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TRANSCRIPT:
Hi everyone. And welcome to another episode of brokerage insider. This is the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and real estate technology. My name is Britt Chester, and I’m the host of today’s episode. I’m also the director of client success here at Tribus. We’re one of the largest independent prop tech companies in real estate and provider of custom brokerage technology to small, medium, and large brokerages all over.
And today on the show, we’re going to be talking with red Oak Realty, CEO and owner, Vanessa Bergmark. But that’s a thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. That’s I’m really excited to jump right into this. I know you and I have worked a little bit together in the. Today, we actually get to kind of talk about where we are in the industry where red Oak is positioned in a lot of other exciting things.
I think the first thing I kind of want to talk about is Inman connect, where you and I also just kind of met in person for the first time. I love to hear kind of your thoughts on the conference and as we’re returning to conferences, kind of what that’s like. So if you wouldn’t mind let’s, let’s start with the panels you were on, what you talked about and kind of your thoughts around.
Well, I think it’s funny that we’ve worked with each other probably for about two years. And I spoke to you quite often in your former position and had never met with you in person. And I think that’s the great part about it. And then connect is the, the meeting people in real life, right? So we know them in the social and digital media world.
We’ve known them, you know, you were in Colorado and we were working on projects and PR together, but I never really met you in person. The relationship is it goes up a notch and the network goes up a notch when you actually have that human interaction. So that’s something that I’ve always gotten from connect.
I’ve been there going there for probably, oh God, I think it’s gotta be at least 12 years and at least 10 years of, of doing panels and, and, you know, being on stage and being in those conferences and, and, and engaging with the audience and coming up with content. So do I think it’s going to stay the same?
Well, interestingly enough, I thought the format I’ve been to a couple of conferences since. I guess the pandemics are technically over, but since we, you know, got out of lockdown and I think what’s interesting is they feel very much the same. You know, we’re wearing masks, we’ve got some social distancing and some weird plexiglass and things like that.
But on a whole, I don’t think the content has changed too much. And I don’t think. The, the values that you’re taking away from the conferences has really changed. So I have, I was actually surprised to see that it was very much the same as it had been pre pandemic. I think the bigger question is how will they change moving forward?
To me, the content at, at all of these events has been somewhat secondary to the relationships that are formed. You know, after the content has been shared and spread and, you know, th th the dinners or the grabbing drinks, or the meeting up in the hallway, all those things are really aware of the. Is built.
And I think that in my own career and within my own brokerage, I can say so many of my very strong relationships have come from the halls of those conferences in connecting. How do you think the content could change? One of the things, and one of the things I really had as a takeaway was we kind of have an opportunity to maybe explore new ground within the content.
And so you know, in the past, you know, everything has been focused on real estate and it’s been focused in marketing. And I think the keynote speakers are all. That’s sometimes Inman does a really good job of like pulling in these keynote speakers that are either residual or kind of ancillary to the industry, but can speak to real estate.
And so I wonder how we can start to integrate like new content ideas where you kind of bouncing around any ideas. Did anything kind of, what did you think about in, in how we can change that content? And I’m not just speaking just to him and I’m thinking just to, to events moving forward how we could change that and maybe how it can make it more engaging and make it a more exciting for attending.
Well, you know, I’ve always felt that the w there’s not a deep enough dive, so you can very, like, surfacely touch on some concepts, but then they never really get to go where it’s almost like an episode of Schitt’s Creek, right? Like you’ve got 20 minutes and then you’re like, ah, it’s over. And I feel like that a lot of times with these conference, they try to pack a lot in, so I think that they’re hitting.
All these paradigms of conversation and to attract more people to come, but they don’t, in my opinion, really, they don’t go deep enough. So I don’t feel like I’ve sometimes walk away with this like brand new idea or got involved in a really good debate. Kind of, you know, got that innovation spring and had those, had the thread of that content pull out into the night.
And I think I would love to see that moving forward. I also think those, you know, those big stages and these huge auditoriums there’s that personal connection is only. Is lacking as it is on zoom. And I would love to see content frankly, the way, you know, Matt Beall did it years ago. I don’t know if he ever went to Hawaii life’s conferences, but they were very intimate.
They were small, they were breakout groups and they went deeper and they brought outside concepts in that were not just real estate related, but they were infused into a real estate industry talk. So, you know, I don’t know if that’s concrete enough, but I think. I think going really, really deep, doing more workshops at conferences would be something that I think people would really get more out of.
And then folks that are there getting and sharing would, would get more giving out. But again, I’ve never ran a conference and I don’t know how, how that all works to make that happen. So there might be something in the P and L that makes that super inefficient and some logistics there. I remember a few years ago at Inman, they had this data scientists, scientists, a guy named Ben Wellington, and he ran a blog called I quantum New York.
And I remember him talking about open data in New York and the ability to download these troves of data sets that were, you know, from. The cost that parking meters make for a city to where it’s like illegal to park in front of garage is like all this random datasets. And it had nothing to do with real estate, but he did this presentation on, you know, what it does, Starbucks and the proximity to a Starbucks.
Affect real estate value. And like I just thought that was this really abstract idea. And I thought that was one of the more valuable takeaways I’ve ever had from an intimate event, because it was so outside of the box, it had nothing to do with median sale price or list price or, or marketing. It was really just about taking data that is seemingly unrelated to real estate and applying it to that.
And I thought that was a really creative way to connect two seemingly in connectable ideas. And see that’s I, that right there is a perfect example of taking that and not making it a 20 minute talk, but then having a breakout session or then taking those, just taking that person and then maybe the next.
You know, the next panelist or the next person that’s speaking, put them with that and put these people on debating with each other and just pulling away threads of ideas that you can bring back to your own, your own networks or your own brokerage or your own teams is, is kinda huge. So I would love to see it get I would love to see these become more intimate, even if the price was high.
Then having more people, a lower price and less takeaways, I’d rather be deeper, you know, way deeper dive, probably more expensive and a lot more intimate. And I think you’ll take, take, take more from it. In my opinion, it could also just be the stage I’m at in my career where you’re like, you know, you want, you want that golden nugget.
Yeah, I mean, and you want to be wild and, and I think, you know, I don’t know, you know, I’m not going to speak for everybody. I certainly can’t. But I would say like, you know, coming back to conferences now and coming back to events, there is that sense of excitement where it’s like, I’m so happy to be seeing people.
I’m seeing some people that I’ve never met in person. I’m seeing people that I’ve only talked to on zoom. I’ve seen people that haven’t seen in a couple of years, and that is a lot like that is, you know, You know, almost an overstimulation of, of human contact that I’ve been yearning for. But now I also want it from those sessions as well.
Like I want the, the knowledge, I want the information that’s not being shared with me via video. And that. Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that connect does do that I’ve never seen at any conference nail at the way they do is really build that community. I mean, they have one, it feels like summer camp every, every summer, when you go back every, you know you know, January in New York, it feels like you are reconnecting.
With, you know, some of the industry’s best. So I think there’s a real opportunity because the people in the players are there. It’s just, how do you weave out that really, really, really there’s really good stories that changes the way the industry works when they go home from those events. If you were going to give anyone a tip, right.
Going to a conference and we’ll, we’re using him in as an example, but I think it’s kind of any conference right now, or any event, what would be your, your kind of tips and insights as to how to build those relationships, how to even start those conversations with people that perhaps you’ve never even met before, or you’ve only read about them?
Cause I think there might be even a little bit of an intimidation factor in, you know, That person is constantly being interviewed or, you know, they’re in the press. I follow them on LinkedIn. I mean, how do you even just create that conversation? Is it a matter of walking up and saying, hi, should you, should you reach out beforehand and try and touch base?
What would you kind of advise, you know, kind of newbies to. Yeah. I mean, I guess I would, I would S you know, research and if you’re, if you’re reading and following things and you, and you’d like what that person has to say. Yeah. I think if you know, they’re going to be at that conference, it really behooves you to reach out and try to make some time to see them, or to spend any amount of time with that person, if they’re speaking there.
And I think, you know, in the past, if that’s ever happened where someone said, Hey, Kevin, can I meet up with you? The best thing to say is. Y you want to meet up with them something specific because otherwise it’s just a, Hey, do you want to grab coffee? And I don’t, I don’t necessarily know if that’s going to propel a person that may be getting several invitations or is on a tight schedule or is going there for their own connections and their own, you know, meetups to To take you up on that coffee or that glass of wine.
So it’s really like, here’s, here’s what I’ve been doing. Here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve been reading your stuff, referenced that stuff, and then here’s why I would like to talk with you. And then you give that person that kind of the benefit of the doubt if they’re not up for it, but you have a much better chance of converting them.
If you give them a specific, like I’d like to meet with you, because this is what I like to take away from a meeting with you. And a lot of people want, we know they want to be able to provide. Resources, these people that are getting up on stage or an up there, just because they don’t have anything to say or give, they, they’re usually people that want to give back and.
And get a lot from sharing information and sharing what they’ve learned with others, and then seeing others take their, take those ideas and innovate with them. So most people would be open to it, but I think this being as specific as possible for those meetups, and then of course, trying to grab them and book it ahead of time, as opposed to grabbing their arm and saying, are you free right now?
Because 9, 9, 7 of those folks are booked up solid when they go to these conferences. Yeah. And I think they got there also. You know, they were networking. They were once the person at the event trying to meet people and then they kind of worked their way up and now everyone wants to meet them. So w whereas I would love to sit here and talk about the conferences all day, too, though.
I want to kind of bring it back to red out. And one of the things, you know, I think I just read that press release. We were kind of talking about it before. Talking about this in-house video production, and I’m a little bit familiar with this with Mika Dustin’s work. But talk to me a little bit about how red Oak and maybe this was an insight you got from a conference years ago.
Like, you know, maybe it was an idea that you had gotten, but talk to me about this in-house video production and how red Oaks really kind of like changing media and marketing materials, both for the agents and the consumers. Yeah, we, well, first of all, say I give all my video influence to my friend, Raj Casar with the boutique down in Southern California.
He was getting on me for video probably 10 years before I started doing video. So he was. So far ahead of his time, when he’s talking about video, it’s like, what do you mean this internet thing? So he got to do video and he hired these huge production teams. I brought in Mika, who I’d known for years.
We’d worked together about 22 years ago. And I brought him in, he had done beautiful work. He was an incredible cinematographer. It wasn’t like your typical. Real estate video, you know, kind of grown and just kind of going in. And he, what he was, was a storyteller and he infused story into everything he did.
And, and when we brought him on, we were, we brought him on for several reasons. But part of it was because of his ability to tell a story through the lens of his camera. And and it was, you know, it was, I think it was a risky thing for a real estate company to be like, yeah, we’re going to bring it.
Frankly, not a videographer, but like almost like a cinematographer director into our staff. You know, it’s super artsy and, and really like a totally different approach. We lucked out because I hired him literally. Six weeks before we got locked up in the pandemic role, totally pivoted into, we got him, you know, once we became essential, he was able to get into the homes and create these stories for the listings that we couldn’t really get people in without it being super complex.
We won’t go into that. Everyone knows how difficult it was. Those first six months, I was able to just go out there and shoot stories of all of our listings. And we were a brokerage that really spun on its heels. And we just made that available for, for everything to our agents. And at that time we did it all free of charge.
It was just like, get our product out, get our consumers, get our sellers. Homes in front of buyers. And and then we got really good at it. You know, we just, we had a lot of fun with it. It was, it was, it was at a time where everything was so forgiving that we were able to take risks that probably wouldn’t have taken, have we not been smack in the middle of the pandemic, but we were like, whatever, what are we going to lose?
We’re going to be dead next week. Go big on the video. So yeah, we just had. He came in and did that. And now it’s evolved into, you know, how do we share the brand with, you know, potential recruits? How do we share the brand with other businesses? How do we share the brand with consumers? How do we, how do we introduce our agents?
Not just our listings to consumers and it just, you know, we have a, I mean, the guy. Booked solid. He also does a lot of us, like for culture. We have our company kickoff and every year he does a really incredible company culture video. That’s always a surprise. We just came up with the concept the other night and and we we’ll share that here.
I’m not sharing it. Won’t look an idea, but but you know, he’s, he’s just super creative and there’s things that he can do. Like, it’s kind of like having Quentin Tarantino on your staff and I he’s just he’s. And he comes up with great ideas and and he was like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. And then he pushes himself and he comes out with this great product.
But what’s interesting about even what he does is for our kickoff is it really kind of brings the tribe of right out together. It reminded infuses humor in infusing. Legacy stories and futuristic stories and brings all the characters and individuality of our agents out. And I kind of reminds you of like, why you, why you’re with this team and why you, what your values are as a company and it’s, and it’s so not corporate because honestly, I think we’d all get fired if this company, so we have a lot of fun with it.
That’s a, that’s a fun thing about directing him as the CEO and owner. I don’t have anyone to report up to about violations in our videos, but it’s been a great thing. I mean, what I would say in all seriousness is video is you got to think way bigger than just listings. Video is our agent. It’s it’s our staff team.
It’s our, it’s our listings. It’s our buyers. It’s teaching people. What goes on behind the deal it’s culture. I mean, the great part is now two years into it. We are infusing it into almost every single one of our platforms. We train with it. We do our new agent training through it. We’re actually rolling out our next office and we are building out a whole high-tech green room just to get more.
In-depth. You touched on something interesting there. And you just kind of, I don’t know if you breezed over it, but you said like recruiting and using it as part of that, maybe recruiting model. So that kind of brings me to a question of like, how has that, I mean, how has the brokerage kind of shifted?
Cause that’s you have video baked into it now, correct. Like video. I mean, that is something that is not like you’re, that’s not a suggestion to agents. That’s something that says when your listings you should use, use, use our in-house guy use Mika because. Just as much a part of this transaction now, as you know, someone 10 years ago was saying like, you have to use your phone or, you know, shoot your own photos.
So how has that, I mean, how has that brokerage model, or I guess, how has your business kind of changing and adapting, you know, after last year, like you said, you spun on your heels. You were, you were very agile, your, your ability to be nimble I think is very helpful. So how has that kind of like changing this business?
Well, I also had a little bit of luck. I mean, the fact that I’d hired him right before was just serendipitous. I think what it is is you have to be willing to challenge yourself and your agents and your team to try something totally different. Especially one, like video was very uncomfortable for a lot of people.
They were like, I am not getting on film. I’m just not doing it. So what we were able to do then is just do voiceovers or snips, but everyone started getting. Way more involved in it. And it was, we figured out what is your comfort level? And let’s take it from there. You don’t have to be like the talking head on it, but what, and then there was other ones I found out that they were.
You know, they they’re basically like, I feel like I want to be an actress now. So there’s some really, but I think it’s really important, you know, I I’m still, our offices are still not totally open. I’m still not reading with recruits. One-on-one right. I’m usually doing it on zoom. I’d like to give people a look into who we are that used to be more obvious when we were out on tour and you could walk past the office and you become into drop off or.
We were more present. Now we’re in this kind of the still limbo world of digital. So it’s like, okay, if this is where we’re going to be, and this is the paradigm we’re kind of stuck in right now, how can we infuse who we are deliberately through the use of video? And that’s what we’ve, that’s what we’re starting to harness.
Right? And we’ve forgotten a lot more comfortable with it. I mean, I, I was awful to be like, I’m not going on. I mean, you should see, we did like a bloopers video with my talk about the pandemic and the outtakes of me trying to talk about, like, it was just ridiculous. Right. But it was that, that was part of last year.
It’s like our, our company culture video. That we did for kickoff as all of our bloopers. And it was hilarious. But now we’ve gone, we’ve come a long way. We’ve gotten more comfortable with it and we’re looking at it now as like, I’m not forced to do this, but it’s really useful. And we can get these messaging across, you know, all across Instagram, Instagram reels, Facebook training videos on our backend platforms, through our websites.
It’s just, it’s so evolved. Once we started playing with it, you can use it in every facet of the business and that’s, what’s so exciting. Yeah. How do you drive that adoption to like, down to all the agents? I mean, is that something that you have that’s in your culture where it’s like, if, and, and kind of from your leadership, like, are you able to say you know, we’re going to start, we’re going to start driving video.
This is Mika and he is a director and he is great. I mean, how do you drive that adoption and really say, you know, this is, this is how we’re shifting. And then get kind of get everybody on board with that, because I think. I myself am stubborn. And you know, we don’t like change. So I’m just wondering, like, how would you drive that?
I guess what was driving? You know, adoption for your agents with that? Well, you know, one thing that we did do is first of all, I am never going to tell my agents that they have to do something I’m far too smart to push them. I always say the pirates and they are going to do what they’d like to do. And if they’re not comfortable in there in any sort of platform, I don’t want them to be in there.
So what we did was find the ones that were comfortable. And then we did these, like I said, some that were uncomfortable. We did voiceovers. We, they went onto these blankets and they were talking. And we have outtakes of that as well, but, and then I of course started doing it and I’m, you know, I can talk, I can get on stage.
I don’t like being in front of a camera. I get really awkward. It’s shiny then kind of putting powder on me. And I was like, you know, and I would show them. I was like, you guys, I’m doing it too. It’s really uncomfortable. But I did a lot of like Instagram lives all through last year and I just started getting more and more comfortable.
And then, then they started seeing the successes with it with other agents. So they were like, all right, I’ll give it a shot. So it was less about, this is what we’re going to do. And it was like, Hey guys, we’re going to try this out. Those of you that are interested and there were some that just leapt on it and were awesome.
And and then over time, those that want to do it, get on those that don’t want to do it, have found ways to still use video in a way that they’re comfortable in. Grown and grown and grown, and now it’s become, okay, how do we, how do we like the green screen room? How do we actually really start integrating this into all day long every day?
Where can we take it? And how do we make the resources more readily available to the agents so that whenever they want to tap in, they can, so it was, no, it was not done by force. It was more like, Hey, try this out. And then people are like, what’s going on over there? Hey, who was in that video? And we did some fun culture videos and people like, I want to be in the next one.
So. I just kind of came in on another road and I’m sure it’s helpful. Having someone like Nico onboard, who is like able to think creatively and also kind of adapt video for the, for the agent and say, all right, if you’re not comfortable on video, then let’s try this instead. And being able to have a creative like that on staff, I think.
Incredibly valuable just because they’re able to, you know, they, they understand they work with talent of all levels. You know I don’t know, you know, make us full, full professional, creative resume. But I’m assuming he’s worked with talent from experts to beginners. And, and then I think with when it comes to real estate agents, it’s, you know, He dealt with like true actors.
So when the agents rolled up, he was like, these guys are cake, right. So he was, he’s really good at working with. But you know, he’s also very artistic. He’s not your typical camera man that goes in for a video shoot people, sit there and drive them through an eight hour day for a listing. But when you see some of these and we could maybe give some links later on if you wanted, but there’s some really great, funny.
Awesome videos that, that also came from that creative infusion. Cause some of the agents, like I’ve got the story, I just don’t know how to tell it. And he was really good at that. So finding if you’re going to bring it in house, finding that person that has that skill set and that vision is, I think probably critical if you’re going to grow it into something like we’ve recorded.
Yeah. And I think that’s also, you know, kind of just jumping back to what we were talking about at events. It’s like, that’s thinking outside the box, that’s thinking like, not just with real estate mind, that’s thinking like, okay, there’s someone out there who is great at storytelling and let’s see if they can apply that.
Or, you know, look through, look through real estate. And with that same. Totally. And so, all right. So jumping back a little bit, you had also talked about how not all of your offices are open, but you there’s some recent news in the past couple months about your offices. What what is this exciting news that that’s about your offices and some certifications that they’ve they’ve recently received in Kelly’s.
Well, we’ve been green certified for a while as a company. We, I think we started doing that in about 2010, but we just renewed and re-upped all of our offices because after an acquisition, some of our offices were not green, so we couldn’t be a green certified company. Now, every one of our offices is green certified, and then we just started doing carbon offsets.
So we’re, you know, basically by. Basically spending money every time we, we, based on the, the square footage and that, and the space of our offices and, and how we function as a company and then contributing them to a carbon offset. So and that was something that our, our COO Amun Darrow who did our green certification said like, look, let’s bring it up.
Level and start doing this on a regular basis. And so, you know, it costs a few bucks to do it, but it is really more of a socially conscious way to say, okay, look, how are we going to get involved? And this is just the first step of it, because, you know, we’re obviously very involved with the community, through our, for red Oak opportunity foundation group where we give back.
But this was something a little bit different in saying, okay, How do we get involved in climate change specifically? And what are some of the very simple things we can do? So we did it as an office and now we actually have the ability for our agents to purchase as closing gifts, carbon offsets for their clients.
So it’s kind of, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s more of its infancy stage, but it’s something that we’re now adding to, you know, the way we practice real estate and ultimately hoping to infuse and attract. You know, when we’re recruiting or we’re bringing in clients, people that are conscious of that as well. You know, as sort of like a match value.
So again, we just, we just probably just read that because it just announced it. I think it was the summer. I don’t know, this year is moving so strangely, I can’t believe it’s almost over fucking like 20, 20 and 2020. One’s almost over. But yeah, it was this past summer that we did that and. As we change our offices and we go through remodels and we revamped them for like, what is the way of the future post pandemic, which is a whole other conversation, is how do we infuse some of these things as we’re making these changes, because it’s so much easier to do the changes altogether, right?
Infuse these new ideas while you’re, while you’re taking away something. Yeah. And you had, you had mentioned the red Oak opportunity foundation. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, w we won’t go too deep into that. I know that y’all have done some pretty amazing things in the community, but just kind of give us a little bit of an insight into what, what roof is and what y’all have been able to do with them.
Yeah. So roof roof is the rental opportunity foundation. It was created by one of the founding fathers of red Oak Bob Blumberg probably about almost probably 40 years now ago where w you know, agents were, you know, trying. Give back to certain organizations and everyone was doing it independently.
And he basically said like, no, let’s do this as an organization. So turned it into a legitimate nonprofit. And every agent takes a portion of their transaction, whether it’s a flat fee base or a percentage, and the whole company then collects that. And each year we get together as a group and look at organizations that are in our local community that are in need of those funds.
So last year we did a lot with them, the unhoused with a company called lava Mae. We, we moved really quickly and something I was really proud of was when the schools were opening it back up again or, sorry, not opening back up. And they were going into the following year and they had no supplies for many of our local schools within the Oakland unified and Berkeley unified districts.
They had no wifi and I know hotspots. And so there were these kids. That we’re not getting any schooling because they didn’t have access to it. So we were able to raise close to $50,000. I think it was probably within 72 hours as a community and, and brought it to T-Mobile bought the hot-spots and basically got them distributed.
And the schools were just blown away that we just mobilized so quickly. But I think that’s the thing about when you talk about, you know, community and culture, You see what a culture is truly like in times of chaos and, and, and, you know, the pandemic was one of them, but times of need of just how quickly it can mobilize because the values and the relationships are there.
So that got off the ground very quickly. We were able to get this into kids’ houses and it just helped. Great. And it felt great that we were like, was. Red tape around it, that the schools are trying to figure it out. I’m like, I will, you know, we will get the funds to you. We will go to T-Mobile, we will get this in people’s hands.
Let us, let us do this. We’re in sales, we got this. And and then this year we gave to some, you know fire funding you know we gave God, I don’t have the names off the top of my head, but like yes, organization, which, you know, takes kids out of urban city and out of Richmond in particular and brings them up into the.
You know, Barry regional parks. So we’re really involved in, in those things. And it’s been a great organization. Everyone gets involved, our clients get involved, the local industry gets involved or vendors get involved and it’s, you know, it’s. Core value of the company. So it’s really exciting. And every year we have a lot of fun.
The next six weeks we’ll have the the managers and executive directors of each of these nonprofits. Tell us what they’re doing specifically with the, with the funds we gave them. And they usually somewhere between maybe 10,000 to $40,000 that is going and, you know, sometimes giving a whole new position or adding a whole new program to an existing nonprofit.
So it’s, it’s really fulfilling work and. You know, gives us a little bit of a moment to take a deep breath from the sales and the, and the competition and that, you know, the competitive nature of bay area real estate and get into like the core. Issues within our community and I’m sure we’ll see a I’m sure Mika will do something wonderful with video on that.
And I look forward to that. That’s take a step back a little bit now and talk let’s talk about the state of real estate. You know, I think there’s a lot of changed. Th there’s a million directions this could go in, but I would just kind of love to hear, because we’re coming right up on time.
Your insights into where we’re at right now. You know, we don’t have to dive too deep, but just kind of curious to know, what does you know, how are you viewing the market right now? How are you doing these, these market shifts and, and really what are you paying attention to and what are your agents paying attention?
Well, I think again, community and culture is always gonna matter. So I think the role of the brokerage, although it’s shifting and there’s different models coming in, who you work with, where you live, who you surround yourself with is still going to matter. So I don’t think that that trend as much as we say, like, it’s going digital, it’s going to the cloud.
It’s going to, it doesn’t matter. A broker doesn’t matter or space doesn’t matter. I still believe I’m sorry, but I, I still see it mattering. I still see it mattering as long as we are human. Now we’ll late. Mattering as much. Well, we need these massive office spaces. I, you know, obviously there’s going to be a huge shift and we’ve been saying this for years now, but I was a huge shift away from that big footprint of space and bringing all of the staff and agents and everyone into several locations, all across, you know, different towns and cities.
I think that’s going to become less and less and less, less. really do, because people are finding out that they work well. They miss being in the office, but they, they could live without being in the office all day. So that hybrid model is probably going to really be. What matters moving forward. And I think then because of that, how we use office space, how we use design space is totally going to change as well.
How we integrate in an office is not going to look the way we did before. If people go in, they’re not going to go in to sit in their little cube. So that is learned to probably change. It, the way we’re using our houses is changing, right? I mean, so there’s these added components that, that we now is a, is a serious concern.
With how we live. I think that we’ll see the same thing at the office as far as you know, I do think, you know, I buyers as much as people might say it was Zillow’s out of that race and, and, you know, w we don’t have to worry about this anymore. I do think that there’s a shift in what consumers want and the ease in which they want something and the convenience in which they’ll pay for it.
And I think when we talk about IVR, as we talk about. You know, convenience, it’s a huge factor in a very busy world that people might take less to get more time back. So that model that, you know, it shows up in Uber and Amazon shows up. I know we’re starting to just say, yeah, I’ll pay a little bit more because I don’t want to get my car and drive somewhere, or I don’t want to make dinner or like all of those things that, that, that, that.
For ease is coming to fruition. And I think that will happen with high buyers. I also think that, you know, I think not necessarily one stop shops, but I do believe that the consumer is going to be more demanding of the real estate agent providing more than just. You know, contracts and negotiations are, we’ve seen it this year.
Early this year, we put out a a prop, a prepping product called enhanced, where we partnered with a woman led a woman owned construction company for prepping homes. And now we’ve realized like this is such an important part. It’s been an important part, but it’s now it’s an absolutely necessary offering to prep a house and bring it to design standard before you take it to market.
So all these layers are coming on. And I think that brokerages are going to have to be able to offer a bigger suite of services than we’ve ever really thought that we needed to in the past. Marketing legal banking, you know, we’re starting to now really pay attention to like, how do you buy with cryptocurrency, like shifting.
So and I think that’s what makes it exciting. I mean, for me as an owner, it’s okay. How do we, how do we tap into these resources? Create these resources, create a network and which we can provide this for the consumer so that we have that consumer, you know, for me, Do you think that’s a demand of the consumer base?
I mean, do you think that’s where it’s coming from? Like the, the kind of concierge service, right? Like if I’m going to see a home, I expect it to be not the home that this person might’ve been living in for the past 10 years. I want a designer to come in to curate it and make it for me. I want the video to speak directly to me.
I mean, I’m wondering like, is it, it’s almost like a chicken or the egg situation, a scenario here where it’s like, Are we, are we pushing that because that cause we can, or is that the expectation? Like, I mean, just like you said, I’m used to Uber, so I’m used to saying, you know, I know that if I go out, I can leave my car somewhere and catch an Uber home safely.
And the cost of that is $14 versus driving my car and risking, you know you know, driving unsafely. And so I just wonder like who who’s driving that demand or are we all just kind of driving it and just lifting everything up at the exact same time? Well, I think that, I think that people are putting.
All the time. And so many of those ideas fail, we just, we’re not talking about them. So there’s plenty of people. There’s plenty of companies. There’s plenty of consumers that are putting things out and those needs are not being met. And those companies are not fulfilling those needs, but the one. That like, you know, when it comes down to prepping a house, I mean, I think agents are the ones that started like, Hey, clean your stuff up and it’ll do a little bit better.
And then we started tracking that and Hey, maybe you want to consider staging because it’s doing a bit, a little bit better than better. And now all of a sudden it’s like, Hey, you may want to consider a kitchen remodel and a hot tub and a fire pit better than, better than better. So I think we’re, we are creating that, but now it’s getting to the tipping point where.
Consumers are it’s. It’s no longer they, they get it. And now they’re demanding. Now they’re demanding it across the board. So now what’s next. Again, video was something I don’t think that they were saying, oh, you must see a video. Moved away and put into that paradigm of not being able to see things in real life video went very far and then that shift took and grabbed God’s anchors in and now it’s not going away.
So that curve is very steep and fast. Yep. No, I don’t think one of the things I do want to say is like, there’s a lot of talk about mortgage and title and all of that. All having to come from the same place. I can understand that. Ancillary revenue, brokerage perspective, but I don’t necessarily know if the consumer is like, oh, you need to also provide that.
I don’t think the consumer is demanding. I think the brokers trying to figure out a margin there, and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but I’m thinking that the consumer is demanding more of the experience. I think that they’re saying, Hey, once I move into my house, I’d also like, You know, to provide me with a suite of services and legal, let me know when my roof is failing and really stay in touch with me on a, on a bigger way when it comes to the house, as opposed to insurance and other ancillary life products.
I don’t know. I could be wrong about that, but there’s so much talk about it and I’m not, I’m not necessarily, I don’t have any consumers that come up to us and say, why aren’t you providing me a loan for this directly, from.
Yeah, I’ve just tried to think of a lot of my friends bought houses last year, and I don’t think any of them at any point said, and I just wish my realtor also provided my loan services. And then they gave me my title insurance people are like, did I get title insurance? Like, and these are necessary things, but I think they’re fine to go to third party.
I do think they’d be awesome if we could use them right under the brokerage, because then there’s not as many people in there, but I don’t think it’s going to change the face of real estate. If you umbrella all of that. I think more of the marketing services, the prepping, the and then the aftercare, really, I think it’s a big, a big opportunity on the backend is how do you help these people once they move in and you take out all that great staging, say, how do you get your real life stuff on here?
And have it look even half as good when you wrote your offer. Right? And even then they’re like, oh God, our stuff looks like hell in here. So we’re just paying, you know, 22% over. Cause we fell in love with it. You know, how do we, how do we bring those services? And so I think we’ll see more. Awesome. Well, Vanessa we’re right at time.
One thing we do like to ask all of our guests is you know, thinking back if there’s one thing that you can look back on you know, within real estate and I’m sure, you know, there’s a lot you have a pretty long and storied career, but if there’s one thing that you can look back on and perhaps change you know, I know I’m kind of putting you on the spot.
There’s one thing that you could change, whether that’s right now, or even just going back in history and just changing one little thing, what would that be? Oh, that’s put me on the spot. What would I do? You know, we are, we say. And this may not be the answer you’re looking for, but I think of this often right after the 2008 crash, and we always say at the top of the market real estate, no, it’s never going to go any further.
And I had been in it now for going on 20 years and we have our dips and we have, but I am still going to say to the world, invest in real estate, invest, invest in buying your first home. It just doesn’t. It not in history, hasn’t really gone down so detrimentally that you could have spent that money better on something else.
So every time when people were like, is that the peak it’s at the peak, it’s not going to get any higher. I wish I bought more real estate, whatever we were saying that when I thought this same exact thing, and then I would say, I wish people, you know, I hold the real estate. Cause you think it’s peaked in these other markets and it’s never going to go up and it continuously, continuously outperforms.
So. Anyway, you know, that would be the recommendation is like if I had gone back in time, I would have bought so many more properties myself and I would stop this whole thing of now might not be a good time to buy because in most cases it always is. Vanessa. I think that is incredibly Sage advice and I hope our listeners, if you’re not already investing, then go ahead and do that.
📍 So you have been listening to brokerage insider today. We were joined by Vanessa birchbark CEO and owner of red Oak Realty. Vanessa, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Brett. Nice catching up. Nice catching up with you. Be sure to subscribe to brokerage insider, wherever you get your podcasts and look for a new episode every single Monday.
