that somebody actually cared to ask them questions, whether it was the top level people or the bottom level people, any, any interesting insights that you found in, in some of these conversations that you’ve had with burgers?

Well, I, you know, I think the thing that is, is shocking, but not really shocking is, is, and as you know, you know, adoption rates what, what it takes to get people to want to use this of how do you get folks who are so ingrained with their you know not, not even them, but their agents so ingrained with their with their day to day that they really don’t know how to pivot.

And it’s that art. That, that I’m trying to really kind of share with them. It’s like, Hey, you know, here’s where I think this industry is going. Here’s where I know of where the MLS is going. Here’s where things are happening. Socioeconomically affordability wise, here’s where I think we can help. What are your, what are your thoughts?

And what I found is is you had the same old problems that have been dogging brokerages for ever, right. Compounded by the fact that you’ve got agents and teams now who were very empowered. And all they’re, all, some of these guys are almost felt feeling like they’re being held hostage right by these folks.

And, and to me, I’m like, why don’t we not worry about them? Let’s worry about your rising stars. How can we, how can we partner up better with your rising star agents? Right? So it becomes almost less of a technology issue and more of a people issue, which I love talking about. I can talk about that stuff every day and we can get if I can not only.

You know how my, my broker environment become kind of places where the, where their agents want to go to, they don’t feel like they’re nickel and dime use their tech, or don’t use their tech. Not only do I have a really, a really good entryway into the, into my broker owners, but I also have what I, what I think is a great asset future leaders that I would love to ingrain good habits with so that they give back.

Earlier. Right. So, and sometimes it really is coming to terms with the fact that a lot of these folks will tell me some things that they won’t tell, you know, their average, you know, AA who, you know, like you mentioned, doesn’t know how to talk about this stuff, but but going and making better of the people that they do have, which to me is a awesome, fundamentally a conversation for me that I’d love to have.

And I think one that is necessary to have to future proof, this industry. That’s for sure. So speaking of future proofing, this industry, I know that, you know, associations have to treat all members fairly and similarly. But maybe from a high-level perspective as a, as an organization that has. Zillow and open door as, as members I believe.

W what’s what’s your take on that? Or what’s the association? Well, yeah, I, you know, treating, treating them fairly that’s that is, that is a very key statement that, that. I’ve had to make, when folks ask me about it. Right. Although I will say that it hasn’t been a big, a pain point than I thought it was going to be, but I think, you know, folks are seeing the signs and they’re understanding the business models what’s happening here.

And I think frankly, there’s a lot of folks who are incredibly busy right now to really even care about what those folks are doing. To me, it, it I’m preparing for what the future membership looks like. You know, it, it it’s less about the Zillows and they open doors about what are the next ILS and the open doors are going to need.

And that’s, that to me is something that I even posed to my staffers. Right. What are these folks who are, who’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions of dollars in VC funding behind them. What did they actually need from folks like us? Right. So it’s, yes, it’s treating them fairly. But being tactical with, with everything that I’m offering so that it resonates with them so that they pay attention to what we’re doing, that they partner up and realize that, Hey, you know what, sometimes it’s a little folks need help.

And this is something that attitude specifically with Zillow, you know, we found a way to actually get our government affairs directors our GAD team to interact on things like data. Right on, on the the tax issues that we’re experiencing and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll be experiencing here going forward.

So, you know, I think there is right now in a world where we can we th this tent that we’re in is going to be diverse. And as we can use it as a gateway to. To get even more diverse, which I think is going to be, I think there’s going to be more brokers selling leads in there. We’ll be selling houses within the next five, 10 years.

Something that we’re going to prepare for now, but it’s being tactical with the offerings more than anything while treating everybody fairly, you know, it’s, that’s like the it’s the old adage that I use quite frequently in the real estate industry is what publicly traded companies have figured out is in real estate.

It’s it’s like the old West days and the gold rush days as a better example, which is who made all the money during the gold rush days. It wasn’t, it wasn’t Eric going in and finding gold in, in the Lake, it was the companies that sold the picks and the axes and the shovels and the, and the, you know, everything like that.

It was those folks that made the real money back then. And it seems like they’re starting to figure out. That process, I mean, look, OpCity sold for $250 million showing time sold for half a billion dollars and it wasn’t. Because they had leads it’s because they had data on knowing when per a person is a lead or w would become a leader or what they were looking for and why they pulled the trigger on a purchase.

Right. And so, you know, I think it is a matter of figuring out how you implement these tools from our broker perspective, how do you implement these tools into your business? And, and. You know, Rob Hahn said don’t, don’t force them into a corner cause that’s when they will attack. Now the question is, and, and how do you think that they saw how busy everybody was?

You said something that was really interesting to dive into there, that everybody is so busy that they’re not paying attention. Do you think that was, was them being calculated and saying, Hey, now is our time to strike or do you think it was just part of their business plan to begin with? Are you talking about the acquisition, look at what CoStar is doing right now.

If you know, CoStar is about ready to be if they complete the CoreLogic acquisition, they’re already the number one and primary data source for all commercial real estate data. And if they buy CoreLogic, they will be the number one and primary source for all residential real estate data. Along with it.

Plus they’re looking to build out sites through the Homesnap acquisition, which, you know, powered broker public portal, and everybody was pushing home snap because it was part of broker public portal. But now they’re talking about building their own separate MLS portal website. So any of the, the big let’s let’s call it, the big three things that are going on, which is the rise of I buyers like open door.

Zillow the rise of Zillow becoming a brokerage and, and buying resources to power that system and their own I buyer platform and CoStar essentially owning all the real estate. So all three of those sides. Yeah. I, you know, I honestly, I think that this is all just indicative of the state of real estate right now, and that there’s a lot of money being made.

In the industry right now and it’s become a safe bet. And you and I both know that in the CIC and the technology world, especially the VC world wall street world, when one move happens. Dozens of other moves happen as well. Right? I, I think that the fact that it’s busy, it’s indicative of the state of this industry and the fact these folks can now make a safe bet.

And by Showing Time for 500 million, you know, by go in and, you know, make it make a big play for CoreLogic. Now there’s a bidding war for it. Right. So, you know, I, I think th th all, all we’re seeing now is kind of like, you know what, this is it we’re good, real estate safe. Let’s, let’s, let’s delve back into it.

And The snowballing effect. I think we’re going to see for a while now, what we see we see high-profile wow. Snowballs, probably not, but you know, the, the, the, what is going to be a a, a continuation of the M and a in this world now that CoStar has become a buyer is a thing. And I think we’re going to see more and more of this stuff as they are digging.

Sorry about this old stuff. The I think we’re going to continue to see more and more of this stuff. Not necessarily high-profile, but, but necessarily ones that are going to be integral to the day to day, you know? And, and you’re seeing this now you’re seeing these players that would never have been on the market a couple of years ago now going like I’m timeout, I’m done.

Let’s do this. I know that I’m preparing my board, my leadership over the next two, three years. To be able to talk about this stuff and the, and the reasons why it’s happening and be able to go and where I can’t go, go talk to their brokers that they influence about some of these changes, because I think more and more of the changes are gonna are going to be more fundamental to the way these guys do business day to day than anything else.

If you’re a brokerage in five years from now for you to be viable, are you having to be acquiring right now? I, you know, that’s a good question. I, I don’t know. I think that it’s going to vary market to market. I don’t think it’s going to, you’re going to see the large splashes anymore. You know, I assume you mean like the campuses of the world.

I don’t see any more of those, those big moves happening. Well, actually that’s a tailed off over the last couple of years in general. I think they’re going to have to start implementing no matter what, whether it’s an acquisition, whether it’s a technology buy. Whether it’s you know, even things like you know, onboarding of it, especially if you’re a massive entity you’re going to have to get better and better and better as sharpen and your knife when it comes to internal ops, more than anything, no matter what you end up doing.

I, I, I, I look at this market and I, and I see it ripe for independence merging. And that’s true, you know what I mean? Cause there’s so many of them here. But that’s, that’s very unique to this market maybe even to this region. And it might be different from California. It might be different in, in, in Chicago, for sure.

Like in Chicago, you got to have properties going in there and, and, and buying up technology. Right. So it’s, it’s not going to be a matter of, of of Anything, but execution with what, you know, fad Mike are doing out there with that, especially now as they grow and they scale. Right. So I think it’s gonna be very local and I think it’s gonna be very, very different from market to market, but is it, does it matter what technology that you have if you can’t, if you cannot get your agents to use it?

Yeah. I mean, like at properties. There. I looked at their agents and we did a poll of their agents three or four years ago and said, are you using the app properties, provide a platform. And the majority of them said, no, you know, they, they said, Oh, well, we get leads from, at properties, but is it their primary platform?

No. And, and I guess what I look at and see is in a five-year from now world in a 20, 26 world. Is any brokerage that hasn’t gotten their, their agents to use the broker provided platform? Are they still viable in any meaningful way? And I think when I mean, and meaningful way is. Do agents become even more transient and just go wherever the best commission split is more so even than, than today, because they’re not going to use the technology no matter what happens versus the brokers that are out there that say T to work here, you have to use this system and maybe even.

Go so far as moving their agents to salary based like what Redfin has done, I guess, I guess what I’m asking is, do you see a world in five years from now where brokerage is a more like Redfin than they are today? You know what I, I, I don’t right. What I do see is, is them getting better at getting there they’re new core agents, right?

Because every broker has got these top producers who are going to be hired guns, and they’re always going to be afraid of leaving. But w w w what I definitely foresee is broker just having to get better at getting their, their rising star agents, the ones that they’ve grown, that they’ve cultivated and curated and got them to trust, you know, and I’m thinking.

I’m thinking of a couple of days on the top of my head right now that, that they do use it and they got to get better at that. Right. If they’re cultivating in five years, they look back, right. And then over the last five years, they’ve cultivated their own homegrown top producer agents because of what they are implementing in their system.

Yeah. I think that is going to be the ticket to success for most brokerages going forward. All right. Well, I’ve got a few more questions that we are running well over time of what I expected, but I’ve, as I expected here, really, I should have known that we would be getting into a great conversation and going off script.

So let me just ask you a couple more questions that I’ve got here. Number one, about technology of back the DMR for just a second. You know, this is, this is going to be kind of a softball question, but you know, you guys recently partnered with Ernest, right? And 20, 21. Digital earnest money. Why did it take so long?

Oh God. I said every day, I mean, and it’s not because it like. Like I, I sit there and him and, and CMC for other States that I did business in. I’ll have it. It’s my personal freaking experience of having to go to a bank to wire money to buy a home here. Right. And how much of a pain it was. And what’s crazy too, is that there, like there, there were four or five services that I could have implemented from the get go, you know, I love her the best.

So why does it take so long? You know, I think it’s, this is, this is the reason why things don’t happen is because we are busy. Right? And I think it’s, somebody needs to keep pushing and I’m be happy to push it, but it’s other things we’ll be running with a company called rent spree very soon as well, to deal with issues here in that you’ve got so many people who are going to be accidental landlords, right.

Getting out of their home and using it, using that equity by by another and folks like you needing to use services like tenant screening, credit checks to get that done again. The trick is in the rollout. I don’t know why things happen, but, you know, I’m committed to here at DMR, bringing these solutions that, that make us be a business partner to you, no matter what brokers you hang your hat with and leave with the services that help you no matter what, right?

So God, I would love to be able to help with the adoption rate, the acceleration of, of really good high quality technology that helps my members. Save or make money, right. So we can figure it out. We figured it out together. I think we’ve, we’ve, we’ve honestly, I’ve cured real estate with the problem.

To me, it always goes back to independent contractors. Right. And, and if you retry, this is very first. Blog post. In fact, the set of four, they were as a four-part series that I wrote. I actually put up a tombstone in 2009 on our website as the very first blog post, since the death of the independent contractor.

And, you know, I’m not sure that’ll happen today or tomorrow or the next day, but to me, the only way we fix the inherent. You know, main problems of real estate is we have to be willing to move away from a model where you can’t tell an agent how to do anything, right? Like you, can’t say you have to log in to try this every day.

And you have to use this website and you have to record your sales into this system. You know, any world that you’re in, that you’re gonna have. Dichotomy. Isn’t the right word. It’s a 12chotomy. You’re, you’re going to have people going every single day, different direction. And to me, data wins in the end.

And if the broker isn’t able to collect good enough data, cause their, their agents are using every other tool that’s out there under the sun and whatever they want to use. I think you end up not being able to win. And that’s why to me, CoStar buying every piece of data out there. And now Zillow buying, showing time and have shown, you know, 50% of every single showing going back 20 years, they have data on what happened on that, on that showing to me, that’s where you win in the end, right?

Yeah. So, yeah. And I think it’s add to that to me. I want to create a world where people want. To use our products and services. And I think that’s the same kind of sentiment that brokers need to lead with as well. Right. We talk about all these things about what they have to do and they have to do, and they have to do you know, as soon as they realize that.

The things that they want to do will help help them save or make money. That is, that is when things start to change, right. That want that desire to go in and log in and use these, these tools and solutions, not what they heard at some conference that they’ve paid 10 grand to go to. You know, here’s somebody who’s never a sale sell real estate, tell you how to sell real estate.

I, that, there’s a very different thing. Biology that needs to be cultivated here. And to me, it’s, it’s about wanting versus. This, Oh God, I have to, because my broker said so, and I think that’s the world we’re going to work on together. I I think so. I mean, Travis is working very hard with our new success department on, on solving that.

But I still think there’s always going to be the world of the top producing agents that are just saying, I don’t care what you use. It could be better than what I have, but I don’t care. I want to use what I have because I own it as the, as the team leader, they own it. And that way, if they want to leave to go to a different brokerage tomorrow, they can.

All right. So two quick, last questions for you here. Number one is. You know, Denver, I don’t even know if you realize it. Denver’s kind of becoming a real estate and real estate technology hub more or less. Oh yeah. And you know, you’ve got Remax, that’s headquartered there. You’ve got BombBomb. That’s headquartered in Colorado Springs.

Not, not terribly far down the road. You’ve got a number of other companies that are all around the Denver and Boulder, et cetera. And you know, of course, Travis has our largest operation. That’s there. You know, how does an S how can association encourage more growth like that? Is, is it something that’s on your radar of the more real estate tech we can get to Denver?

The more we can help our members? Oh, heck yeah. And I want to make them front and center. You know, some of the things I’m thinking about it, you know, this is having a having a hackathon or, or doing some really cool things with, with data here. You know, you’ve got, you’ve got home by, you’ve got all these guys on me.

Oh. Every real estate nerd is, it has a presence here and it’s been fantastic. So yeah, to me, it, it, that’s a long-term play. I think what I realized quickly here is that you know, people here are busy and they need to be kicked, dragged, kicking, and screaming into 2021. So, you know, it’s all a matter of, of what we can do in the future.

But yeah, definitely man. And I think it, it not only kind of helping their businesses, but helping with their staff, like I’d love to be able to help you and your, you, you and your staff with this journey to home ownership and putting a face to it, becoming part of our marketing. Right. So that you know, not only is there a place for business, but there’s a place for for infrastructure as well.

And that includes the people, so, Oh yeah, definitely. I think it’s, as a matter of getting to the point where we can have in person meetings again and do some cool things together in a room. If you ever do the hackathon, our team would, would be there tomorrow with bells on I it’s something we’ve wanted to participate in.

So yeah, that, that would be great. And I think offering things like that and showing people what the opportunity is, plus what the labor forces in Denver. And I think that’s the big win in, in Denver. You have a. A big labor force. Heck we have a bunch of roles open where we it’s a bonus that somebody is a real estate agent or has been a real estate agent in the past to, to accept the job.

And I think everybody’s so busy because we can’t, we can’t get anybody. That’s got real estate experience to apply for it. But if you get anybody, please let’s send them our way. All right. Last question for you. And this is a question I ask every one of my guests. If you could look back and change one thing over your 20 plus career or a 20 plus year career in real estate, if you could change one thing either in the past or today, what would that one thing be?

I would have bought more real estate. To be honest with you. There I was in, I was in markets where I look back. I should have bought a home in Nashville. 15 years ago when I first, when we were first met people like Brian Copeland, right. Should have bought that condo that I was renting out in San Diego when I was out there.

Right. I wouldn’t have bought more real estate. That’s my only regret. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it is one of those things I look back on when I was living in orange County, there’s a condo I could have bought for $400,000 that the next door one to it that was really no better. Just sold for a million, two a and that was 10 years ago.

It’s just insane. Well, no, but thank you very much for taking the time. I so appreciate you coming on the show. I’d love to catch up with you again, maybe six months or so down the road and, and just talk about where things are at, where they’re going. When everybody’s able to get together again, who knows maybe in the next one of these things, we’ll, we’ll record together at an in-person conference somewhere.

So I really appreciate you being on the show and thanks for having me guys. You’ve been listening to Brokerage Insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology today, our host was Nobu Hata and he was the, or is the CEO of the Denver Metro association of Realtors. Make sure to check out Nobu and everything he’s doing with DMR and make sure to subscribe to the brokerage insider podcast, wherever you download podcasts.

Thanks everybody for listening.

CEO | Director of Strategy
With more than 17 years experience in the real estate industry, including being a Realtor and Broker / Owner, Stegemann brings a wealth of knowledge to this job as CEO of TRIBUS. He focuses his time on helping brokers enhance and expand their business and working with the TRIBUS labs team to consider what's next in real estate.
Unlimit Your Brokerage - Get A Brochure Now