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The bitter cold snap that hit Manhattan this week could chill the fired real estate professionals at the New York Hilton Midtown, where superstars like Ryan Serhant came to speak on Inman Connect on Thursday. I couldn’t.
“It’s 6 degrees outside, but it’s 1,000 degrees in this room,” Serhant said. The Founder said as he rotated the crowd.
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Inman Jim Dalrymple II’s moderator and special projects editor was joined earlier that morning by Mauricio Umansky and Nexthome CEO James Dwiggins, who discussed the benefits and pitfalls of the National Association of Realtors’ clear cooperation policy. I said that there is. , has been controversial for the past few months.
Ryan Selhant | Credit: Selhant. studio
It was the responsibility issue revolving around CCP that Serhant said he was surprised the two CEOs did not discuss further.
“The reason we’re talking about it now is because it’s the next class action lawsuit,” Serhant said.
Serhant said it’s not hard to see why smaller brokerages generally have an advantage in policy (to access more listings). At the end of the day, “you need to be able to find the best buyer anywhere in the world.” That means listing a property publicly usually gets the seller the best deal.
He said he was “dependent” on the sellers in the very upscale market where Serhant usually operates himself. Many brokers in favor of abolishing CCPs often cite high-end sellers wanting more privacy as a reason why the policy should be abolished.
“I think the adage is true if you want to keep your home off the market, you’re not a real seller,” Selhant said.
“The exposure we have to listings, the ability to put homes in front of more buyers than anyone else, drives sales.”
Dalrymple said another topic that seemed to have come up in the CCP discussion between Umansky and Dwiggins was the idea that agents are fundamentally good or bad.
“’Meh,” Serhant said with a shrug. “There are good people and there are bad people. Honestly, my focus – I’m not a lobbyist. I’m not trying to put myself in a position that I don’t want to be in.”
With recent changes in the wake of the Commission’s lawsuit settlement, Serhant said he thought the industry was in a better position (as he had predicted) to be more transparent to consumers. It’s a thing.
“And bad actors will get pushed out or go to jail.”
The industry came out with more paperwork and disclosures, but Serhant said he thought it was better.
And if an individual was struggling to adapt to a new industry landscape, Selhant suggested that perhaps real estate isn’t for them.
Dalrymple wondered what kind of agents and companies would thrive in this new landscape?
Around 2017, when Selhant was shopping around for new brokerages, he identified two basic models before considering launching his own in 2020: low cost, A low support model and a high cost high support model (usually it produces superstar brokers).
He said he sees future success for companies that offer “all the choices” for agents, offering solid brands, support, technology and community.
Serhant said his brokerage is an option “in the middle” between “for the betterment of humanity” between low cost, low support and high cost, high support brokerage models.
Dalrymple said Cell Hunt seemed like an opposite low-cost and high-cost model that was similar to companies like Exp Realty and Compass, respectively. So how do other companies model something like Cell Hunt?
“You have to find a way to mess up [the] He said economics explained, but he meant analyzing a company’s cost structure, what agents are paying, and all hidden costs.
“So there are a lot of hidden fees in this business that I didn’t really like either,” he added. “I started trying to create things that were simple.”
When asked by Dalrymple if there was something he had seen while shopping at other companies, he wanted to implement it in Cell Hunt. The posh broker seemed to be trying to rack his brain for an answer, but couldn’t come up with one.
“I’m playing nice in the sandbox,” Serhant finally said. He added that he cares about real estate agents and relationships within the agent community “probably more than anything else on earth.”
“The models I interviewed for didn’t match the value proposition that I wanted to see for the next 20 years,” says Selhant, who envisions a future where agents operate in a “screenless” manner that increases productivity. He added that
“A year ago today, I was on stage by myself, and it’s terrifying,” Serhant told Dalrymple. As an agent, 80% of my time was doing task work. ”
That idea turned into S.mple, a brokerage workflow platform and large-scale action model (LAM) that can understand and execute human requests in real-time.
“For agents who are using it, I think there are some here, it has completely changed the behavior of what it means to buy or sell a home,” Serhant said. With the idea of going “screenless” in the future, Cellhunt says agents may end up working with a small number of support staff, which in turn are supported by products such as S.mple. It seems to suggest. .
But that future may still be about two years away, Serhant said, adding, “I don’t have a lot of time guys, I have to move.”
Finally, Selhant spread a message of love to all real estate professionals in the room and offered support to those who needed it.
“We’re all 1,000 percent every day on this,” he said.
Email Lillian Dickerson
