4 Key Industry Insights (6/14/2025)

Earlier this week, I was down in Colorado Springs at Housing Wire’s The Gathering - I heard a few things I believe are worth sharing. Here are my four key insights. 

Insight #1

I somehow ended up at a VIP breakfast with Steve Murray of Real Trends. I had never been in a room with Steve before, and I can tell you: this guy knows real estate. He has been involved in brokerage M&A for 48 years. 

The room was filled with a few nobodies like me, but mostly there were notable industry executives (I was sitting next to Erik Carlson - CEO of ReMax). At any rate, Steve said, “The economists have been telling you for the last 3 years that interest rates are coming down, and for 3 years they have been wrong.”

He continued, “When are all of you going to stop listening to them (the economists)?”

Then he got to his main point: the first time the US got to 4 million resales was 1979. Then we had a big crash/recession from 1980 to 1982. It took 16 years to get back to 4 million resales. We got to 6 million resales in 2005. I think everyone reading this is old enough to remember what happened from 2007 to 2010. We got back to 6 million units in 2021. If you’re doing the math, that’s 16 years in both cases.

Murray then said to the room (I’m paraphrasing): You better figure out how to be profitable at the current (national) sales level because it’s not changing any time soon.

Same for you!!!

Insight #2

I missed the session on the Rocket Mortgage-Redfin merger. However, in a session from the day before, some industry executives opined that there is a move to combine and compress fees in real estate transactions, and to take about $20k out of each transaction for themselves. 

Where do you think that is going to come from...?
(Hint: YOUR commission!)

Insight #3

Tamir Poleg, CEO of REAL, told a story about how they view AI and agent productivity. He said (again, paraphrasing) that they asked a group of agents to list out all the tasks they do with buyers and sellers. 

They took that list of about 250 items and concluded that they could replace 90% of those tasks with AI.

To which I thought, “AWESOME! No one likes doing those b.s. tasks anyway!” Most of you hate being at the computer doing “admin” stuff - or anything that doesn’t require you.

AI quite possibly could be the dream assistant we’ve all been wishing for.

That’s great news because then you are freed up to do the things you really get paid for: being a fiduciary/trusted advisor. 

By the way, this is bad news if you don’t know how to be a fiduciary/trusted advisor.

Many agents believe they get paid for their time - not true! You get paid for your results, and how those results get delivered.

Insight #4

Okay, last one. A panel was discussing Clear Cooperation - quite heatedly. By the way, I hate Clear Cooperation - I hated it the day it was passed, and still disagree with it wholeheartedly.

But this isn’t a debate on Clear Cooperation. The panel consisted of two real estate executives and one executive from Zillow. Which real estate executives? Mauricio Umansky from The Agency and Ginger Wilcox, President of Better Homes and Gardens. 

Ginger said to Mauricio that (paraphrasing), “I know off-market listings are important in the bubble of Los Angeles, but the rest of the country, especially in regular, mid-west America, sellers don’t understand it, and the listing agents can’t explain it clearly - it’s too confusing.”

Mauricio replied with, “Well, that’s a training/education problem for your agents. It’s on us as an industry to know all this and explain it effectively so sellers know their options and what’s best for them.”

Exactly. More or less.

No offense to Ginger - my point in sharing this is to highlight that in general, our industry needs to be better. For the last 10+ years, our industry has widely expanded with poorly trained and under-prepared agents who do not really know how to advise and counsel. 

Let me give you a different industry view.

The Friday before I went down to Colorado Springs, I was at a happy hour with my wife. It was a celebration of the current general surgery residents as they completed their residency. Four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, and now the end of their four-plus years of residency (BTW: residency varies by specialty - neurosurgeons could be up to NINE YEARS of residency and fellowship!).

These individuals undergo thorough testing and vetting before they are allowed to practice independently. (Yet, some make it through and are still not very good! I am not saying that rigorous training removes all bad actors...I can tell you more about more than one surgeon who has lost their operating privileges...)

Nevertheless, surgeons get a lot of training! Many real estate agents think they are more important than a surgeon, but don’t have any of the training or preparation! But what if we did?

As Steve Murray also recounted, a lot has changed over the last 50 years. The one thing that hasn’t changed: real estate agents still play a crucial role in the buying and selling of real estate.

On the other hand, in my opinion, the future of this industry will only be a place for professionals. The bar is going to get raised - dramatically.