‘Unfiltered’: Who will win real estate’s ‘Cold War’? 

Editor's note: The Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast explores the people and forces that shape the real estate industry. Check out our top takeaways and this episode from NextHome co-CEOs James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the Real Estate Insiders podcast belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.

On this episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, entrepreneur and real estate coach Jared James discusses what agents need to do to stay relevant (without relying on NAR), and he predicts the industry's next battle — one that could leave some brokerages and agents out in the cold.

The emerging trend of end-to-end transaction tools that support homebuyers and sellers won't go away anytime soon — and agents will need to embrace it if they want to stay in the game, James said.

"Competition eliminates you or makes you better," he said. "If you're burying your head in the sand right now, then you'll be eliminated. It's that simple."

A glimpse of real estate's future: Rocket's March announcement that it is acquiring Redfin is an example of what James dubbed the "app store-ification of the industry" that is driven by an "economy of convenience."

If companies can build end-to-end platforms that consumers find easy to use, "people won't stop using their agent because they don't love their agent — they'll stop using their agent because they don't even think to use their agent," he warned.

A war is coming: James believes this will lead to the industry's next major battle. "We are about to see the Cold War in our industry," he predicted. Brands and brokerages "are going to now start launching tools that are going to be end-to-end that'll be like their own little app stores."

From there, it'll be a race to bring consumers in. "That's why I called it a Cold War: Whoever can get the consumer to adopt and get into your 'app store' … are the ones who are going to win."

Understanding agent value: While technology may determine the winners and losers among brokerages, agents are trying to stay relevant too. James believes the industry has "not done a good enough job communicating" to consumers one vital part of the equation: agent value.

"When you hire an agent, you're not just hiring that agent and giving them a percentage," he explained. "One of the things that you're getting is their distribution model, the software they use, the people they use."

For example, consider for-sale-by-owner listings. "You can't hold a garage sale and be mad that your hammer is not getting what Home Depot's is getting," he said. "When you do a garage sale, you get garage sale distribution, which means you get garage sale pricing."

So how can agents survive? First, they need to own their value proposition and "stop waiting for NAR to solve your narrative problems," James said. Second, every agent "should be putting out content on a regular basis" to communicate their stance on major industry issues.

"When we're too afraid of how we look and sound on camera to actually speak for ourselves and tackle the issues, somebody else does it who has no idea what they're talking about," he said. "Then they create the narrative that our consumers believe, and now we're overcoming objections that should never have been objections."